Chapter 1
Meet Cute
Our story starts by the sea, the weight of the waves floating beneath me.
When I was born, somewhere amidst the evergreen white sand beach haven of Jakarta, life was simple.
It was worn-out ballet slippers and late afternoon recitals.
Bickering with my brothers over the television remote and other trivial matters.
Nothing was ever serious with them, perhaps I much preferred it that way.
It was scratchy church dresses in the early mornings, boots in muddy puddles during thunderstorm-ridden Januarys, warm bowls of custard and groundnut porridges.
My mother, Pat, braided my tangled curls on the porch as my brothers played ball with our father, Jurie.
It was everything to me, yet looking back almost nothing at all.
My name is Yesoh Yeo and I am the second of my name, my grandmother was the very first. My entire life down to my name was handed down to me, passed on, never cultivated by my own accord.
I was not my mother’s first baby, but her second.
Her first would be my older brother, Cahya, and we are three years apart—perhaps in months but never ever at heart.
I was her second baby, her second chance, her do-over child that she could mould into her own image.
My entire life I have been liquid smooth, I am rushing water, I move wherever the wind takes me, down mountainous terrain, Oakland paths, and fold into myself amidst ferocious waves.
I take the shape of any glass I am poured into, yet remain half empty, half full.
I am porcelain clay, I will bend to your will, I am not inflexible and certainly never stubborn.
I am whoever and whatever you desire me to be.
I am a ballerina; no one has ever had to remind me to stay on my toes, I have perfect posture but not perfect feet, perfect timing but cool-toned skin from staying indoors.
I have flawless flexibility, but bend me too far and I might snap.
No, that doesn’t sound quite right. Ballerinas aren’t supposed to break in two, burst at the seams, and lose their balance.
Forgive me, I’ll do better from now on. Just as I once promised my parents, I will now give my oath to you.
I am Yesoh Yeo, I am almond skin, that of my mother and hers before that, I am tawny undertones like that of the sands by Lake Tanganyika where my mother once frolicked.
I am hazel eyes, like my father’s that glittered under the Jakartan sun when he met my mother here in her second year of university.
I am that which lies between two worlds, a bridge in which every stone path is firm; it is steady, it is loved, it does not crumble despite the flimsy rope and cracking foundation.
Or at least it was never supposed to. I am Zambia and I am Indonesia, I am red and white sand beaches but also copper orange, and eagles of freedom.
I am Nasi Goreng (fried rice) and nshima, I am salt oceans but also muddy waters and southern suns.
I grew up in Jakarta and I was the happiest little girl; untamed curls, dance studios, and itchy tights.
My family and I would have picnics, and I would pick seashells along the beach for my little brother, Soleh—he is four years younger than I, but sometimes he feels a far wiser than I despite being so young.
My sibling’s hair is a few shades lighter than mine and they look more like Pat—they are her boys through and through.
I am nothing in this world if not my father’s daughter; I am routine, early mornings, black coffee, passiveness, cunning, and never ever naive.
If it had been up to me, we would’ve lived in Indonesia forever, it was my favorite place on earth, my haven.
But unfortunately, my father got a job on the East Coast, and my brother got into Juilliard as a piano major—Cahya had worked exceptionally hard for it and it didn’t come as a surprise to many.
I am a Yeo, we are excellence, we are determination, and we never falter.
We have a saying—Don’t wish for it, work for it—that we often live by.
We learned very early on that this world does not exist as a wish-granting factory, and people like us don’t often get to rely on shooting stars. We become the stars. We burn inside and rise above.
One cannot simply wish upon a star and have the universe collapse at their feet. If that were the case, I never would’ve turned my back on every four-leaf clover, every dandelion breeze, every eleven eleven on the clock. I became my own anchor, my own compass.
New York was new, New York was different.
There were no Sunday markets with fresh fruit baskets to the brim, there was no fried rice at my aunty’s diner, no long school skirts and playing cards with friends after school hours, no crashing waves in the distance and dewy sunshine.
But most of all, there was no Mom. No one to remind me to tie my shoelaces, no one to make me porridge in the mornings, no one to binge-watch Thai dramas with till sunrise on weekends, no one to braid my curly hair and make beaded bracelets with.
There could be mountains, oceans, and borders between us but nothing of this earth and her land could take my Pat away from me.
She had work, she was busy—-worked long hours and had never-ending clients at her law firm. And yet still, she called every night. She did her best to make things right.
I lived a life beside the boys, and the boys gave me the best that they could.
I was their Yesoh, their only sister, and they were nothing if not good.
Always good, unwaveringly so. Cahya was integrity, light-hearted humour, and charisma—he is the kind of person people simply just loved to be around, the kind of shoulder you’d want to lean on.
