Two more after this. I can't believe the time and emotion people are investing in this story. It really means so much to me, more than I can say.
Houshi Lover - Er...well, she has a lot of reasons...you want to give him more huggles?Klutz82 - I live for the excitement. I post now! dances to the record player
Pirategirl90 - Thank you so much. And then more than that. I'm sorry I made you cry, but also kind of not sorry - I consider it a real achievement that my story would end up being so...strong for you. Thank you for reading it. :) I would have updated sooner, but I'm lazy...oops...
Vilja - O.o Happy ending? Well...I won't say anything. I'm glad I got you, though. ;)p I'm not that predictable.
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12 - Folding
"I started to cry/ which started the whole world laughing/ Oh if I'd only seen/ That the joke was on me." - Bee Gees
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I don't know what's happening.
There's an eruption, like the earth is collapsing, and there are flashes, like an atomic sun.
Naraku pulls me up, pulls me over to stand behind the $1.5 million in cash that I've just won, and he poses, shaking my right, rosary-ringed hand. There's one last pulse, and then it's gone.
Naraku leans close.
"If you ever try to compete in this again, if you ever step into my hotel again, that time the curse will be unbreakable."
I drag numb fingers across the beads, and they suddenly break from the string...leaving my hand open, and my palm whole.
"Hold it up for the cameras!"
What's happening? I don't understand.
"This is history! Never before have a husband and wife team taken first and second in an event like this!"
"Can we get you two together?"
"There's a baby on the way, when's it due?"
"Let's get a congratulatory kiss!"
A kiss.
A kiss.
A kiss.
That's all I hear, and with my arm around my wife's bountiful waist, I look down. She looks up. And our lips meet for the very last time. She tastes like breathing. She tastes like always summer and always sun and endless stretches of perfect sky. She tastes like my Sango.
And then it's over.
I must have answered questions for dozens of magazines and sports shows.
I must have posed for pictures.
I must have been briefed on how to get the money home.
I must have shoved away all the comfort my friends had to offer.
All of these thing surely happened, but I don't remember any of them.
When I am next aware of something, it is a man's weak voice, demanding a ticket on the next plane to Chicago, any price can be met, and hanging up before he starts to cry.
And then I am that man.
I am in a cab driving down the Sunset Strip into the phenomenon it was named for, and I am sobbing to the depths of my very soul.
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It's dawn by the time I'm barely standing on my front steps, leaning full body against the door as I blindly stab keys into the lock.
I cried the entire plane ride home. It was a red-eye, so most of the passengers were comatose, but I got more than a few looks from the stewardesses who wondered why a man on a night flight with the shade drawn would need to be wearing sunglasses.
I've tried not to think.
It's not like...I've never been dumped. But usually I did something to deserve it.
She did this just to destroy me. Just to make sure my victory was a loss.
Sango mad is dangerous, ruthless and unstoppable, and I guess this was cleaner than running me over with a bus.
But not by much.
The door swings open, and it's all I can do to not fall to my knees and start bawling again. But I win that battle with my will, and I step inside, and suddenly...I'm angry. Sango's not the only one who gets to be upset.
Dropping my bag -containing, among other things, $1.5 million dollars in cash- I stride forward into our kitchen, sweeping things off counters left and right. Papers go flying - hers? mine? does it matter?- and glasses tumble to the floor and shatter. Sango's laptop smashes down, and I barely hear it. I wrench open one of our cabinets, grab the first bottle of anything alcoholic I see, and chug it. I don't even taste it, and the bottle drops from my hand a few moments later.
The answering machine blinks with the dozens of messages meant for my wife that she never heard. So many lost declarations of love. I rip it out of the wall and it joins the mess on the floor.
She'll never hear them now.
I kick over our dining room table.
Who needs nice things?
Who needs anything?
The first rays of the first day of the rest of my horrible life a just hitting our mantle when I enter or living room and see our couch, our precious couch, our beloved, memory-filled couch.
And I show it no mercy.
By the time I'm done with it, no pillow or inch of upholstery is left intact. If Sango didn't care about the life and the home we built together, then neither will I. If she didn't care how much I gave up to be with her, if none of it mattered, then I don't need a single bit to remind me.
I know the creak of every stair and I kick each one on my way to our bedroom. I can't wait to rend the sheets, every single inch of everything we've owned together, and I know exactly what will be the first to go.
All it takes is a quick hand and the same flick of the wrist that Kagura used to turn over my fate, and our King and Queen are lying in broken glass on the floor.
I wish I'd never met her.
I wish I'd never gone to that party, I wish I'd never seen her face.
I grab the comforter off our bed and start pulling, seams popping and fabric tearing. The sheets are next, followed by the pillows, until there's stuffing everywhere, until it flies around me as I reach under the mattress and flip it over, until I look over to the big bay windows and see that crib, that expensive, indulgent crib, the crib for our new baby.
And I walk toward it, ready to tear it to pieces, ready to claw apart the little blankets and pillows, or better yet, push it all out the window, yes, that's it, the windows, but when I grab the side...I can't.
I can't.
I went to Las Vegas so I would be alive when my child was born.
I did it so my baby would be raised with a beautiful, loving mother and a father, just the way I wasn't.
God, I love her. I love Sango so much, and I wanted to...
I wanted to...
I wanted so many things.
I never wanted to be a broken man, falling to the floor and weeping into the mattress he just tossed off his bed.
But we rarely get what we want, do we?
