“It is not for my own sake…”
Why does she persist? I raise my hand to stop her. Have I been waiting for Yumi-chan’s fullness, or have I been holding her back, wishing she would become a woman she is not?
Most often we can know the right choice because it is the most difficult. Most often we take the easier path anyway. Seeing her reminds me who I ought to be. Her talent and her dedication inspire me. I will do this for her. Yes. It is time to push the bird from the nest.
I set down my teacup with finality so she will know she has been judged. “So you would send me to perform love’s tender gifts because you will not do them with your own hands.”
“I have done what I could for him, Senpai, but he needs more than I can give him.”
“You mean to say that he needs more than you choose to give him.” I can see her shock, her anger. She tries to hide it, tries to listen. “And you have left him in the care of one who you see as inadequate for him.”
“Yes, Senpai, and he needs—”
I cut her off. She only shames herself by talking.
“And where you have come and gone, this second woman has stayed.” She lowers her eyes in shame only briefly, and when they rise, I see fire in them. “So doing, she gives him more than I can and more than you will.”
“I have—”
“You had a choice, Yumi-chan, and you made your choice. No one can change that choice, and only you can make it.”
Now she has become her anger. Good. She is ready. Her anger speaks.
“I chose no differently than you.”
“And yet you try to straddle two paths while I walk the one I have chosen. You act like a child, Yumi-chan. It is time for you to let go of childish things.”
“I did not come here to be judged.”
“Then you came to the wrong place.”
“I will not make that mistake again, Kazaharu-san.”
“So be it.” Flap your wings, little bird! Flap your wings and fly!
--Henry--
Dear Diary,
Please convey to Gretchen my desperately earnest apology for breaking into her apartment to read you. I needed to be absolutely certain that what she said about Hellen was true. I should have trusted her, I know, but I wanted my life with Hellen to be real so badly that I denied it.
I am old. I feel it deep within my heart: barely thirty, and already old. I have seen and done amazing things, and I am grateful for my success. It’s all wrong, or at least it isn’t right. The only thing I ever wanted was a normal life.
Hellen was my chance, probably my last chance, to get off this nauseating Ferris wheel. I wanted to go home. I wanted to have a home to go to. In order to believe what Gretchen said, I had to accept that I never will. That was a bitter pill to swallow, but now I have.
Please also try to convince her that her soul is dazzlingly beautiful beyond her ability to comprehend. The arc of her life rises like a star in the East. She can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. There are no limits to what she might become. Rather, her only limit is me.
I have done the best I could for her, but I will never be enough. I float scattered like dandelion seeds on the wind, and she flies free like a bird. She mustn’t follow me. I go nowhere. All the rest of my life will be more of the same. It will look good on paper, and some of its days may live well. It will never truly change. I will never be more than I am. Tell her, please, beg her to let go of me and to rise.
That is why I have done for her the things I have. I first met her only as a simple kindness. Day by day, I began to see the miracles inside her waiting to be real. If, at the Final Judgment, it is said that I played some small part in her success, that alone will secure my place in Glory. If it is said that I turned her light to shine on only me, then I will be damned.
I know the day will come when she realizes who she is and never needs me again. On that day, I will have done my Duty in a way most men never can, though they work their whole lives at it.
Tell her that I’m sorry.
- HH
PS: The heart repairs its memories, but only if you let it. Burn anything it writes down.
As soon as he finished writing, he snapped the book closed, shoved it under the mattress where he found it, and put away his pen. He stopped at the bedroom’s door and stood staring at the bed’s corner. His eyes set anchor on that mattress, mooring him in place from under his furrowed brow. When they broke free, he saw his pen back in his hand. He clipped it into his coat pocket a second time and left.
Excerpt from Chosen Path
Either I was mistaken to leave him, or I am mistaken to go back. I can no longer consider myself a woman who does not make mistakes. Neither am I self-conscious, nor do I dress for the benefit of others, and yet I feel silly walking up out of the subway wearing a kimono. That contradiction scares me in a way I do not understand. At least I am still a woman who faces her fears.
It must be Sunday. There are too many people on the street for a weekday. Also, I would be at work. My situational awareness is poor. I must take care not to walk past Kosei’s building. I know this insomnia impairs my judgment, so perhaps I am wrong about doing this. I don’t think I am. I know I have missed him ever since I left. I remember having been able to sleep occasionally since then and still missing him. I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things. I know that now. I’m not just desperate.
Which implies that I am, in fact, desperate. I am. I’m desperate to be able to sleep again. I know that, and I still believe I am making the right decision. Being aware of our biases helps us to mitigate their effects.
I’m not just desperate. I do love him, and I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things. Kazaharu-san was right that I had been unwilling to make a decision between career and family. Lots of women juggle both, even with children, but fundamentally one or the other has to come first. For me it has always been career, without question, any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I think today is Sunday.
Between practicing law and entertaining, career easily devoured almost all of me. I suppose I had two careers. I suppose they did have all of me.
This is his building. The door code is still the same as it was years ago.
