Share

1. Amaya

Author: Ornella Carey
last update Last Updated: 2023-09-03 02:43:33

"And does 'happily ever after' really exist?"

Melissa's question didn't surprise me; she was a very aware girl, full of doubts, who had witnessed how her family was torn apart by immigration laws. So, I swallowed hard, and seeing the other children waiting for an answer, I knew I had to be clever in how I approached it.

Their innocence was a delicate point, one I didn't want to touch, so as I was about to say something, one of them stood up and shook his head forcefully.

"I'm sorry, Miss Amaya, but that doesn't exist, it's just a fairy tale and nothing more."

He left the reading room, leaving me with an audience of furrowed brows.

"Life isn't entirely happy or entirely bad," I told them honestly. "Every day we live is a mixture of both, and just as there are completely good days, there are also bad or very sad ones. But that doesn't mean we can't always do our best to create our own happy ending."

Some of them nodded and thanked me, then they got up from the floor to go do the activities in their reading workbooks. The librarian gave me a sympathetic smile, and I had no choice but to shrug in response. It wasn't the first time that kids I read to in the library outside of campus had reactions like this.

Moving to Berkeley was the best decision of my life, after leaving Los Angeles with my mother and ending up hiding in San Francisco, having some freedom was paradise. I was never happier than when I was notified that I could study English at UC Berkeley, that I could have the opportunity to specialize to become a teacher. Since I was a child, understanding my language was a great curiosity, but meeting Luisa, my babysitter, and realizing the power I could have by teaching my language to others, made me realize that teaching was my calling.

Luisa was a Venezuelan woman with learning disabilities, and our interactions, along with my desire to communicate with the woman who had become a second mother to me, led me to seek ways to solve her language problems with a lot of patience, care, and creativity. That laid the foundation for what I wanted to do with my life, the dreams I wanted to achieve.

I held onto that despite all the bad things behind me.

Physically, I didn't inherit my mother's features; I wasn't of average size, blonde, or with a slender body. I was born with all the physical traits and characteristics of my Japanese heritage, one that I didn't know well at all, more than what my mother insisted I should know, as my father rarely revealed anything. However, I didn't want to explore it just because; it gave me a perspective of what could be done for the world.

I was a bastard daughter of the Yakuza, one who wasn't wanted by her father, nor loved by that community. I didn't understand it until I was old enough to discover that my father was a dangerous man in the underworld, involved in illegal activities that were against people's health and well-being. Furthermore, finding out that I was an unrecognized, hidden child born from an affair between an oyabun, a Yakuza boss, and a rising model, was like having the blindfold removed from my eyes.

I smiled sadly as I remembered that my father used to visit us whenever he could, trying to teach me about his customs and holding onto the fact that I should learn Japanese from a young age. I did it as a good daughter, as a child who thought he was her greatest hero, so when reality shook me and raised its ugly head, I didn't want to know anything more about him, about the fact that he was married, about his three older children I didn't know, about his intention to always keep me hidden like a dirty secret.

I think I broke when I found out that he and my mother were still in a romantic relationship despite the years. So, I knew very well that happily ever after didn't exist, that the world was full of good days and bad days.

That's just how life was.

When the children finished their activities, they handed their work to me and said goodbye with smiles. They enjoyed coming to read, to learn, to immerse themselves in the tranquility of the deserted library. I sighed heavily and began putting everything away in the children's section. I had a list of the books we had read, as well as those we had yet to read. I was still modifying it, so I focused on checking the shelves and comparing with the available books.

"Have you read 'The Story of Ferdinand' yet?" a voice asked from the other side of the shelf, and I furrowed my brow because I hadn't seen anyone pass by in the three hours I had been in the library.

"Not yet..." I honestly answered the man hidden among the books; someone I couldn't quite see.

"It's an excellent children's book. My nonna used to read it to me every night, and it helped me improve my pronunciation before I came to live in the United States permanently," the man explained.

His tone of voice... I didn't know why, but it put me on edge.

"Well... It's an excellent book, but it can be a bit challenging in some parts for the kids to pronounce," I explained. "Morphologically speaking, it's around a Level A2 in English."

He chuckled modestly, causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end in response.

I couldn't deny that I quite liked his laugh.

"Give it a try. It's a book for three to four-year-old kids, it'll work. The words that might be difficult for them can be worked on with exercises and activities like the ones you used before the reading... By the way, you're excellent at that," he said warmly.

"Thank you..."

"Do you spend a lot of time reading to children? You're really good at it..."

"I've been doing it for almost four years with different groups," I admitted with a smile. "It's something I enjoy doing."

"It shows. So, I can infer that you're studying to become an English teacher..."

"Yeah, you could say that," I answered truthfully.

"Well, moving away from the teaching topic and talking more about literature, what authors do you recommend?"

I figured that's why he was there in the library; he must have been looking for some books and ended up caught in the children's reading event.

"It depends on their tastes. I don't know what their preferences are, much less what type of prose they prefer—direct, clever, ornate, or very flowery," I argued firmly.

"Well... I like reality, action, impulsiveness, and good scenes," he pointed out, making me smile. People in the library always asked me for help, but they weren't usually this open. "Oh, and I also like sensual scenes."

That caused my eyebrows to raise and my cheeks to blush.

"Well... If you like that mix, maybe 'Story of O' by Pauline Réage, 'The Lover' by Marguerite Duras, 'Tropic of Cancer' by Henry Miller, or 'Delta of Venus' by Anaïs Nin could be recommended," I suggested, my face burning.

These were considered significant works of erotic literature, but at the same time, they were quite scandalous.

"Did you enjoy them?" he asked with a slightly huskier voice. "I like forming my own opinions."

"Yes, even though they are classic works that haven't aged completely well by today's standards," I indicated, and he laughed heartily.

