But the friends he found gathered around her when he went to pick her up from her last class that Tuesday afternoon in January weren’t like the others. A few of them wore glasses. And though none of them were curvy like Dawn, they talked in the same overly enthusiastic way, with big hand gestures and lines delivered while laughing.
Victor hung back and watched them debate about the quality level of some anime he’d never heard of.
Eventually, one of the friends he’d never seen before asked her when she was coming back to the art club.
That was also when Dawn noticed Victor waiting at the end of the hallway for her.
“I have to go,” she told the other girls instead of answering. “See you tomorrow!”
She didn’t walk to him. She ran, not bothering to hide how happy she was to see him.
“Moshi! Moshi!” she said, even though that greeting was only meant to be used on the phone. “Why didn’t you come over and get me? I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
She wasn’t like anyone else from his world. She never played her cards close to the chest. Now that they were what she called “official,” she was 100% honest with him. And that made him want to be 100% honest back.
“I like watching you sometimes,” he signed. “It feels nice just to watch you. In my heart.”
A pretty blush rose to her face, giving her warm brown skin a slightly pink undertone.
“See, this is why it’s not even a choice between you and art club,” she said with an embarrassed-but-pleased smile.
A slight pang of guilt rose in his chest. “Do you miss art club?”
“Not as much as I would miss you on Tuesdays if I didn’t skip it,” she answered.
Dawn was rarely smooth like her brother. By her own admission, she always got A+’s in Being Awkward. But sometimes, she surprised him by saying the exact right thing.
He took her by the hand and led her back to his car. That was the first time, but not the last, that he kissed her in the backseat, unable to wait until they got back to his apartment.
Victor had forgotten how dangerous it was to watch her from afar.
He hadn’t been prepared for the sight of her signing and laughing with the little brown children…just as she used to sign and laugh with him. Another upsurge of unwanted memories rose inside of him. They made his chest feel bruised as if his cousin had round-housed him again.
He still didn’t know why she had taken this particular low-paying job, located in a high crime neighborhood in Lower South Providence. But Dawn appeared to genuinely enjoy her engagement with the children. It made him wonder what kind of mother she would…
Do not go down that road. The voice of reason cut his curious thought off before it could reach completion. It’s bad enough that you’re here.
That voice was right. He’d never meant to have sex with Dawn. That hadn’t been in his plan, which could be summed up in three parts: 1. Lock her down with marriage, 2. Leave her to rot in Rhode Island, and 3. Get all the way over his prisoner before he was required to marry someone else.
But she’d thrown him off his plan when she challenged him. And now here he was, watching her from afar again, even though he knew it was dangerous.
He couldn’t hear what the other teacher was saying to her, but Dawn went completely still. Like an animal who’d figured out that her predator lurked nearby.
Meanwhile, the children she’d been laughing and signing with started sing-songing about her having a boyfriend.
She abruptly set down the iron and immediately rushed over to him. But unlike in Japan, her face hadn’t lit up at the sight of him. Just the opposite. Her expression was upset and wary as she approached. As if she was walking up to a monster.
“What are you doing here?” she signed when she reached him.
She didn’t speak out loud, most likely because she didn’t want questions from her co-workers. She signed carefully in front of her body, blocking the sight of her hands from the children. They watched her and Victor avidly in the background and appeared primed to burst into another made-up song.
“Where is your ring?” Victor signed back.
“I took it off,” she answered, her expression tight. “A few months ago, when I didn’t hear a word from you.”
Was she irritated by his long absence or his sudden reappearance? He couldn’t tell.
Either way…
“Put your ring back on,” he commanded. “And do not take it off again.”
She didn’t acknowledge the command as she should have, considering the circumstances. Instead, she asked again, “What are you doing here?”
Victor signed back two words. Harsh and precise. “Happy Anniversary.”
Her eyes flared with the realization that they had stood before the judge in that town hall exactly one year ago.
