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“You’ll understand someday. I’ll prove it to you.”
I know this conversation isn’t going to get anywhere right now, so I just rub some of the stress out of my eyes and turn back toward the window. He doesn’t engage me again, which I take as a blessing.
He’s so unnecessarily aggressive all the time. I understand that it might be a remnant of his childhood, sure, but it’s just obnoxious and immature to me. He reminds me of a teenager with too much to prove, except that he’s a massive, tattooed man with visible rage in his eyes when he’s angry. He’s probably used to getting what he wants all the time because of that, and I doubt I have the interpersonal skills to show him how wrong he is for it.
I want to understand his perspective better. I’m sure that he thinks it’s flattering for him to defend my honor like a damsel or maiden. That’s probably what his piece of shit father told him when he was growing up, so I can’t blame him entirely. Still though, at this point I’m having a very difficult time justifying a future with him.
It’s hard not to notice other couples on the train that have been observing us this whole time. We were probably arguing a little bit louder than we both thought we were, which horrifies me. I’ve always hated the stereotype that Americans are selfish, irreverent assholes who do nothing but complain and take up space. However, it looks like an unavoidable truth when you’re with an overgrown man-child. I hate myself for giving into his whims and allowing him to anger me as much as he has now. I can’t allow my future to be nothing but reactions.
One of the couples is sitting across from us, the woman laying her head in her husband’s lap as she sleeps away the ride. I envy her security, the ability to know that her husband will take proper care of her without allowing his ego to become involved. I can’t even say for certain that this is the case, but my state of mind has been altered by how frustrated I’ve become with Aleksander.
What would I even tell my family when I return home? There are far too many details of this journey to help it make sense to them. I’ll never be the same person I used to be, for better or worse, and I have no idea how I’ll be able to explain the changes to them. It would probably make more sense if I told them that I was abducted by aliens who got me pregnant. At least then there wouldn’t be a real villain in the story. Maybe they’d put me in intensive outpatient therapy, but at least there would be nobody to blame.
I’m not sure if I can do this. I can see how badly Aleksander wants to make me happy, but his temper is far too volatile for me to feel safe around him. We haven’t even had any legitimate issues to worry about between the two of us, and we’ve still fought like crazy ever since I found out I was pregnant.
I wish I could read his mind right now. I’d love to hear all the self-righteous, cyclical thinking that he’s got going on in there. I’m certain that he feels like a fallen, misunderstood hero for not being appreciated the way he thinks he deserves to be. God, it’s making me angry just to imagine him being such a martyr.
Why couldn’t I have just been gay? So many men that I know, at least the vast majority, are so stubborn in their conquest to express their masculinity that they forget what it is they’re even fighting for. They claim to want girlfriends and wives so badly, but then they fuck everything up by being overly aggressive and boorish. They have no idea how to actually talk to women or how to make them feel respected and cared for in their company. The fact that they can overpower us is always enough for them to take what they want and leave the rest, even if the rest is whatwewant.
We’re pulling up to the city now, and I’m dreading the entire night. I don’t even want to be here anymore. Not in this city, not in Japan, and certainly not with Aleksander. I have half a mind to try to escape from him once we’re out in a crowd again, and I’m sure it would be easy enough to have him arrested with all the information that I have.
Even still, no matter how angry I am at him, I still feel compelled to give him a chance. A chance for what? I have no idea. To grow maybe, or to learn over time that I need him to be better than he is right now. Maybe fatherhood will change him, but I know it’s a dangerous game to expect a man to change for any reason at all. All I can hope is that he sees our baby for the first time and realizes that he’s been taking his life for granted.
For now, there’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped in this pregnant body, in this train, in this relationship, and I can’t see a way out.
26
Faye
We show up to the flight festival a bit late since the train we caught had taken an alternate route into the city. The extra time on the ride made me irrationally angry because I needed to stand up and stretch my legs halfway into the journey. I didn’t know that it was going to take even longer than the initial estimated ride time, and I was already having enough trouble trying not to get emotional about my situation with Aleksander and the pregnancy. With every thirty-minute interval that passes, I feel another bout of sadness wash over me that I have to repress.
Aleksander seems oblivious to my pain, which makes it easier for me to collect myself when we get off the train. I’m willing to put on a brave face in order to keep the mood light, but inside, I’m suffocating. At least now I can walk around a little bit. The sidewalk outside of the train station is flooded by people just like I would have imagined, but they all seem to be keeping their distance from us.
Good. At least Aleksander won’t have anyone to get angry with.
We attend the convention, and I do admittedly enjoy myself, but it’s so hard to feel the full impact of the event when my heart feels weighed down the way it is right now. It feels like such a waste. Couldn’t we have at least gotten through this day without fighting again? That’s what I thought the roses and the make-up conversation were about this morning. I love a thoughtful gesture, of course, but not if it’s nothing but a performance. I need him to be genuine, and so far he’s just putting on show after show. I hate to think about the next time that the mask will slip.
When we’re on our way out of the convention, Aleksander suggests that we go find somewhere to get some food before we head back to the train station for our journey home. I’m hesitant at first because I don’t want to be out with him anymore, but I’m extremely hungry. There was basically no food at the festival, and what was being served was a lot of sushi and raw fish. Not anything that a pregnant woman should be consuming, but at least now I don’t have to pretend.
He finds us a place to buy some Takoyaki when I hear a blood-curdling scream from down the road. At first I can’t see anyone and my skin crawls at the possibility that I’ve started to go crazy. But when I look at Aleksander’s face, it’s obvious that he heard it too. The color has drained from his face, and we stare at each other speechlessly until another scream tears through the dense night air.
I’m able to hear the scream coming from an alley just a few shops down, and now I can hear the woman making distressing compromises with her assailants.
“Please don’t, I’ll do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt me,” she pleads.
Aleksander and I run over to the alley, and he pushes me back against the wall before I have the chance to intervene.
“Stay here, do not move at all. I’ll handle this,” he says with confidence.
Now that I can see that he could be putting himself in danger, all of my anger is beginning to melt away. He’s going to try his best to save this girl, something he’s felt the need to do ever since he was a young boy.
I watch him withdraw a knife from his pocket that I didn’t know he had on him, and now I can identify two muggers instead of just one. I’m terrified for Aleksander’s safety at first, but then I see the way that he’s able to handle the knife like an extension of himself.
The way his muscles move under his shirt as he swipes the knife toward the larger assailant reminds me why I found him to be so attractive in the first place. He clearly puts the work in looking the way that he does, and his muscles aren’t just for show either. He could probably pick that man up and toss him into the brick walls on either side of the alleyway, but he’s choosing true violence. He’s going to avenge this poor girl, and my heart flutters as I watch him come to her aid.
He’s so adept at using the knife that he manages to subdue the larger man in a matter of minutes. The first fight hardly lasts five minutes, and the smaller man relinquishes the girl before sprinting away with pure panic in his eyes. I could have reached out and grabbed him as he ran past me, but I figure that Aleksander doesn’t want me to get physically involved with this fight. Right now, it feels like he might actually be trying to protect me.
The woman runs straight in to my arms as soon as both men are either gone or bleeding out on the ground in front of us. I’ve never seen so much blood before, not even after Aleksander shot those men in my hotel room. The sight of the blood slowly pooling under the man’s dying body makes my stomach turn, and I have to hold myself together to avoid making matters worse.
