Disclaimer:
There is a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.
Altered Memory
Chapter 6
– Part II: Crushed Dreams
The weather did turn hot, a real scorching June day without a puff
of breeze. Yoshida took her nap in the cool sitting room. Kaoru found out that
the idea to swim was very appealing indeed. Kenshin hadn’t actually said she
wasn’t to go in alone. It had been his aunt’s safety he’d been concerned about.
Anyway, he need never know. The thought carried her upstairs to rummage through
her drawer for her swimsuit, and while she didn’t consciously admit the thought
of displaying her scarred back in front of him bothered her, it was there in
the back of her mind.
Kaoru eyed
her reflection in the mirror wryly. She was still too thin but the last few
weeks had given her back a little of her feminine curves. But the black,
one-piece bathing suit did little to flatter her. She shrugged, slipping the
cotton shirt over it, then getting a towel from the bathroom, she left the house
quietly and made for the pool.
Throwing off
the cotton shirt and dropping the towel in the lounger, she dived in
gracefully. There had been so little opportunity in recent years to indulge in
something she had loved as a young girl. But in spite of the pleasantness of
the water, she found she soon tired and rolled over to float on her back. She
gazed up at the clear, blue sky as birds cooed somewhere out of sight. The
sheer peacefulness was like a healing balm and Kaoru felt more relaxed than she
could ever remember.
And then the
peace was splintered into fragments by a harsh voice demanding, “What the hell
are you doing? Come out of there, Kaoru. This minute.”
Her body
jerked with guilty apprehension and she went under, coming up soughing and
spluttering to see Kenshin poised on the edge of the pool, every line of his
stance betraying his fury.
Kaoru made
for the steps, missing her footing and banging her shin in her haste to climb
them before he reached her.
“Don’t you
listen?” He looked as if he was about to grab her and shake her and she stepped
back apprehensively. “Didn’t you hear me tell you not to go into the pool
unless I was here?”
“You told me
not to take Yoshida into the pool unless you were here,” she retorted
defensively. “You didn’t say anything about me not going in alone.”
“I would have
thought your own common sense would have told you. If you’d collapsed again…”
He took a deep breath and his voice was not quite steady. “It doesn’t bear
thinking about.”
Kaoru gazed
up at him, her eyes wide and questioning. Did he care about what happened to
her? She dismissed that thought at once. Of course he didn’t. She could just
imagine what she must look, skinny, unattractive, no longer even young, and
now, disfigured too. It was then she realized that Kenshin was standing between
her and her shirt and the towel.
“I’m sorry. I
suppose it was very thoughtless of me.” She bowed her head, trying to think how
she could reach her towel without turning her back on him, little realizing
that her hair had parted along the lines of her scalp wounds.
She heard his
harshly indrawn breath even as she felt his hands touch her head. “Oh God! And
you worked 4 hours in the vineyard with injuries like these! In the name of
heaven, Kaoru, why didn’t you tell me?”
But she
couldn’t answer him because his hands had fallen to her shoulders and slid
round her back as he pulled her against him. She just had time to remember how
often he held her protectively in the past. Then, she felt his caressing hands
still, his body stiffen, and knew he had felt the puckered skin of her
disfigured back.
She tried to
pull away, but although his hands were gentle, there was no escaping as he
turned her around. His face was gray, his eyes appalled when he finally turned
her to face him again.
“Is this why
you swam alone, because you didn’t want anyone to see?” His question confirmed
what she already knew, he found her scars repulsive. It brought her chin up
defensively and brought color to her cheeks.
“Why not?
It’s hardly a sight I would wish to inflict on anyone. Now, if you’d let me get
my towel…”
Something had
flashed in his eyes that Kaoru couldn’t define before he released her. She
could feel his eyes burning into her scares back as she walked away from him.
Only he hadn’t stayed by the pool. As she reached for her towel, he took it
from her and draped it gently around her.
“You don’t
have to feel self-conscious about it here, Kaoru,” he said quietly. She bent
her head, feeling ashamed of her oversensitivity.
“No. It’s
stupid to mind if people find me repulsive when I was the lucky one. The friend
I was with was killed.”
Kenshin’s
hands clenched. “Don’t talk ridiculous! Your scars make me feel – angry for
what you’ve been through, guilty even, to have had things so easy – but
repulsive… oh no. Anything but!”
His vehemence
surprised her, catching a strange, almost possessive look in his eyes. His next
question was equally surprising. “Your friend who was killed, it was a man
friend?”
He seemed
intent on matching her life with men. She found it ludicrous that he should
believe her to be irresistible to other men when he found her totally
resistible himself.
“Keiko was a
nurse,” she said quietly, and had the satisfaction of seeing a faint redness
creep on his cheeks. “We were on our way to her fiancé’s apartment – Hashiro
was a doctor on the team – when the shell blast hit us. They were both leaving
Lebanon the following day to get married. Only there was no wedding, only
Keiko’s funeral.” A tear trickled down her cheek.
“I’m sorry.
Life does hand out dirty deals sometimes.”
She could no
comfort in his words. “Helped along by the human race. Man’s inhumanity to man.
I’ve seen enough of that these last years.” There was bitter disillusion in her
voice, in the twist of her soft mouth. “And it was particularly unfair that
Keiko had to be the one to die when she had so much to live for.”
“You make it
sound as if you wish you’d been the one to die,” he accused harshly. “You can’t
mean that.”
“Why not?”
She lifted haunted eyes to his face. “There would have been a certain poetic
justice about it.”
“But you’re
still young. You’ve got so much to live for too, especially now you don’t have
to go on working for the relief agency. The money your stepfather left you.”
“What
difference does that make?” she demanded.
He shook her
in a gentle exasperation. “Kaoru, don’t you want to make a life of your own? A
home, husband, family?”
A spasm of
intense pain flickered across her face. There was only one man she had wanted
to share life with. A man who had never wanted to share that dream, who had
shown her in the cruelest way possible that he had no time for her.
Kaoru was running across the lawn with wings on her heels because
although Kenshin had brought Shura along to the party, Misao had just told her
he wanted to see her in the summerhouse.
She
couldn’t see clearly in the half-light as he stepped through the doorway, but
her senses recognized him at once.
“Kenshin…”
She moved towards him. He had kissed her only a few days ago, and she
desperately wanted him to kiss her again. He must want to do so too because he
asked her to meet him in this secluded spot.
This
knowledge gave her confidence. She wound her arms around his neck, pulling his
mouth down to hers. His arms tightened around her as he deepened the kiss. His
mouth left hers to trace a trail of fire to her cheeks, ears and her neck as
his fingers twined in her long hair. The strap of her dress slipped and she
heard the raggedness of his breathing as his head plunged lower. She gasped in
pleasure, her body arching involuntarily.
Never had
a man touched her so intimately before but she felt no shame or shyness. She
had loved him for so long, her first and only love, a love that had once been
content just to know he existed, content with a smile, a few words, a friendly
touch. But now it was a woman’s love for a man. The first time he had kissed
her, he had lit a fire that wouldn’t be quenched, even when he reverted to
treating her like a child again.
He wasn’t
seeing her as a child now.