LENA
“Do you want to come to the meeting with me?” I asked Amos.
He shook his head no.
“What? You’re not dying to meet Amira Farouk? She’s super hot, not to mention very talented. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he said, fighting a laugh.
“But, why? I mean, when are you ever going to meet a Hollywood actress?”
“Listen,” he said, scooting closer to me in the water of the ofuro. “This is your meeting. This is your thing, and I just don’t want to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t—and by that, I mean I wouldn’t let you monopolize my meeting. You’re not dying to meet her?”
He shrugged and gave me a playful smile. “All I really want is right here in this house.” He winked.
Oh. He always had a way of looking at me and talking about me like I was the center of the universe.
His career was unfolding in this house, and so was our relationship.
Sometimes I felt a bit undeserving of the depth of his affection, but I did care for him, too. It was no longer just a physical attraction; sometimes I wondered if it had ever just been that or if I had been lying to myself all along. I did care for him. He was the best part of my days. In fact, care wasn’t a strong enough word.
“I think I love you.” The words came out before I realized what I was saying, and my eyes widened in horror.
He seemed to be taken aback and sensed my distress immediately.
He wrapped an arm around me.
“Take a deep breath, Lena. If that was unintentional—and I know it most likely was—it’s no big deal. I’ll pretend I didn’t even hear you, no questions asked.” I searched for traces of humor in his voice, but there were none.
I could have easily shrugged it off and pretended it was an accident, but that would have been unfair to him.
I might have been new at feelings and relationships, but if there was something I didn’t approve of, it was playing with someone’s heart. Holding the gaze of the man in front of me, I looked for the answer in mine. By the way my heart swelled in my chest, I knew my words weren’t just a slip of the tongue.
“No, I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen, Amos. That would be a lie, and I don’t lie, ever.”
He gave me a long look, his eyes full of questions and an emotion I hadn’t seen before.
“I sure hadn’t planned on telling you while we were both naked in a tub, but it is true. I do love you.”
His lips were on mine almost immediately, stealing my breath away.
His kiss grew from shy and soft to deep and maddening, and he stopped only when we were both out of breath.
“You don’t have to say it back. So, rest easy.” See, I could be uncomplicated when I wanted to. But, Amos St. Clair seemed to find my words funny as he tried to hold back a laugh.
“Don’t ruin this for me, Lena.” He laced his fingers with mine and looked at our connected hands, bringing them atop my knees.
“What do you mean? I just want to make sure you don’t feel obligated to say something back.”
“Sometimes I think you really don’t realize what you mean to me.”
I stared at him in confusion. I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t you know that I haven’t been able to get you out of my head ever since the very first kiss we had? You really don’t know that I’ve wanted you for months, if not years? That I felt like a liar and a cheat when I was falling for you and I still had a girlfriend? For the longest time, I tried to tell myself I just wanted your body.”
I looked down then, not knowing where he was going with this. Was it just a physical attraction on his part? Was I an obsession, or did he really want me?
He lifted my chin with a finger.
“But it’s always been more than a physical thing. You have been under my skin for a long time, Lena Andrews, and the more I tried to convince myself I didn’t need you, the more I tried to tell myself I didn’t love you…the more I fell in love with you.”
I let out a deep breath and wondered if he could feel how nervous I was, how fast my heart was beating. I didn’t engage in conversation about the subject of love. It wasn’t my thing.
But with him, it was different. With him, everything was different.
“The connection I’ve felt with you since the beginning…it’s hard to explain. I don’t know if I can,” he added in a pensive tone.
I knew what he meant, because I had felt it too. Since the very first night, the silliest, most naïve part of me had thought we were meant to be together.
“It hurts me that you don’t think I love you, because I do. Maybe I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid you’d push me away again.”
I stared into his eyes, two black pools I was ready to swim in, and I wanted to instinctively reply yes. But, I didn’t say a word, and we just sat still, in silence, looking at each other.
“I love you, Lena. I have for a while now.”
I leaned in and gave him a small peck on the lips. Look at us, being sweet and romantic, my sarcastic side was dying to say.
“Do you really love me?” he asked sheepishly. He looked adorable.
“I really, really love you. You’re the first person I’ve ever said that to.”
“And I’ll be the last,” he said with a maddening grin.
“There you go being cocky again.” He stole a kiss and when he pulled back I said with a dreamy sigh, “Maybe, if you play your cards right.”
