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“I had to scratch it. Someone beat me to the patent while I was sick,” I tell her adding when I see her face fall, “I created something entirely different that revolutionized pest control with sonic waves and another proprietary tech that monitors blood oxygen levels and more brain wave innovations.” I preen at the wonder in her eyes as she looks at me. I can bask in the way her eyes light up when they set upon me for an eternity. I don’t miss the emotion there though I do not trust it or think it is fickle. No, she left before, and she will again if given the chance. She will never have that chance. Taylor Love Takeda is mine.
Ours.
Which reminds me. “You may callHimwhat you wish.Heis dangerous.Heis part of me and therefore I am. I won’t be spending time with you anymore until I have this under control.” Seeing how the steely command in my voice is having no effect on her makes my ire rise.
“Seems unfair.” How she can look at me without the horror that should accompany everything she’s been made to endure astounds me.
“How so?” I step closer unthinking. To retreat now would make me give face in front of a woman whose esteem I earned. I stand my ground looking down at her though somehow even through the height difference and her sitting while I tower above, she is a regal as a queen. My equal in every way.
“You owe me recompense now, husband. Allowing your guardian to nearly kill me, getting me pregnant without my consent.” She shrugs one shoulder. “You must make amends.”
How the fuck did she turn the tables on me? I stare at her diminutive, clever form.
“Well played, little dove,”Hecroons. “Ohhh, I like her. Like her. Like her so much more now.”
“Very well,” I sigh, looking at her. “What will you have me do?”
I know I’m in trouble when I see the slow smile spread across her face.
Chapter
Seventeen
Taylor
Lights Darken~ The End
Sitting back,I look at the last words I’ve transferred on the brand-new MacBook Pro Hisashi gave me, when he got tired of all the notes in disarray on the bed and me asking to use his laptop for research as I finished the play. I don’t know how I feel about my first play in years.
Feeling inspired wars constantly with the feelings of will it be good enough or just some self-indulgent, trite bullshit better never to see the light of day. I don’t have imposter syndrome, no. I am well aware that I am a gifted writer, rare and bold as one Washington Post critic said. Being out of the game a few years doesn’t bother me either. No. The niggling feeling I have that I have to press down and not consume me is being even better than I was before. How do you top yourself? I should just do my best and hope for the best. Yet, I’ve never done that. I’ve alwaysleaned into my gift. Shifted through the chaff to get to the best of the wheat, golden and strong ready to be fed to theater fans the world over.
A sick feeling settles in my stomach. I have to put my work away. Come back later when I have more of a three-sixty view and a better perspective. Distance is my best friend right now. I know I’m good enough and this play will be stellar with pruning. The excitement at the prospect of workshopping the play and bouncing ideas off the cast, so we can work any kinks out sneaks into my overtired brain.
Knowing I need a hot shower to calm down I pass by Hisashi’s sleeping form.
It’s well past midnight and he’s finally fallen into an exhausted sleep after fighting his sleep for the past three days. I told him in no uncertain terms the lack of sleep will only contribute to a setback.
“I know, Tay-chan, I just need to watch over you,” he said gruffly stroking my hair the other night. I wanted to argue with him or tell him to go back to his own room to sleep as he had the first few nights.
The selfish part of me likes the way he holds me, likes waking up in his arms, the way he strokes my hair and smooths it away from my forehead. He does this little thing where he twirls my curls around his fingers then slides his finger out making a spiral. It’s the cutest thing, almost nothing really, but it’s something I can’t remember him ever doing from our time before. It’s a new memory for this version of Hisashi and Taylor. Something not linked to the past. Like a new beginning.
After Lex left earlier, he finally napped for the first time. The bloodwork came back positive for fetal cells as we suspected, but after the mobile ultrasound he brought with him that he uses for rural visits. He assured me — well, us, even though I think Hisashi would’ve rather not have heard the news that we’d haveno problem if we chose to pursue another pregnancy. And we could start as soon as we were comfortable.
Hisashi looked at me askance when Lex offered contraception as an alternative, which I politely declined.
He didn’t come back for hours after he saw Lex out. When he did, he brought more clothes and a huge box of condoms, tossing them in the drawer at the bedside.
For a while he watched me work seeming content to work from home this week. The strike has slowed things down considerably. He doesn’t talk or rage about it, but I know he’s still terribly angry at his brother, Krie, and Thad.
He’s not said anything more about me paying the cost for Thad’s hacking which was never fair in the first place, I’d be quick to tell him. He codes counter measures into the Takeda system and then works on whatever side project that currently holds his interest when he gets bored. Watching him in his element is sexy. It’s calming. Who knew being held captive by my estranged husband would be the catalyst for new words.
He’s taking his atonement seriously though, doing everything I ask.
After returning from my shower, I put the laptop away. There has been no bleeding the last two days. I’ve always had short light periods and after the initial bleeding from the miscarriage, my cycle returned to normal. I’m still hormonal though, crying at odd times and not sure why other than the shock of losing a baby I had no idea I was pregnant with.
What Hisashi said about us needing to wait makes sense, if I told his ass that he’d be unmovable. We’ve waited long enough to be together. I know we need more time to get to know each other in this iteration of who we are as older more mature adults. We have whole separate lives we have to merge and not a small amount of trust to build between us. I know this, mymind knows this, but my heart after seeing what could have been washed red down the drain, is singing another tune entirely.
Telling him that would only further his thoughts of brokenness. I don’t want him to carry that any longer. “God made you perfect,” Mom would always say. “We are always learning and growing,” my father would tell me when I made a mistake. They never made me feel like I was a disappointment or damaged no matter the nightmares I had or even when I told them I married a Japanese man from the prominent Takeda family and didn’t tell them until the months after I’d returned to the States. They took me not being ready to talk about it at face value and let me go into the therapy I sought. They were always there, never pressing me with questions trusting me, though at times I doubted myself and the decisions I made, especially leaving him and never knowing where they’d sent him.
