My Forged Marriage (COMPLETE)

Chapter Fifteen

Even as the rain fell, Yamato didn’t let go. It wasn’t until a loud clap of thunder sounded over us that he took us up to the apartment. I had gone back into my defensive state like I was in at the bar and Yamato surprised me by lifting me up in this arms and carrying me up to the apartment. Once there, he carried me into the bedroom and sat me down on the bed.

            “I’ll get you a towel so you can dry off and then you can change,” he said, walking out of the room.

While he was gone, more thunder rang above the apartment and I slid to the ground, hands clasped tightly over my ears. Normally I was so carful to keep watch on the wreathing, ensuring that I would be prepared for situations like this, but since living with Yamato I hadn’t even thought about that. I had become so comfortable in my new living style that all my old habits seemed to have changed completely. Everything I did now was to make Yamato happy and to see him smile.

Out of nowhere, I felt something fall onto my head and another thing fall into my lap. Looking up, I saw Yamato looking down at me.

            “Scoot up,” he said, sitting down on the floor with me.

Doing as he said, I scooted forward so he could sit behind me. The thing that he had dropped on my head was a towel and the thing in my lap was a pair of headphones.

            “I figured you could use this,” he held up a music player, “to drown out the sounds of thunder,”

I put the headphones over my ears as he plugged them into the music player. The first thing that played was one of my favorite piano pieces.

            “I love this song,” I smiled as I began to dry my hair.

            “I know,” he said, pulling me against him so I couldn’t see his face, “you left the music out one day after you got something out of your bag,”

            “So you went and downloaded it?”

            “I just wanted to hear what it sounded like,” I could tell he was really blushing now, “I’m a science teacher, not a music teacher. Sheet music just looks like a bunch of mixed up symbols to me,”

Laughing a bit, I leaned my head against his chest. This was like how we were at the bar, except he was going above and beyond to make me feel better. As one song finished and the next one began, I heard him ask me something.

            “Why are you afraid of storms?”

Yet another question that was going to be difficult to answer. It was complicated, but yet somehow easy to explain all at the same time. But I was still quiet for a while before I could answer.

            “My father was a good man,” I began quietly as a new, sad song began, “a brilliant husband, father, and an even better contractor. He inspired me to do so much and was always there for me when I needed him. But just like with my mother, he had his secrets. He was hurting inside, but he chose to keep it to himself because he didn’t want to ruin the happiness the rest of our family had. We didn’t know what was going on until it was too late…

            “I had just turned fourteen and was on my way home from a friend’s house. It was getting close to our high school entrance exams and we had wanted to get into a good school together, so we stayed up pretty late studying. My brother Kyo was at his friend’s house doing whatever it was twelve year old boys did. Mom was at her book club that day and wouldn’t be home until at least early evening, so I figured I’d have the house to myself.

            “What I didn’t realize was that my dad had stayed home from work. It was weird when they told us that later on because he had always been such a hardworking man. He believed that if you started something you needed to finish it. It had started to rain when I was walking home and I had forgotten my umbrella, so I ran home. I used to love how the rain sounded along with the thunder and the flash of lighting. It always made me seem like a giant war was happening right above my head and I would always pick sides; maybe the thunder would win this battle, or maybe the lightning would be triumphant.