He took me in his arms just as a crimson blush took over my face.
This was all new to me.
I fucked; I didn’t talk about love. I got naked with strangers, but I didn’t get intimate.
But, for Amos St. Clair, I crossed every single one of my boundaries.
AMOS
In the middle of summer, we started working on the second volume of Aiko. Rika still had on days and off days, but overall, we seemed to move along without too much trouble.
Lena had become very protective of her, always checking to make sure she was okay. Today, Rika-san wanted to go lie down. She’d said it was because she wanted to go out to see the Tanabata fireworks, but I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth.
I’d learned of the legend of Tanabata through Hiroyuki. He loved telling old Japanese folktales.
Tanabata is a festival of the stars, originating from the Chinese Qixi festival. It celebrates the annual meeting of two gods, Orihime and Hikoboshi, represented by the stars Vega and Altair, which had been separated by the Milky Way and were able to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar year.
Ever since Rika had disappeared to her room, Lena’s mood had gone awry.
Things were still good between us, but from time to time, I noticed her mood would change dramatically, as if she still couldn’t let go of whatever it was that had been troubling her in the past.
She still hadn’t told me, and I hadn’t forced her to.
“Admit it, you’re fond of Rika-san,” I teased Lena, poking her with my freshly sharpened pencil.
“Ouch!” She glared at me. “No, I’m not. She’s a pain in the ass.”
“You lie. I see the way you look at her. I’ve never seen you look at anyone that way.” It was true. Although she got on her nerves sometimes, there was a look of utter and complete adoration in Lena’s eyes.
“Well, what do you expect?” Her eyes narrowed on me, her hand massaging her skin where I’d just poked her. “She was my idol growing up.”
“She still is.”
“She still is,” she repeated.
“You care for her. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that.” She just shrugged, her lips pressed in a tight line, her eyes suddenly full of sadness. “Caring for people is not a tragedy, Lena.”
“People don’t end up so well when I get too close to them.” She shot me a worried look.
“You can’t possibly believe that,” I argued.
“I do. You’ve only really known me about a year. Bad things happen to people when they get too close to me. It’s happened before.”
“What are you trying to say? Something bad is going to happen to me? Yeah, I’m having a terrible time with you—worst time of my life,” I joked. “Marty and Violet? Yeah, you’re completely right. Everything that’s been happening to them lately sucks. I’m sure it’s all your fault they are in love, got married, and are about to have a baby.”
“I have reasons for believing it. You might have your reasons for arguing my point.” Lena gave me an uneasy look and lowered her eyes to the sketchpad in front of her.
“It’s a very stupid reason.”
“You can say what you want, but I know what I think is true.”
“And I think you’re wrong, and here is why. You’ve cared about Marty and Violet for years, and guess what? Nothing awful has happened to them. In fact, this might be the happiest they’ve ever been. So, if you’re trying to tell me you’ve convinced yourself you have some kind of curse on you, well…you’re dead wrong. I know it, and deep down inside, you know it, too. I know something must have happened for you to believe you’re bad news, but you’re wrong.”
Her hands were trembling, and the pencil she’d been holding fell onto the pad. She looked away, a curtain of her hair hiding her eyes from me.
“Can you please just…stop, Amos?” she asked in a choked voice.
“What happened to you, Lena? What happened to you that made you believe you’re better off on your own?”
“I can’t talk about this now,” she said in a whisper.
“I’m sorry, but we’re talking about it now.”
She turned and stared at me, eyes filled with rage and tears, but didn’t say a word.
She stood up and marched to her room.
I followed her, ignoring her pleas to leave her alone.
The last few weeks she’d been happy, joyous even. This was a completely different Lena, and I didn’t understand what I had done or what had happened for her to suddenly be in such a bad mood.
“What has gotten into you today?” I asked, reaching for her hand. She tried to retract it at first, but then she let me hold it, and she didn’t push me away when I tried to hold her.
“Today would have been my best friend’s birthday. She would have been thirty-three.”
“How did she die?”
“She got run over by a car…here in Tokyo, on our very last night here, and it’s all because of me. It’s all my fault. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
I pulled her into my arms as hot tears sprang from her eyes. I held her as close as I could while she suffocated her sobs against me, her tears wetting the skin of my neck. I held her to me as long as she let me, unable to do anything else to soothe her pain. It reminded me of when my brother died and there was nothing I could do to console my mother.
