Ailana’s Journal—2026-08-16 (and Island Kids) (Patreon)

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GOOD MORNING by Ailana Geven Keller

What’s the maximum number of shower pictures that can be used for chapters in a single week? Asking for a friend…

Church begins at 9:30, and then the gathering will commence. Sasha promises it will be low-stress, and I have to admit, she’s good at that kind of thing.

I imagine everyone will spread out and mingle, enjoy the food fellowship, and generally get to know each other a little bit. There are a few people I’ve not met personally, so I’ll be sure to make a point of talking to them.

Emily says that the party is really more about looking ahead than it is about her hearing.She says it’s like a launch of the school year for her and her friends. She says it’s a chance for everyone to get to know Sofia—Jasmine’s friend, Evelyn—Dad’s friend, and Olivia—Jenna’s dad’s girlfriend and Izzy’s friend.

There are others coming, too. I’ll make a list and share it in another post. For now, I’ll close this chapter and get ready for church.

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All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

PARTY ROSTER by Ailana Geven Keller

Well, here we are! Things are about to get going, but I wanted to just list who all is here.

Of course, everyone who lives here on Whiting Street is present: Geoni, Josh, Jasmine, Micah, Clay, Sasha, Izzy, Kent, Jason, and me.

In addition to Kel and Emily, Mateo, Gabe, Brooks, and Jenna came, along with two kids from the Island Baptist Youth Group I met for the first time today: Ethan Barrett and Angelique Huerta.

Kaylee, Isaac, and Hudson are here.

Dad brought Evelyn.

Now, the connections are a little more complicated!

Brooks wanted Officer Lopez—Camila—to come. Camila brought one of Evelyn’s clients, Nick Fashola.

Izzy knew from talking to Emily that Jenna’s dad—Dan—is dating Olivia, who works with Izzy. Dan is a chief in the Coast Guard and knows Dad. Connect the dots however you wish—Dan and Olivia are here.

Jasmine and Sasha talk to the manager at the cut-and-sew factory—Sofia—all week long. Jasmine had Sofia help with the girls’ sleepover on Clay’s yacht, too. Sofia was invited and is here with her boyfriend, Ryan.

Izzy also invited Rebecca and Paul Charm. She and Kent worked with them in Brooklyn, and Rebecca and Evelyn are trying to recover a computer system for Nick.

There’s no way I can give a detailed account of what all these people are doing, but I’ll make sure anything important gets shared by someone.

GOODBYE SUMMER by Emily Amos

Today started off as a way to celebrate the fact that I don’t have to hide out under the stairs begging for Oreos. It turned into an end-of-summer party for me, my friends, and the adults we share our lives with.

Everything started at about 11:00. Brooks invited some people from the Youth Group, and Angelique and Ethan came. They’re both juniors, too. Angelique knows Mateo and Brooks, but then again, I think everyone knows Brooks.Ethan and Gabe are friends, but Ethan knows Mateo, too.

Jenna, Kel, and I know them both from Youth Group.

After we ate, Pops introduced Mateo to Isaac. “Mateo’s a good kid, and he’s no stranger to tools.”

The thing is, First Call is getting a lot… boss-level a lot… of repair calls as the tourist season slows down. Pops thinks Mateo could help out like Jenna and I do with the cleaning work. More on that later…

Jenna figured out that Kent is living in the unit I used to use. She mentioned how cool it was, and next thing you know, Izzy had all us kids up there hanging out.

Then Gabe suggested we go to The Baked Bear, but he only came in a four-seater golf cart, so the guys took off. They promised not to start eating theirs until they get back with ours!

Kent and Izzy are really cool. He’s an electrician, and she’s a social worker. Izzy has known Ailana, like, forever.

The other girls and I got to talk to her about modeling and some of the places she’s been. That would make a whole book, and I have an idea in that regard. I could get her real stories and turn them into fiction. I don’t know… Idea in progress!

Well, school starts for all of them tomorrow, so we want to get as much out of today as we can. So, I’ll close my chapter. See you next time!

NOTHING CHANGES by Sofia Torres

I want to circle back to some important points before I tell the story I’m about to tell.

Ryan has been honest with me. He’s told me things I didn’t ask to know, and answered questions that I asked. I have known he has money. He told me he didn’t really need to work or worry about retirement.

I’ll add that he’s used “we” a few times in a way that includes me in his future. He’s said things like, “We could go off for a while on a long trip if the factory could get by without you.”

Once before, I said I’d never ask how rich he was—any more than I’d ask you how much you have in your checking account.