He is composure, gentle keys, and perfect pitch.
But he is also late tireless nights, growing pains, and broken melodies.
Soleh is his complete opposite, he is nothing if not the youngest of us siblings.
He is emotionally intelligent, he cries when he’s happy, cries when he’s sad, he is loyalty, he will wait for you to tie your laces and never walk ahead, he will watch John Hugh’s films with you when you have a cold and bring you tea…
He doesn’t really know how but he will try, he always does.
He will never break a promise, never break his word, he will treat you like porcelain in his hands and never ever break you.
My brothers love me, I know that they do.
They walk me to recitals like clockwork every day, they pack me lunches and never miss a performance.
Cahya used to tuck me into bed as a kid, he still makes dinner every night, and he does his best to fill the gaping void left in the house that our mother left.
We all do our best, Jurie is proud, and we like to believe that Pat is too, no matter how far away.
She visits sometimes, she brings gifts and cooks Zambian foods, She teaches us how to live and we never seem to learn. Not entirely.
High school went by rather quickly, it was a series of endless assignments and working hard so I could be like Cahya, so I could get into Julliard too, and I did just that.
I am a Yeo, I make things happen for myself and stay on my toes.
I never had friends, my brothers were my only companions for a long time, but then I met my best friend Sydney St James.
She came into my life like a blackjack that clung to my socks during fall hikes—suddenly, almost painfully and she stuck around for the long haul.
She exists as an archetype of the American dream, she’s daddy’s money, Cape Cod beach houses, Tiffany’s bracelets, and cable knit sweaters.
But she is also kindness, rash humor, and long talks when your heart is heavy.
She will carry your burdens, and make them her own; beside Sydney St James, you will never feel alone.
Sydney did not come alone, as people like her would never be alone a day in her life.
Her longtime boyfriend Jax came too; he goes to NYU and is a writer, all he knows is ink-stained fingers, made-up stories, impromptu trips to Barnes and Noble, and an undying love for the picturesque.
He can be pretentious, incredibly so, but we all are to some degree, such is the price of being the children of the wealthy and privileged.
Some of us worked harder to get here than others though, but we’d never talk about it.
And so Jax and Sydney, became Sydney and Jax and me.
It has been like that for most of our lives, perhaps it will always be so.
Our story starts and ends with the summer house near Monterey, California, in a small town called Waverly Peak.
Jurie had bought the house in an attempt to make summers special as they once were back home; he wanted us to be close to sea, even if it was only during the holidays.
We lived for the summers in the little house on Clementine Street, Mirrorball House we’d called it, after my favorite song by Taylor Swift.
Because it glittered at the center of it all, it did its best and we built it from the ground up.
Sydney’s family owned the house beside ours, March House, after Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
For a long time, the house to the left was always empty.
Vacant windows, potential buyers in and out every other month.
We often called it a ’lost cause’ because we never thought anyone would ever move in.
But everything changed the summer of thirteen, when the renovations started happening; the windows got replaced with Victorian ones, the balconies were built, and a plaster of coral blue paint covered it.
It was brand new. We often cycled by the property on our way to the bay, sometimes we’d sit on the sidewalk with a bag of salted chips and make guesses about the kind of people planning to move in.
Perhaps it would be a newlywed couple, Jax assumed, maybe two brothers looking for a vacation home away from the city, Sydney pondered.
I always knew that a house like that was built for sisters, I knew this in my bones.
I will never forget the first day I saw the Kwon girls; it was from my bedroom window, glancing down at the moving vans that pulled up out of nowhere.
They were bustling around their father in cashmere sweaters and long dark braided hair, making various speculations and helping him carry the little things inside.
They were all pale porcelain skin, that would inevitably tan to a warmer honey under the Waverly sun.
Freckles, fairy-like footsteps, generosity and skunk stripes in their hair.
They stood out, and demanded your attention whether you liked it or not.
It made me happy, Sydney too. We never had sisters, we yearned for them so deeply. We wanted new friends, and they had this mystique and allure to them that I couldn’t quite describe.
That day, the first day. We spent all morning baking a lemon meringue pie in the kitchen with Sydney’s mother, Elodie, we were covered in flour and sour lemon juice, making jokes about the sitcom playing on the television set and fantasizing about what the girls would be like.
Looking back, it was nothing we could’ve ever possibly imagined.
The parents sent us forth to deliver the pie to their doorstep.
We were nervous but we never showed it. We never let things like that bleed through.
I knocked on the door and waited for one of the girls to answer, we heard scrambles of footsteps and yet when the door swung open.
It was not a girl, no not at all, it was a boy. It was the boy. And he would be the match that lit the fire to where we are now, burning alive.