by Sienna Blake
What had I done?
I’d ruined his life.
How could he ever forgive me?
How could he ever love—
“Nori-chan?” Tatsumi called from behind me.
“Are you okay?” Emi said, her voice all small.
“I’m fine,” I lied. No one could ever know the truth of a marriage except for the two people in it; sometimes, not even them. “I just need some air. Go back inside. I’ll join you soon.”
I could feel their weighted stares on my back. I could sense the questions they were holding back like a pack of wolves.
“Go inside,” I commanded in a tone that sounded so much like Drake’s that it sent a stab through my heart.
I heard them retreating, their hushed whispers, the door click signaling that I was alone.
And alone, I was.
The last of the fog in my vision cleared. I saw each gnarled root or jagged rock Drake and I had stumbled across over the last five months. I felt the weight of my sins and his like a single being. This was what a marriage was, I realized. It wasn’t his fault, it was ours. It wasn’t my mess, it was ours. When life got heavy, it laid across both our shoulders.
The ones we let in close, get close enough to see the cracks in our armor. And with our love we hand them a knife. By trusting them with our secrets, we show them where to aim.
Drake and I had both wounded the other. We were both to blame. Both wrong in so many ways.
Our fault. Our mess. Our marriage.
Was it even a marriage anymore?
Here was my chance to cut ties with Drake before the year was up. Was that what I still wanted?
It felt strange to be back here at our small house in Shibetzu. Like a shoe that’d become a tad too small. I found myself wincing at the noise of my sisters bickering as they tumbled over each other to get ready in the mornings. I found myself scrunching my nose at rice with every meal, missing the variety of foods I was served in the Blackwell dining room.
I missed the quiet and solitude of the manor. I missed my studio, filled with everything I needed. I missed the gardens where I’d often take my paints. Mostly, I missed the way my heart would kick-start when the gravel crunching outside told me that my husband was home.
I’d outgrown this place. Like a tree that had been replanted into a different shaped pot, it could not fit back into the old pot.
Papa found me sitting alone early one morning underneath the cherry tree. He lowered himself onto the grass in front of me. “Nori-chan, it’s good to have you home.”
“Yes, Papa,” I said. I didn’t lift my eyes to his.
“What of your husband? When do I get to meet him and thank him for what he has done for me?”
My husband. In the last six weeks, Papa had been silent about Drake. This was the first time he’d asked about him.
“I…I don’t think he’s coming.” Ever. My chest squeezed around each jagged word.
“He must come for you. You are married. You love each other.”
I shook my head as tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “Oh, Papa. I have ruined everything with him.”
“How could you ruin anything? It is not possible.”
I let out a sob-laugh. “Trust me, I am very capable of making a huge mess of my life.” And my marriage.
“You still love him?”
I squeezed my eyes shut as the creeping realization that I’d been trying to ignore could not be denied anymore. I nodded.
“And you’ve told him?”
I shook my head. I never got the chance.
That’s a lie, Noriko. You had the chance, several of them, you were too scared to take it.
I had used my promise to my father as an excuse. I had been too scared to make a life of my own outside of the safety of my family home. I had been too scared to give my all to my marriage. Now this house I once called home had become its own sort of prison.
Months dragged by… Autumn came again and for the first time it felt like an old friend, like the only one who understood what I felt inside. Leaves turned red like they were bleeding from the inside, before curling into their dry, brittle bodies, straining, hanging on by their fingers until they gave up and let go, swirling and falling to the ground and finally crumbling to dust. The air chilled and the bony branches shivered.
Then the snow fell and the world looked clean and white. A new year. A new start. If only there could be such a thing for my marriage.
Finally spring arrived with her new buds and her hope, a sentiment I no longer believed in. It had been almost eight months. Eight months without a single word from Drake.
It was a Saturday morning. My father and sisters were sitting huddled under a blanket as I stirred our breakfast congee, a rice porridge, on the stove. There was something about today, something nagging the edge of my mind about today. I couldn’t figure it out.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside. I froze. Our visitors were usually from the village and they walked. Nobody we knew owned a car…
I ran through the house, my bare feet pounding on the straw mats. I slid open the front door, my eyes searching, my hope soaring…
A large black car had pulled up outside our gate, a figure climbing out of the back seat. Those familiar wide shoulders. The dark shock of hair. That air of power.
Drake.
Drake had finally come.
55
____________
Noriko
I took a wobbly step down the stairs towards him. He was here. After all these months, why was he here? Could he be ready to forgive me? Could he be here to take me home? Hope fluttered like a crane in my chest.
I heard my sisters gasp from the front door behind me. “Papa, that’s Mr. Blackwell!”
My papa shushed at them, instructing them to go and wash their faces and put on better clothes. He was buying me time to speak with Drake alone before my family crowded him. My heart sang silently with gratitude.
I didn’t turn around because all I could feel was him.
