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He sits down across from me with his own cup of coffee, his energy less cagey and much more open than I’ve ever seen him. “They’re a peace offering. I know we’ve been going through a lot lately, me with Adam missing and you with the pregnancy. I haven’t been the most considerate man on the planet, and I know that’s something I need to work on if I’m going to be a better father than my own.”
My heart swells in my chest at the apology. I’ve never been given flowers by any man before, and none of them have ever come close to apologizing for anything in any relationship I’ve been in. What could have possessed him to do such a thing?
“What inspired this?” I ask, my eyes filling with tears as I take in the rich red of the flowers’ flesh.
“Well, the flowers were my idea. It’s really common in Russia for men to buy flowers for their women, even if there’s no reason for it. This time there was a reason, of course, but I’m going to make more of an effort in the future starting now,” he replies.
I reach across the table and grab his hand. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately. I knew pregnancy was hard on the body and the mind, but I had no idea it was going to turn me inside out like this. It’s taken such a toll on me that I haven’t had the presence of mind to consider your feelings at all.”
He takes my hand in his, stroking my fingers with his thumb the way new lovers always do. “Don’t apologize. You have a perfectly good reason for feeling the way you do. I, on the other hand, need to be more patient and considerate of you. I need you to know that you’re more to me than just a hot woman I’m cohabitating with. I have real, intense feelings for you, and it scares me.”
I feel like my chest is about to burst open from joy. All I’ve wanted this whole time was to feel like I mattered to him, and now I know that he simply doesn’t know how to express it well enough. It’s not that the feelings aren’t there – he just never had the opportunity to sort them out within himself. This could probably be a result of his abusive childhood, but at this point it doesn’t matter. He’s willing to work through this for me to transcend his trauma, and I couldn’t feel more honored.
“I just need you to understand that I’m not the biggest asshole in the world when things are going well. The version of me that you’ve come to know is the most stressed out person I’ve ever been in my life, and somehow you’re still here, carrying my baby. I don’t know what I did to keep you from killing me in my sleep, but I’m hoping I can keep it going,” he continues.
I laugh a little, taking a sip of my coffee and enjoying it just a little too much.
“Well then, I’m very excited to meet the version of you that emerges when we get back to the states. For now though, I don’t want to think about going back. It just depresses me, and it gives me expectations that I know can’t be met yet. It’s healthier for me to just let it go for now,” I say as my affect falls a bit.
He seems somewhat sad at my statement, but I know he understands. “Yeah, I know it’s been hard. I can’t imagine how stressed you must be about your family. As long as I return you safely, I’m hoping that they won’t be too hysterical when they see you again for the first time.”
“I mean, I’ll be either very pregnant or carrying a baby, so I’m sure they’ll at least be a little but confused. But my mother is obsessed with babies and has always wanted a grandchild, but not from my sister. This might end up working out once all the details get unraveled.”
He pauses for a moment, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, so I saw that there’s a plane show happening a few miles north of here. I saw it and thought of you instantly. Do you want to go? I know I said I’d teach you how to fly, but until then, I’m hoping something like this can be a good substitute.”
My heart squeezes hard in my chest all over again. Remembering my biggest passion and finding ways to include it in our relationship is something I never thought I could get any man to do for me. I thought it would always be me forced to play video games or watching bands that I hate. The fact that anyone, especially Aleksander, would be so considerate makes me want to weep.
I get up from my chair and practically jump across the table into his arms. “When is it? When can we go?” I ask, feeling like an excited little kid.
“It’s later today. I wasn’t sure how you would be feeling about everything today, but I was hoping everything would be better so I could take you to this,” he says, showing me the event posting online.
“Okay, I’ll make sure to be ready when we’re supposed to leave! I’ve never been to anything like this before, thank you so, so much!” I reply, walking around the table and hugging him around the neck.
“Wear something cute, I want everyone there to know that you’re mine,” he replies, pulling me back down a little bit and kissing me on the neck.
My belly flutters at his touch, and I’m tempted to have sex with him again, but I choose to wait. It’ll be so much more fun to double the anticipation.
24
Faye
Afew hours later, we’re packed up for the day and ready to take on the flight festival. I don’t remember the last time I was this excited for something, but I can imagine it was sometime when I was a teenager. I haven’t had the chance to invest much into my interests other than music since I graduated from college, and I can already feel the excitement and anticipation building up in my chest.
The butterflies don’t last long when we get to the train station. The whole place is crowded and overrun with college students who push their way through the sea of people in droves. There seems to be a new train arriving or departing every three minutes, increasing my anxiety threefold. How are we supposed to know if we’re on the right one?
The signs above the individual rails tell us which trains are leaving in the next fifteen minutes, and after a little while, I’m finally confident enough that we’ve found our train.
“Hey, I think we’re supposed to be hopping on this one at terminal A24. It says it’s leaving in ten minutes though, so we have to make sure we’re close enough to the rail to get on once it’s here. Otherwise, we’re going to get crushed by everyone else,” I say, pointing out the sign to Aleksander.
He furrows his brow, clearly already stressed by the noise and the surrounding chaos. He doesn’t tend to do well in noisy environments, and the fact that we could miss our train is pissing him off even more. I hate it when he gets like this, but I can’t say I blame him. To be fair, it is a very stressful environment, even for someone as collected and stoic as he usually is.
“No, I don’t think that’s right. The last train that said that went the opposite direction. I think you’re looking at the wrong terminal,” he states, pointing up at the LED signs hanging above the tracks.
The fact that he’s challenging me on what the sign says, despite speaking no Japanese whatsoever, creates a simmer of annoyance in the back of my mind. I know he’s a man, a powerful one at that, but his insistence upon being correct so often is starting to get very, very old.
“No, I can read the sign, Aleksander. It says we should be departing in seven minutes now, so we need to get to the other side of the platform to avoid getting muscled out by the crowd,” I insist. I hate being firm or confrontational at all, and he’s managed for force me out of my comfort zone on a number of occasions now. For that, I suppose I could be grateful, but I’m mostly just bitter that he doesn’t trust me.
“I really don’t think so. If it was leaving that soon, there would be more people over by the ledge. I think we need to get to the other side,” he insists, growing visibly annoyed with me for correcting him.
