Page 71 of Toxic

Scrubbing his hand across his face he looks back at me. I’m not just seeing disgust, disbelief, and anger. He’s hurt. My heart breaks at the pain I see in his face. I wait for his guardian to appear all full of rage and vengeance but he doesn’t emerge despite the war going on inside my husband at my words.

Then I play back what he’s saying. “What do you mean I had you committed?” I shake my head. “I would never do that. I left. I thought you were mad because I left,” I say, leaning toward him when I know I shouldn’t. The volatility of this moment can spiral out of my control at any second. “I didn’t do that.”

Slowly shaking his head, he pulls away slowly until his nude body rises from the bed. He pauses like he’s debating something before he pivots heading deeper into the recesses of his suite.

Moments later I hear a door sliding open then ambient light shines through an open door. He’s gone long minutes. Regretting like hell that I even spoke I scoot back to the head of the bed. The tufted pillows behind me give excellent support. Pulling the covers and duvet up and tucking it around my breasts I wait, trepidation warring with wanting to set the matter straight. Briefly I wonder if he’s calling his brother. If that’s what he’s doing he needs to get him on speaker. Getting ready to move to the edge, I pause seeing him coming back with sheets of paper. He’s taken the time to pull on some silk lounge pants leaving the rest of his body nude. Still, I feel vulnerable and exposed sitting here before him waiting for the guillotine to drop.

Sitting on the edge of the side he slept on he takes time to go through the papers seeming to organize them. “Here. These are the papers you signed with the power of attorney I gave you. I trusted you. I know I hurt you and I deserved to be punished for what I did. I understand that now. I never thought you would go to such lengths.”

Taking the papers he hands me I immediately recognize my signature on the first crumpled page that Kiyoshi and I argued for days over until he told me of his mother’s plan to have me arrested for fraud. Carefully I take that page and set it aside.

Despair and disbelief coalesce as I read through the pages and pages of documents where it seems I’ve given a sworn statement of what I claimed Hisashi did to me.

I, Taylor Love Takeda, hereby swear to the following statement. My husband, Hisashi Takeda, did on the date with malice and forethought. Kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and choked me into unconsciousness several times. He deprived me of sustenance, clothing, keeping me bound for deviant sexual practices.

Tears cloud my eyes as I read the details and the see the pictures of my body lying prone on the floor where Kiyoshi found me. There is a close-up of my face. It’s sunken in from lack of food. My lips are chapped and bleeding. My expression is spaced out and deadened. I shake my head in denial about what I’m seeing. I don’t even remember Kiyoshi taking pictures of me. But it must be him. He is the only person who knows what really happened. I never told a soul.

“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “This wasn’t me. Dummy that I was, I still didn’t want to leave you. I wanted you to get help. That’s all.” My fingers blanch around the papers from holding them so hard. Shaking my head I say, “This is bullshit. Your brother?—”

“Saved me,” he grits out between his teeth the nods to the papers. “Isn’t that your signature?”

I look down at the forgeries of my signature. “The first one is mine. I remember fighting with Kiyoshi over signing it. The rest of them —especially this,” I wave the affidavit in his face, “is not me.”

He looks like he expects the bed to open up and swallow my lying ass whole.

“It’s. Not. Mine,” I say through clenched teeth. Then. “Call your brother.”

“It’s late even for him.” Shaking his head his refusal is final.

“Uh-uh, call your fucking brother, Hisashi,” I urge, raising my voice. Heat flushes my face. I hate coming between him and his family, but Kiyoshi obviously did this and left me to hang. He probably thought he was doing the right thing keeping us apart. Though he never thought I was a gold digger he made it no secret he blamed me for his brother’s mental decline. Maybe he thought Hisashi would be done with me for good, divorce me and that would be it. I’m sure he’d be shocked to know hisbrother not only stalked me but is holding me captive in his house right under his nose.

He could have gotten me killed. He and I are going to have some fucking words. “Please,” I implore him cupping his face. “Let me clear my name.”

For a moment I think he’s going to say no again. Reaching over he retrieves his phone from the bedside table. The phone lights up as Kiyoshi’s icon fills the screen. It rings and nothing. Several more times he calls his brother with no answer. Then suddenly there is a message that pops up.

Hisashi.Krie is gravely ill and I have to take care of her. I need you to step in until this situation is resolved. ~K

Sitting backdown I let the disappointment wash over me. I don’t bother saying it’s not me. Handwriting changes over time, so it’s not like it would be fair to compare it with my current journal. Slumping against the headboard I let disappointment wash over me. I don’t worry that we’ll get to the bottom of it. I just hate so much having one more day go by with him thinking that I betrayed him so horribly. Even not knowing the full extent of what he was having to endure with his mental challenges I would have never wanted to have him committed.

My father’s brother’s my cousin Kandie’s dad had a horrible experience at a mental institution and it ended up ruining his family and having Kandie and her sister Karaina being lost in the system while their younger sister, Nikki was taken with their parents. Poor Karaina ended up dying in a fire that burned down the group home they lived in with Kandie being able to barely escape with her life. Their sister, Nikki, who was an infant was forced to live away from them and our whole family until her dad died when she was sixteen.

The trauma behind that experience is something my cousins still have to live with, not to mention what the loss of their parents cost our entire family.

“We could drive over to his home.” My eyes perk up at his words but then I think. “The note sounded like he’s really concerned about my cousin, do you think he will even see us or let us on his property after he’s already told you to take over things?”

“No.” He shakes his head. He looks down and my fingers still gripping the mountain of lies.

“This is why you debated killing me?” I ask, waving the papers between us.

“I wasn’t.” He rolls his eyes.

“No, butHewould.Hespent years watching you suffer at my hand as you both believe.Hedefinitely would,” I say, locking onto his eyes with my own, wondering if I can reach his guardian through the dark onyx of his gaze.

“Perhaps,” he concedes. “Definitely.”

“Thinking all this you still watched over me. Did things to people who hurt me, when you thought I’d done the unforgivable to you. Why?” Looking at the confusion playing on my face he shakes his head obviously amused by whatever I’m missing.

“You’re my wife. Mine to protect, always. I failed in that once. Even thinking you betrayed me I still protect what is mine.”

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