He was more handsome than I remembered: full, defined lips, intense stare, dark stubble darkening his strong jaw. His hair had grown longer, curling over the collar of his brown sports jacket.
Drake pushed open the low gate before he looked up, our eyes catching. He froze. I stopped walking on the path, only now realizing that I hadn’t put shoes on, gravel poking into the soles of my feet.
My stomach flipped. Everything I wanted to say, everything I’d wanted to say for the past eight months choked into my voice box like swallowed ash.
As I stared, I noticed heaviness in the corners of his mouth, the touch of shadow under his eyes. He looked tired and world weary.
Losing your own company will do that to you.
I shoved down my rising guilt, or at least I tried to. Perhaps he wasn’t here to talk but to rage at me instead.
I certainly deserved it.
Something that looked like longing flashed in his eyes. It was gone before I could be sure. “Noriko,” he said on an exhale.
My heart was drumming so hard I wasn’t sure I could speak without my voice trembling. “Drake.”
We stood there looking at each other, waiting for the other to speak first.
“How are—?” I asked at the same time as he said, “I was just—”
He allowed a smile to tug at one side of his lips. “Please, you first.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m here on business. Well, not here exactly, but in Tokyo.”
I nodded. Before I could thank him for coming, my sisters raced up behind me and crowded me, clinging onto my arms as if they were holding me back from being devoured by a lion.
“What is he doing here?”
“We won’t let him take you, Nori-chan.”
“Girls,” I chastised in English. They knew enough English to be able to speak it. “Don’t be rude.”
I’m sorry, I mouthed at him.
&nb
sp; He smiled and shook his head. To my utter surprise he bent down until he was eye level with the girls.
“I have heard a lot of good things about you two,” Drake said to them in accented Japanese.
They both gasped. I smiled. I never did tell them that he could speak Japanese.
“In fact,” he continued, “I have gifts for both of you.”
“For us?” they both exclaimed, looking between Drake and each other.
Drake looked over his shoulder and motioned to his driver with his fingers. The driver, a young boy with a terrified look on his face and a wonky haircut underneath his chauffeur’s cap, stumbled up the path carrying two gift boxes, which he set down beside Drake.
“Thank you, Hideki.” Drake said to him.
Hideki nodded before racing back to the car.
My two sisters looked at each other, giggling. It didn’t matter what they’d read about Drake, it seemed they were already being swayed by his good looks and the charm that he’d turned on for them.
Drake placed one box in front of Emi and one in front of Tatsumi. “I hope you like them.”
Emi tugged open the box and cried out with joy as she tugged out a slick designer cream leather randoseru with a cute-looking skull with gems for eyes across the flap. Oh God, this backpack could have cost at least a grand. At the same time, Tatsumi pulled out a framed No Doubt poster autographed by none other than Gwen Stefani. Both girls squealed, jumping up and down on their toes, a chorus of thank yous in both Japanese and English coming from their mouths.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I spoke of my sisters once to him. He remembered.
He remembered.
Surely there was hope for us.
“Drake, it’s too much,” I said.
“No,” he said quietly as he straightened, “it’s not. It doesn’t come close to making up for the months that you were taken from them.”
I frowned at his choice of words.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you, sir,” Drake said, turning to my father.
Papa looked at him with surprise. “Son, you’ve done enough for this old man. You saved my life and sent my daughter home to me while I recovered. There is nothing more you can give me. Perhaps there is something you want from me?” He raised his eyebrow and glanced at me.
I felt Drake’s eyes on me, too. When I glanced at him I caught the brief look of pain in his eyes.
“Now, girls,” my father said in Japanese, “come take your gifts inside. Let’s leave Drake and Noriko alone for a minute so they can catch up.”
They stumbled noisily into the house, both talking at once, carrying their gifts. I was left alone with Drake.
I knew we weren’t really alone. The paper walls in the house were thin. Papa and the girls could hear everything from inside without too much trouble.
“Won’t you stay for breakfast?” I said, aware that the congee may already be burnt. “Maybe we can go for a walk together afterwards.” I have so much to say to you.
Drake looked surprised at my invitation, and longing flashed before it disappeared behind the mask he wore so well. “I, er…thank you, but no. I have to be off.”
“Oh.” My stomach dropped. “So soon?”
“I have something for you, too.”
A present? For me? As quickly as it had dropped, my heart became a feather caught in an updraft. He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, handing it to me.
“What’s this?” I turned it over in my hands, opening the flap and pulling out papers. I read the headline and the rest of the text blurred.
Divorce papers.
He didn’t come for me. He came for a divorce.
There was no hope for us.
I gripped the cursed papers, my hands shaking with the need to rip them apart.
Here was proof. He didn’t love me anymore.
“Read over them, then sign them,” Drake said. “I’ve included an addressed envelope in there for you to return them to me.”
There would be nothing easy about signing these papers. God, how I wanted this before, and now it was the last thing I wanted. “So that’s it then?” I said, trying to keep the bitter disappointment out of my voice.
