章 10: CHAPTER 10
"She's depressed." I felt Freya stand next to me and stare into the fountain. She looked sad to see Azul in such a terrible state.
"You and your wife appear to be overly attached to each other," she said, tapping a finger on the water, and the image of Azul faded away. "You shouldn't look at that for too long. You might find yourself depressed as well."
I don't think I've ever had my heart broken.
I don't think that I ever thought that I could
until now. Seeing my Azul in that state destroyed my heart in a way that I never knew that it could. It took everything in my power not to give in to my emotions and cry, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
"I need to go home right now." My voice was low but decisive and commanding. If the goddess was offended by it, she didn't show it.
"You have a job to do here still," her voice carried no understanding or concern for my situation. Typical godly behavior is selfish.
"You said yourself that Odin was not going to destroy the world."
"You owe him a proper parting. He is a god, and
You will accord him the respect that comes with the title."
I clenched my fist and bit down on her bottom lip, barely able to hold in my anger. "I owe my wife more than I owe your husband, and honestly, I couldn't care less if he burned the world to ash."
We stared each other down for over a minute before the goddess's face relaxed into a smile. "You will excuse me and my jokes; I have a fondness for toying with you humans."
I took a deep breath. Heavens knew that I was not in the mood for her toying sessions; I just wanted to be with my wife.
"Goddess," my patience was wearing thin, and I
was certain that she could tell from the way my voice sounded, "Please help me out here. I still don't know how time works here, and for all I know, another day may have passed since I last saw her in the fountain."
She didn't disagree; she only nodded.
"That is fine. Mr. Zenin, forgive my antics.
Please," she pulled out a blue flower whose name I was not familiar with and handed it to me. "Give this to your wife for me."
I was excited at the thought of finally going home, but a concerning thought still lingered in the back of my mind. "Goddess, about the all-father..."
She waved a dismissive hand. "Do not worry about that, little one. My husband is just in one of his reoccurring foul moods," she chuckled and shook her head. "I thought you said that you didn't care if he burned the world to the ground? You humans and your overreactive emotions"
Freya was not wrong, but I still did want to defend myself, but before I could capitalize on the opportunity to do so, she placed her palm on my forehead, assured me that she would pass on my farewell to Odin, and pushed me backward. I remembered falling for such a long time—long enough to make me begin to panic and wonder frightfully if I was ever going to land. I didn't feel
any less frightened until I landed with not as much force as I would have expected to and on an incredibly soft carpet.
I pulled myself to my feet, trying to regain my composure. The flower was still in my hand, and it seemed to have lost just a small part of its divine glow, or maybe the lightning was not that good. I finally took in my surroundings and found to my greatest joy that I was back in my bedroom—our bedroom. The large, professionally furnished, and decorated space belonged to just my wife and me. Wife, of course, Azul. I shot my head from side to side to
search for her, but found her to be nowhere in
sight.
"Azul? My love, where are you?" I began to
walk in the direction of her walk-in closet, hoping that she would be in there deciding on what dress she needed to get rid of after only wearing it twice. I pushed open the closet door only to find my wife draped in an unusually large, faded shirt that stopped just above her knee. I wondered how my cheeks didn't split from how wide my smile spread across my face. I was beyond happy to see her again, and I expected her to scream out in surprise and run into my arms, but she just stood there staring at me with an odd blank expression.
"My love? It's me. I'm home. You would not believe what happened to me."
She didn't say anything. I didn't even react.
"My love?" She just kept staring, and that was when I took a proper look at her, and that was when I noticed for the first time a little bump sticking out of the shirt. Was she pregnant? "Azul darling. Please talk to me. I know that I have a lot of explaining to do, and I will, but..."
That was about all that I was able to get out before the shoe slammed into my right arm. She just threw her heels at me!
"You left me alone for months! Months! Ayoki Zenin, husband of the fucking year!"
She threw everything that her hands could lay down on, from bags to clothes to boots and even wigs. This was not the woman that I accidentally left behind months ago.
"Azul, please let me explain!" I was trying to block myself from getting more hits while protecting my eyes from getting poked by a stray heel.
"You have nothing to say that will make me feel any different about you!"
"I can explain!" I got hit in the abdomen by a purse. "I was in Asgard for three days, but I had no idea that it was four months back on earth!" "You should have known!"
"Nobody told me!"
"I do not care!"
"Come on, Azul, you don't have to be like this." She threw another purse, but I was quick to get out of the way this time around. I knew she had a sort of violent side to her, but I never imagined that it would be directed at me, and I definitely didn't imagine that she would have used fashion accessories. I didn't know whether to be worried for myself or laugh at the entire situation.
"You abandoned me! I am your responsibility!"
I quickly ran in her direction and grabbed her arms before she could grab another object and hurl it at me. She struggled and shook as hard as
She could, in an effort to free herself from my grip, but I wasn't letting go that easily.
"Azul, calm down!"
"How could you do something like that?" Her eyes began to water, and I felt so terrible. This was my fault. "You just left me. Not a word after four months."
"I am so sorry, my love. I should have asked. I should have known." I pulled her into a loving, apologetic embrace. "This will never happen again, I swear. You know I could never abandon you, right? You're all I care about."
She sniffed and used her now-free hand to wipe.
her exposed tears. "Well, I think you might have
to make room for one more thing to care about." A wider smile on my face now that I pulled away
and took a long look at her growing baby bump. I was going to be a father. I was going to be a father, and I had already missed out on the first trimester of the pregnancy, but I wouldn't let that happen again.
"I can't believe this." An excited laugh escaped my lips as I kept my eyes glued to her belly. "I'm going to be a father. Azul, we're going to be parents!"
"Have you any experience in changing diapers?" "No. But I could learn."
She laughed. I missed that laugh. "You had
better. You're going to be mostly in charge of that."
I placed the flower that Freya had given me in Azul's hand. "From the garden of Asgard"
"Ayoki, it's beautiful," she said as she looked at it and seemed to blush. "The same shade of blue as my name."
Oh, so that was why Freya gave it to me. "It's almost as beautiful as you," I said, holding Azul's hands in mine. "Everything is going to be different from now on. I want to do this with you. I want to have a family with you."
Azul wrapped her arms around me and rested.
her head on my chest. "I'm so relieved to have
you back home. Please don't ever scare me like that again."
"I promise you, it will never happen again. Everything is going to be okay."
And as long as Freya did speak the truth about Odin not destroying the world as he had so loudly threatened to do, then everything was going to be just fine.
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