"It's just that nowadays people are held by moralism... Even though society is much more open to all topics, eroticism is still a taboo everywhere, from the most liberal to the most conservative."

He had spoken a very honest truth; one we couldn't deny.

"Well, those structures need to break at some point because, indeed, these themes need to be questioned... But that doesn't take away from the fact that these creations are excellent, well-written, and not only a milestone in terms of prose but also in their dynamics..."

"Well, I can see you're passionate about writing, literature, and language," he said in a tone I couldn't decipher. "So, let's shift away from the teaching subject and talk more about modern literature. It's quite different from the classics, more direct, and sometimes even dirtier."

He had a point, one that made my veins pulse completely.

"Well, I..."

"How do I admit that I read what's labeled as 'mommy porn'?" I thought with embarrassment.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • The Chosen Bride   Epilogue II

    That was what I loved about her, so when the cake came, she got up she took our princeessa. We sang happy birthday in all three languages, we laughed at everything and even encouraged her to dream of a wish, to believe in the future, in what was to come, so I carried her and with all the love in the world I said:“Juliana, you are the most beautiful thing in the world, the most sacred thing I have, and I promise you that I will take care of you, love you and encourage you throughout my life, in the greatest possible way, so that you can be whatever you want, realize your dreams and become the most special person in this world” dije entre lágrimas y eso la hizo abrazarme con fuerza.He loved her more than anything, all of them.We finished the evening and after dealing with a lot of games, we put the kids to bed and Hani said he would keep an eye on them to make sure everything was okay, so we could have that night of escape we needed. One that served to give me a surprise to the very

  • The Chosen Bride   Epilogue I

    Surviving a gunshot wound to the damn liver had to be some sort of Guinness World Record or something, what I did know was that I was grateful to God for all the good things He gave me after that. Watching my wife suffer was the worst feeling, so I didn't want to see him, so I swore he would be the best husband, the best person I could be.The process was painful, but it was worth every damn sacrifice to get to the best point of all, to have my family reunited, happy and without wars in between, only peace and happiness, we deserved it more than anything in the world.How do we reach them?Ima was arrested by the FBI, Nyoko could not carry the blame, but the fact of being killed by her own daughter must mean something, it must mean something beyond the nefarious part die, something that undoubtedly did not wish my worst enemy, however, the world was the world, Life was life and the twists of fate could put everything in place.Together with the FBI we dissolved the corrupt clan of the

  • The Chosen Bride   144. Amaya

    "No... You just used me," I accused him with anger welling up in every bit of my system, "I was just one more transaction for your revenge and now, if I'm pregnant... I have to live this pregnancy in the middle of a disaster, in the middle of stress, in the middle of the constant fear that my baby will be known to be a target," I told her with a cascade of tears rolling down my eyes. Nothing is right, I didn't want to bring a child into the world in these conditions, I didn't want to have a child with you, I didn't want to...I alone could not take it anymore and the accumulated, the stress, the compendio collapsed me to a level that I fell on the floor and I started crying long and straight. He, against my will, bent down to box me into his arms, in an attempt to give me a comfort that I was late and that he was torturing me in a way far worse than everything else."I'm going to protect you; I'm going to protect them."I hate you," I said in response to his empty promise despite bein

  • The Chosen Bride   143. Amaya

    Two full days passed before my brother came to bring me news about what was happening. After seeing what happened to the Russians, I couldn't help but feel completely out of sorts, deeply concerned, and imagining the great disaster that had occurred after the Russians."Father had a heart attack," he said, and I felt like my heart was going to stop. "He's stable, but he needed open-heart surgery because he had valve complications.""Oh, my gods, he...""He didn't send you to be killed with Paola," he admitted, and I felt immense relief and shame simultaneously. "Believe it or not, you are that man's greatest treasure, so much so that it seems like he doesn't care about us.""I...""Our father loves you, and he tried to do something to win your mother back because she left him," he continued sharply, and I felt like the world was spinning, the puzzle pieces scattered randomly on the table. "Pamela left him; she told me during a moment when she felt terrible and drank like she hadn't in

  • The Chosen Bride   142. Alessio

    "What the hell is that about?" My father-in-law asked when he saw his daughter.He saw me and realized my surprise, then he looked at Dante who saw him with a frown, totally annoyed to the point of losing his patience completely, as if more than rage in anger, he was at a point of complete pain, of total anger with which he did not want to deal, but which touched him given the events.In these meetings they made agreements in which they arranged several, things and unfortunately only they have the knowledge of what they did, but it is obvious that the Yakuza had direct or indirect participation with it.—Kore wa fukanōdesu, machigai ga aru ni chigai arimasen..."I'm afraid there isn't Hiroshi, your daughter has a hand in this, but only they can answer us," Dante said earnestly. We want to know exactly what they collaborated on and where the girls who were moving along the routes came from.The Chechens drew their weapons on the spot, that made all the rest of us draw ours in response,

  • The Chosen Bride   141. Alessio

    "You're not going to get away with this. You've done the worst to keep her safe, and you've exposed her in the worst way possible," I snapped angrily. "But you'll have to deal with it; you'll have to face the damn consequences of your actions.""I won't be the only one. I'll make you pay for everything, absolutely everything, and there won't be a trace of you left to bury," I threatened, and she easily broke free from me.She pushed me away and positioned herself to leave as if nothing had happened. When I walked out minutes later, the mafia bosses were gathered to make a toast, the cream of the underworld, people who did very bad things for their own benefit, people who needed to be reminded of the rules so they wouldn't dare to go against a foundation that provided us with certain advantages. Dante was a fair man, but very deadly, so being on his bad side was not a good thing, not at all, and that was why everyone pretended to be calm."Welcome, everyone, to this charity gala, a gat

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status