Seven Days

I peeled an apple and cut slices to feed to Tia, focusing more on my task than the hospital noise around us. He was leaving at the end of the week. My husband of a day or so was leaving me, and all of a sudden I didn’t know the answer to the last question he had said this morning.

“Sera, I can take you with me, but you probably wouldn’t be able to return to your sister before some years pass. If you choose to stay, I can only promise I’ll return when your sister is completely taken care of. Which means it will either be when she’s 18, or married. Sera, the choice is up to you. Are you coming with me, or willing to wait for me?”

“Nee-chan, I hope you’re not wasting your days off just to visit me. The doctors told me you spent all visiting hours with me yesterday, and that you spent all day with me the day before. You are enjoying your vacation, right?” Tia’s brown eyes looked at me worriedly, and I could tell the doctors hadn’t said anything about my husband. For some reason, I couldn’t tell her either, and I found myself not really wanting to tell her. So I just gave her a grin, and shoved an apple slice in her mouth.

“Keep talking like that and I won’t sneak in a pickle for you later.”


Yes, my sweet wonderful sister loves sour things. She’ll take a giant bite out of a big sour pickle, and get a look of bliss so sweet it looks as if she’d just tasted the ambrosia of the gods.

We talked about things we hadn’t before. She talked about the stuff she wanted to do in the future, what she really would like to try, and the stuff she wanted to do with me. Surprisingly, she told me she wanted to be a singer. She’d been hitting the English books so much I thought she wanted to be a linguist or a translator. Turns out she’d been learning the language to figure out lyrics and rhyme. Even more surprising is that she wanted me to do it with her. She said that some girl in her school was searching for people to start a band, and she wanted Tia to be one of the singers. The girl already had some songs planned and some names of people to look up. I looked up when the nurse knocked at the door, disbelieving that it was really time fro visitors to go home. The setting sun put an end to that question. I hugged her gently and said good bye.

I walked out of the hospital, and saw a sleek black Jag idling on the curb, my guy leaning against the side. He smiled, and opened the side door. I glared, but slid in. He shut the door, and circled round the front to his side. He gave me a kiss as he took his seat, and after asking me if I felt like eating out, drove me to a shop. I had said yes, so when he pulled up to a designer boutique, I looked over at him with a question on my lips. He put his finger to them, and said to just humor him.

I walked into the shop wearing jeans and a tank. I walked out wearing a dress that felt like clouds, and clung only briefly to my body before floating to the ground in a pearlescent glow. My hair was swept up, then allowed a casual fall, curling as it did. I wore a soft scent, much like lavender or lilac. My sneakers had been traded for heeled sandals with straps that clung to my ankles. I felt like a princess, and courtesy of a quick look in the mirror, looked like an angel.

Dinner was at a restaurant overlooking the sea, with enclosed private bubbles of soft lighting and quiet music. The windows let in the view, but were set so that no one could look in. The table wasn’t tiny, but nor was it huge. It was sized for two, and all throughout the meal, he would brush my arm, or take my hand, or lean forward for a brief kiss.

We returned to his suite, and I spent the night in his arms. We managed to make it to the bed for the first time that night, but went to the shower to clean my hair and enjoy the tub again before falling asleep in the bed once more. I didn’t give him a reply.


The next morning I woke to him slowly waking me up, and it ended with me watching him come apart beneath me as I rode him to the oblivion we craved. He phone for room service to make breakfast, and he ate it off of me. After another shower, he offered to drive me to the hospital, but I turned him down, saying I expected him in street clothes for tonight. I left with a smile on my face, and left him with an exasperated one since I wouldn’t tell him why.

Tia’s friend was there when I showed up. She was bubbly, talked fast, and twisted your mind over, under and sideways before giving you time to process what she said, if you were still capable of processing. I liked her. Her name was Risca, and she had a heart arrhythmia that caused her to go into cardiac arrest if she listened to the wrong songs. I didn’t know how that worked, but since she had the hospital records to prove it, I didn’t ask. She talked about her band, and how she would just love to have the two of us sing in it. She had a girl who would work the magic back stage and with the sound, a guy who could drum like a god, and some names lined up for guitarist. She was also tracking down some base player she heard play one night at an underground live. She left after an hour, and I suddenly felt as if I needed a nap, or a triple espresso. I looked at Tia, and we both started laughing.