He’s always been generous without asking for anything in return. He bought me new sneakers and some summer clothes just so we could go out and do something. He paid the security deposit on my new apartment…

I need to tell the story now.

We got to the party on Whiting Street and shook a lot of hands. I met Ailana, who Kaylee says will teach me to be a model. Not sure about that, but…

Then a guy walks up to us. “Ryan… What are you doing here?”

Introductions were made as we moved to chairs in one of the garages. Ryan and Nick are cousins, but Nick added a little more info.

“Our moms are sisters.” He looked at his date, Camila. “Ryan saved me from the Denver desk job and gave me something important to do.”

“Oh…” Camila raised her eyebrows and looked at Ryan. “You own Alderwick? You’re that cousin?”

Ryan nodded. “It’s my family’s. Mom and Dad are out of the country doing mission work.”

“Your mom called me last week,” Nick said. “She’s not so happy about the computers still being down.”

Ryan shook his head. “I told her Evelyn and Rebecca were making progress. I also told her not to bug you.”

“It was fine.”

I sort of let my thoughts backtrack a little. When we were getting introduced, Nick mentioned something about four condos in a luxury high-rise.

I’m not super in touch with real estate, but I started thinking maybe I had underestimated how wealthy Ryan is.

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I figured the fact that his house was paid for and he didn’t have to work meant he was a millionaire. Owning four luxury condos would mean somewhat more than that.

I waited for a break in the discussion about computers and said, “What’s Alderwick?”

Ryan looked at me. “That’s the name of the company I told you my family has.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

“It takes care of the family’s money. It’s supposed to be running a program my mom set up called Benevolence Worldwide, but there have been some problems with the computer systems.”

At that point, I stopped myself from asking for a number.

I wondered for a second why he’d never told me the name of the family company, then realized it wouldn’t have meant anything to me. It could just as well have been Team Zebra or Four Men With Buckets. I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Instead of going that way, I asked about the program.

“Dad had a heart attack,” Ryan said. “When he recovered, he said, in essence, that he had been doing everything wrong for years. Spinning his wheels. Repeating what his father and his grandfather had done. They decided to change course, set up the charity programs, and leave to do mission work in South America. Before they left, Dad said to me, ‘Ryan, you have all the wealth you’ll ever need. What you need is a life and happiness.’”

I looked at him and took his hand. He’d told me that before.

Nick smiled. “And you decided to move to Los Fresnos.”

I laughed. “That’s what I asked."

Camila seemed to know something I didn’t. “You could have gone anywhere in the world.”

Ryan shrugged and squeezed my hand. “I put my destination in the hands of God and a random number generator. I think providence knew what it was doing.”

He had to retell the story about randomly picking a place that had mild winters. Camila shook her head.

“I’m not complaining,” Nick replied. “I left a desk job to end up here. Now, I’m really helping people. Not just moving numbers around on spreadsheets.”

I started rethinking Ryan’s wealth. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it has to be way more than a few million. There’s the family company that runs a program Nick works for. There’s the “anywhere in the world” comment. And four luxury condos here in South Padre Island.

Nothing I learned today is different from what I already knew. Nothing Ryan had told me was different from what I was finding out. I had just imagined a number that turned out to be a lot lower than I now suppose it really is.

Camila seemed to notice my expression. “Sofia, are you okay?”

I smiled and nodded.

Nick looked at Ryan. “Have you told her about Alderwick and Benevolence Worldwide?”

I answered. “He has, but we’ve not talked about the names or anything.”

Nick looked at Ryan again.

Ryan answered. “We’ve not looked at each other’s bank accounts. But I’m not planning on her signing a prenup when the time comes, either.”

Nick smiled and nodded. “Alright then…”

I looked at Ryan. “Pre…nup?”

Camila answered. “Prenuptial agreement… It’s a contract you sign before you get married saying how assets get divided if the marriage ends in divorce.”

“Marriage?” I looked at Ryan.

“I’ve thought about it.”

I have, too, but… I wasn’t expecting that to come out in someone’s garage!

Nick laughed a little. “How long have you been dating, anyway?”

“We met in June,” Ryan replied. “I was coming out of the Circle K.”

Nick nodded. “Two months, and you’re already thinking wedding.”

Ryan squeezed my hand. “I didn’t mean to bring it up like this.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Really, it is.”

Nick smiled. “Cousin, maybe you need to look at each other’s checkbooks before things go much further…

Ryan squeezed my hand again. “Yeah, it’s probably time for that to happen.”

I’m not sure where my thoughts were going at that moment. They were… somewhere between him being much richer than I had guessed and him admitting that he was thinking about marriage already.