“I am so sorry, Lena. I am so very sorry, but it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault,” I said, trying to reassure her.
“It’s my fault,” she repeated over and over as I rocked her back and forth in my arms. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said in a raspy voice once her tears stopped.
I kissed her head.
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“I’m so afraid I will.”
LENA
I felt so embarrassed about my meltdown.
I had sworn to myself I wasn’t going to act like that while I was there, but when I realized what date it was—July 7th—I rapidly fell into a hole I couldn’t get out of.
Yes, work had been exhausting, but I had been so happy lately. Amos and I spent every minute we could together.
He’d been a partner first, and then had become my friend and my lover. He was such an integral part of my life that it was hard to imagine without him in it.
Still, the memories of my past knew how to haunt me mercilessly.
Maggie’s birthday coincided with Tanabata, the star festival that takes place every year on July 7th.
The streets were lined with happy, festive decorations, just as they’d been that year when we were living there.
I told Amos the whole story as we lay in my room, side by side.
He brushed my hair away from my face and ran a finger along my cheek. His touch comforted me, but the ache in my chest wouldn’t go away.
I told him everything, including why I had been so obsessed with Aiko having an ending. I wanted Aiko Uemura to get the happy ending Maggie never got.
I’d never told Rika Ishikawa why I’d started to sketch her manga to begin with.
Amos insisted I should tell her I was doing it for my friend.
“I’m afraid I’m going to drive you away,” I whispered.
“You won’t.”
I told him about my tattoo, the numbers four and seven in Japanese characters, the date of Maggie’s death. He ran a finger over it, and I shivered.
“You know what the craziest part is? I always thought hit-and-runs were over-the-top dramatized. Then I saw my best friend get run over. The car pinned her to the light pole on the sidewalk.”
“I’m so sorry, Lena.”
“It’s all my fault, Amos. It was my idea to go back to the store. If I had listened to her, she might still be alive.”
“You can’t keep thinking about it like that. You weren’t the one driving the car. It’s not your fault she got run over.”
“I just remember standing there, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach her. I never got to hug her one last time.” I lifted my tear-stained face to look at him. “You never got to hug your brother one last time, either.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded, lips pursed, and I tried to think about everything else I wanted to tell him.
“What happened after she got run over? Did you call the police?”
I shook my head. “I told you, I was frozen in place. I couldn’t move. When the light changed, I got hit by another oncoming car. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t. Tragic and unfortunate, yes, but not ridiculous.”
“I’ve been bearing this guilt for the last twelve years. I don’t think I will ever be able to get over it.”
“You need to try. You need to forgive yourself. Maggie would want you to. I know you think you’re still mourning her, but you’re doing her a disservice by living a half-life. She wouldn’t want you to keep blaming yourself.”
Later that evening, Rika-san insisted I wear a yukata, the traditional summer kimono, to attend the firework show.
I didn’t wear geta, though. Apparently Akane had looked everywhere for a pair of Japanese wooden flip-flops that would be big enough for my big American feet, but she couldn’t find any. So, I ended up wearing flats with my beautiful blue crane-patterned kimono and a mustard-gold obi belt.
“You know, in the US they would accuse me of cultural appropriation.”
“Uso!” she said, not believing me. Uso meant, You’re lying. I smiled, thinking how much I loved Japanese slang.
“Well, here we just want you to look pretty for the festival.” Akane and Hiroyuki welcomed me with a chorus of kawaii—which meant cute in Japanese and I felt my cheeks redden. However, their appreciative smiles were nothing compared to the look on Amos’ face when he saw me dressed to the nines.
My eyes were still lightly puffy from crying, but I had done a good enough job at hiding it with makeup.
“You look beautiful,” he said. He leaned down and kissed my cheek, ignoring everyone else in the room. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Rika’s surprised face. When our eyes met, she gave me a knowing look and a small smile. I shyly looked away, and took Amos’ hand in mine.
“Thank you.”
That evening, Amos and I walked hand in hand through the cheery, well-dressed crowd gathered along the Sumida River to watch the firework show along with our Japanese friends. Between the decorations, the kimonos, and the fireworks, it was a kaleidoscope of colors.
Hope and happiness bloomed in my chest.
My heart still ached for the friend I had lost, but I was starting to believe Amos was right. I couldn’t live the rest of my life the way I had been living it.
I needed to honor her life with my own by living it fully.