I left around lunch, figuring I could get back in time to say good night and catch my guy as visiting hours ended. I took a train to when my gang usually haunts, and was greeted to the sight of them doing exactly as they usually do to kill time. We refurbished a couple pool tables, and after many searches found two full sets of billiard balls and quite a few extras. Everyone found their own pool cues, or what could pass as them. I myself had my favorite stick which was probably once the inside of an umbrella. A really big umbrella. Sakura grinned at me over her game console, and some of the guys waved from the tables. I whistled between my teeth, and they all drifted over, wondering what was up.

I told them the circumstances of Tia, and my plans now that she was going into high school. I couldn’t skip any more days, not if I wanted to graduate in time to help her out, and I can’t keep running with the gang without getting her attention. I was passing temp leadership to Sakura, and they could decide who would really rule later. I said that I expected them to keep to the rules I had laid down, and that I was trusting them to follow up on them. I could tell by their faces they would, but they didn’t really know why I was pulling out. I clasped hands, hugged, and knocked fists with everyone, and headed out of there.

I stared out the windows of the train, and knew that I got out of there easy. So many other gangs beat their leaving member to smithereens, grinding them to bloody pulps. Usually they were even worse on their leaders, but I guess I did right by having them. I knew that given the chance, Morita and Takuni would have both liked a go at me, in the bed or in the ring, and probably at the same time. Sakura was quieter than me, but far more deadly with a knife, and she had an honor streak that you typically only saw with the yakuza. I knew they would be fine with her in charge.

I popped back into the hospital, and told Tia that I wouldn’t be missing any more days of school, and whenever she was released we would be going together.

That night, I took him to a typical date. A slasher movie which ended up in both of us laughing the whole time at the absurdity of it, followed by a ramen shop stop. I had three bowls, he had ten. I was teasing him about his empty stomach as we headed to the beach. He brought a blanket, so we stretched out, listening to the waves and staring at the sky. I looked over and saw he was watching me.

“What do you think about, when you stare at the stars? You look so entranced and far away from me.” I looked at him, the moonlight washing out his naturally dark skin. I knew I practically glowed in the moonlight, my skin was so pale.

“I think about how it goes on forever, starlight I mean. Those stars are so very far away, but somehow their light reaches us, and we see eternity in a brief twinkle.” He studied me, his face thoughtful. Then he leaned over, and kissed me tenderly.

I don’t think he really knew how to respond to that.

The rest of the week was spent in a kind of pattern. I’d wake up to a great breakfast with him, go and visit Tia in the hospital. Risca would whirl around us and entrance us in her band idea, then sweep out and leave me and Tia giggling. Lunchtime I’d run to the school to get make up work and assignments to complete, and return to the hospital, sneaking in a couple pickles that would get confiscated as I was handing them over, leading to a mock battle with the nurse while Tia dissolved on the bed, laughing. We’d both do schoolwork until visiting hours ended, and I’d leave to find him waiting for me. He’d take me somewhere, and we’d have a great time, then we’d return to his place and he’d knock my socks off.

All too soon, the end of the week came, and he sat on the terrace, holding me as the sun began to lighten the world once more. He said that if I left to go to the hospital, I’d have to be back by lunch if I was going with him. The time had come for my choice.


I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go with him. How could one week change me so much? I had gone from a gang leader to a loving wife, in less than a month. How had that happened? Reality was, however, the thing I had to satisfy. He did say he was coming back.


He made love to me one last time, and it was achingly tender, a promise for forever, for eternity. I clung to him and cried. He left me in the bedroom alone, to take a shower. I joined him, and we had rough, hurting sex in the shower, each demanding, each wanting more, and both of us only longing for more time. I walked out alone, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, the morning sun shining in and making him glow. I walked out, and down the elevator, and into a cab. Only when I was safely in my own bed at home did I break down and cry my heart out.