At that point, I asked myself what difference another zero in his bank balance made.

$5,000,000?

$50,000,000?

Both numbers were so far from anything I would ever experience, it didn’t matter.

That didn’t change who he was to me.

Honestly, I couldn’t even guess how much he had. A house in Los Fresnos. Four condos in South Padre Island. A company that hires people and runs a charity program.

I know some of you will say he deceived me. I don’t think he did.

Back at the Circle K, I would never have expected him to say, “Hi, I’m Ryan, I have $50 million in the bank.”

Two months later, before today, I knew he was wealthy to the point he didn’t have to worry about money. I still wouldn’t expect him to say, “By the way, I have $50 million in the bank.”

Or however much he has.

The bigger shock is that he said out loud that marriage to me was on his mind. That’s the thing I’m freaking out about!

I’ve thought about marriage, too.

I just wouldn’t have told my cousin that around Ryan and other strangers.

WRONG MATH by Ailana Geven Keller

I’m not surprised anymore by how things in life are interconnected. Years ago, I was in a makeup chair in Milan and learned that the stylist knew my high school friend’s mother—also a stylist.

Today, the connections weren’t that obscure.

Jasmine’s friend Sofia is dating Ryan, whose family funds the Pay It Forward Society is part of. I went on a project with them to Colorado. (Izzy, the center of the known universe, invited me to go.)

I spoke to Ryan and thanked him for what Pay It Forward Society does.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “I’m trying to get Mom’s idea back on track.”

There was a tone I couldn’t reconcile in his words. “You seem unsure.”

“I know it’s Mom’s dream. I’m just not sure it’s changing anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, a water-purification system helps one village. Still, one in four people in the world lacks access to safe drinking water. Fixing up a community center on the Gulf helps one community. What about the rest of the world?”

I nodded.

Ryan continued. “If I gave… say… $50 to a billion people, the world wouldn’t change. If I gave $1 billion to 50 people, 50 people would be happy. 8.3 billion wouldn’t benefit.”

“I think you’re missing something,” I said.

“Like what?” Sofia asked.

I looked at Ryan a little confused. “You’re using the wrong math. You’re dividing. You need to be multiplying.”

He looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.

I went on. “The world will change, not when a billion people get $50, but when a billion people help 50 other people. When people look around and do what they can where they are to meet the needs around them.”

He looked at me and said, “Say more.”

“Your mom wasn’t trying to fix every fire scar in the world. She wanted people to learn that fire scars exist and need attention. That water filter helped a village get cleaner drinking water, and it helped everyone who read about it think about the larger problem.”

He seemed to understand.

“Your mom wanted to multiply, not divide. Awareness does that sometimes.”

It was like his eyes opened, and he said, “Multiply…”

GOOD NIGHT by Ailana Geven Keller

I ended the last chapter where I did because it had to fit within the IG character limit. Ryan seemed to get it after I said, “Your mom wanted to multiply, not divide. Awareness does that sometimes.”

Ryan looked at me and smiled. “That’s what I was missing. I’ve been trying to do what Dad said… find a life that means something… and trying to keep Mom’s dream going. I was getting both of them half right.”

“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.

“Mom wants to save the world. But $50 billion isn’t enough to do that. The money can create awareness like Ailana said. And that multiplies.”

Sofia looked at Ryan as if something had just clicked for her. “You said $50 billion again.”

I looked at Nick and could tell there was a reason he used that number. Nick looked at Sofia, smiled, and nodded. She looked back at him a little blankly.

“I think I know what that means,” Sofia said. “What’s the Spanish word… just to be sure?”

I checked Google. “Mil millones.”

“That’s what I thought,” Sofia replied.

I wanted to ask where his security detail was, but I didn’t. “I think you can create a lot of awareness with that. Think about it… When I went to Colorado, all of my readers learned about fire scar damage. When Izzy went to Belize, people learned about the importance of mangroves. I feel like that was your mother’s goal.”

“I do, too,” Ryan replied. “Now I get it.”

I left Ryan and Sofia to discuss what “mil millones” meant for them and mingled with everyone else until the party ended.

Now, I’m on the patio with Emily. She came out wrapped in a blanket, pretending she was copying me. I must have looked at her funny, because she revealed the joke.

She had on the same shorts and T-shirt she’d worn all day.

Now, she’s sitting here telling me how to pose. And I don’t mind at all.

“Thanks for letting today happen,” she said as she passed the camera to me.

We’re going to sit here and talk about the day. I’ll see you tomorrow.

May you have days that give you things to talk about, ideas to think about, and reminders of the people you love.

Good night.

Be your best you!

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