“That’s it.”
“Oh…”
“Goodbye, Noriko.” He leaned in, his familiar cologne rushing around my head, making me dizzy. His lips brushed mine, as softly as they did that morning after we first made love. That first kiss was a hello. This one…
This was goodbye.
His presence left my side so suddenly that I swayed.
His feet crushed the gravel as he practically ran from me, as if he was desperate to leave.
As if being near me gave him pain.
Of course it would.
As he slid into the car, my poor heart stuttered, crying for him to come back. My soul tried to rip itself out of my body to chase after him as he disappeared from sight in a cloud of dust. I couldn’t make my feet move. My vision became a whirl of color, of blurry dabs, like a Monet too close up.
I realized what was special about today.
It was our one year anniversary.
I waited, glaring at the divorce papers sitting in the corner of my room every time I passed them. I didn’t sign them. Not yet.
I hadn’t reapplied to study, I hadn’t looked for a job. Because I didn’t think I’d be staying.
I still clung to him.
It wasn’t over.
It couldn’t be.
He’d be back. Once he realized I wouldn’t sign them. He’d realize his mistake and come back. He’d miss me and want to sort things out and he’d come back.
One week turned into two. Still no sign from Drake.
I couldn’t deny the truth anymore.
We were over.
I pulled the papers in front of me on the low dining room table one afternoon when I was alone at home. Drake’s signature was already on the bottom. It was just like him, all aggressive and sharp lines, indents in the paper where he’d used a heavy hand. I traced his name with my finger and let out a huff.
How did my sacrifice turn into my salvation? How did my salvation turn into my sorrow?
I let go of the last strains of hope. I lowered the pen slowly to the paper.
Gravel crunched outside.
Oh my God.
That sound.
Drake.
Before I knew it, I was flying, sprinting so hard my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I tumbled out the front door. A black car was pulling up outside the gate. The windows were tinted. I couldn’t see in.
Drake. Drake came back.
The door opened. My stomach jammed up into my throat.
Then dropped.
It was Hideki, the same driver from when Drake came. Where was Drake? Hideki hurried towards me as I rushed towards him. We met in the middle of the path.
“Hideki?”
He held out a phone to me.
I grabbed it and held it to my ear. “Drake?”
“Noriko?” It wasn’t Drake’s voice that answered. It was a female voice, one I didn’t recognize. “You and I have never met,” she said in English. “My name is Sam, I’m Drake’s personal assistant. We need you to come home.”
“But…” home, “I am home,” I said slowly.
“I know you haven’t signed the divorce papers.”
I stiffened. “What business is that of yours?”
“Drake needs you. Please, if you still carry any affection for him. He’s… He’s had a heart attack.”
56
____________
Drake
That annoying beeping broke through my darkness. Stupid alarm. Or was it? It sounded familiar. I attempted to get my eyes open. They were stuck. My body ached. As I came to consciousness I could feel the scratchy material of the bed underneath me.
What had I been doing before? What was the last thing I remember?
Oh right. I was in the limo o
n the way to a meeting. I’d been talking to Felipe when…
The flash of pain echoed in my left side and my left arm tingled.
Damn, heart. Stop messing around and just kill me already.
Finally my eyes peeled apart. My corneas stung as too much light flooded into my sensitive pupils. God, why do they have to make hospitals so damn bright and white?
There was a blurry figure by my side, slowly coming into focus.
Noriko.
My heart skipped a beat and I swear I heard it in the machine.
I was dreaming. Or perhaps I truly was dead.
“Drake?” her sweet voice trembled around my name. “Can you hear me?”
More of the room came into focus; the machines by my side, the table opposite covered in loud, obnoxious flower arrangements, more crowding the floor. I could smell the sickly-syrup scent of lilies as if I were at a funeral.
This wasn’t heaven. I wasn’t dead.
Which means she was really here. I refocused on Noriko. Her hair was loose around her sweetheart face, her eyes looked red and swollen, and she worried her bottom lip with her tiny white teeth. She looked as stunning as the day she stumbled into my limo and into my world, as precious as the day I handed her divorce papers.
Longing ripped through my heart as violent as the attack that put me in this hospital bed. I winced, my fingers curling into the sheets so I didn’t reach out for her. The beeping of the machine beside me increased in pace, making my reaction at seeing her again obvious. Sweat appeared, cold on my forehead. I felt raw and vulnerable. Why didn’t I strip naked down to my heart in front of her and throw myself under her feet? Why didn’t I hand over my fucking soul for her to crush again?
Her eyes welled with pity—pity—and anger turned to a boil inside me. Look at me, the great Drake Blackwell, reduced to a pathetic weak pup in a hospital bed. Look at the envied Drake Blackwell all alone and unloved in his hospital room, the only person guilted into being by his side was his ex-wife. Screw her. I didn’t need her pity.
“Get out,” I growled, my voice cracking over my dry throat.
Shock flittered over her delicate features. “Drake, I—”