My decision is not which will come first. I have to give up one of those careers. No, like many of my thoughts today, that’s not true. He wouldn’t mind me booking engagements as a geisha. Only the sex concerned him. But if you’re going to play by the rules, why bother? It wouldn’t be the same. For me, the thrill has always been the con—to see how far I can push a man’s judgment beyond what he knows to be unreasonable. Approaching as a geisha is simply one of my opening gambits. Only sex can truly destroy a man.
I am ready to give that up for him, all those years of careful study and practice. I am ready to let go. I am ready to compromise. I am ready to love harder than I work. I am not ready to knock on his door.
How long have I been standing here? It bothers me that I don’t know. Too often lately I realize where I am and cannot remember how I got there. Those must be the moments in which I sleep.
It was a heavy thud against the inside of his door that woke me. I’m preening like a schoolgirl. Put your hand down, Yumi. The door remains closed. Maybe there was no thud. Maybe I dreamt it.
No, it was real. Lightly pressing my ear to the door, I can hear a woman’s heartbeat, no one I know. It’s racing, and either she is very tall or her feet aren’t touching the ground. A slight moan escapes her throat, and her body lurches against the door again. I recognize it now. It’s him. It’s the same intermittent cadence, the same pauses and shuffles.
He never did that to me. I should be the one on the other side of that door. A reflexive twitch of lustful anticipation turns to resentment and anger and other feelings for which I cannot remember the names. I need to leave.
A subway station? That must be my train pulling away. How long have I been standing here? There will be another train in 15 minutes. When you miss a train, another come
s—not so with people.
I feel in my gut the hard truth that there is more between me and Kosei now than a door. I should have anticipated that he would be seeing someone. He is a handsome man. He is also lighthearted, relaxed, casual. I need that. I need him back. His bed was the only place where I ever felt I could rest, the only place I can still get to anyway.
I will be able to take him back from her, whoever she is, but it will require some preparation. I must first discover my adversary. Nothing can be left to chance. She could be anyone.
I want him back so badly that I can smell his scent as if he were nearby. I’ve started seeing things lately too, little defects in the corners of my vision. It must be my lack of sleep. My situation is untenable.
“Oh, your kimono is so lovely!” I should thank the woman next to me for her compliment, but I already don’t like her. It’s only because I envy her. She seems so free and natural, so casual and peaceful. Maybe she only feels good because she had sex. There is more than that though, maybe the engagement ring. It’s a beautiful ring.
“Thank you so much,” she says. “My boyfriend—my fiancé—just gave it to me today!” I wonder how much I said out loud. “It’s a dream come true,” she continues. “I’ve never met anyone like him. Is that our train?” Another is coming, but it won’t stop here. The local just left.
“No,” I answer. “The express.” The slightest moan escapes her in her disappointment. It echoes in my mind with the sound of Kosei’s lover, matching perfectly. I must be delusional, thinking this girl could possibly be the one. She is far too young, too frivolous, too modern. Her tank top and cutoffs are generic enough, but she wears glitter in her nail polish and has a little tattoo of a turtle behind her ear. Kosei wouldn’t be attracted to a girl like that.
She is an idiot. She wears her purse far too casually for how expensive it is. It must have been a gift from another idiot, but she doesn’t hold it as if it came from her idiot boyfriend.
The purse doesn’t bother me. I’ve seen plenty of old money wasted on oblivious girls. I have always taken care not to be one of them, not to be oblivious. The turtle offends me. That particular design is a ka-mon, a family emblem, Yoshimitsu to be precise. I can only infer that she likes turtles, because this girl is no Yoshimitsu. Kids today have no respect.
She jumps a little when her phone chirps and the purse inevitably falls. Once she digs her phone out of it, she doesn’t even stand before checking the message. It must be from her idiot boyfriend. His phone number is the same as Kosei’s.
She screams as she tumbles forward, right in front of the express train. I’ve never seen it happen before, but suicide by train is not uncommon. I wish people wouldn’t do that. It always throws off the scheduled service. It must make quite a mess for the maintenance people, too. Deafening shrieks of emergency brakes crowd out the echoes of her scream. At least there is one less idiot in the world.
It doesn’t make sense, though. She was so happy to be engaged. Why would she kill herself? She didn’t plan to. Even delirious as I am, I would have noticed suicidal intent in her mannerisms.
I feel sorry for her fiancé, for Kosei. He deserves better; I would never hurt him like she has. The thought of it makes me angry at her, but anger never solves anything. I wish I could go to him, to console him, but first I have to get rid of his lover somehow.
Wait. What just happened?
I need to leave.
---
For more information about upcoming works, please visit www.jwhitneywilliams.com.
About the Author
A mathematician by training and computer programmer by trade, J. Whitney Williams lives and works under the X in Texas, thinking too much and speaking too little.
www.jwhitneywilliams.com
Table of Contents
Author’s Preface
Prologue
Chapter One – Push for Ice
Chapter Two – Shipping and Receiving
Chapter Three – An Artist and a Prop
Chapter Four – Everything She Ever Wanted
Chapter Five – A Day at the Beach
Chapter Six – Choose Your Words Carefully
Chapter Seven – I Hate Paris
Chapter Eight – Water and Stone
Chapter Nine – The Present
Epilogue
Excerpt from Chosen Path
About the Author
Carried Away Page 20