to the sound of her alarm clock going off. It was five am exactly and she yawned as she sat up in bed. The hard duties of being a Sunday school teacher meant she had to be in the building fifteen minutes before seven to prepare the lesson for the day and organize the notes. So she had to be up even earlier in order to get ready for work.

Braelyn noticed the bed empty beside her and looked around the room. Since Takashi worked real estate he usually didn't get up so early. He worked based off scheduled appointments and usually went to work at about nine every morning. Braelyn figured he was probably downstairs so she got up, holding the cotton sheet to her naked body.

She went to pull open the bedroom door to search the house for him but saw a green sticky note sticking to the door instead.

Had to leave extra early this morning, met with a client a while ago and he contacted me again. I can potentially close a big deal today. And don't worry I already dropped Brielle off at your parents this morning. Have a great day at work.

-Takashi

Braelyn furrowed her eyebrows, Close a deal at five in the morning? She thought, it sounded really crazy but she was guessing this person must have been a celebrity or pretty important for Takashi to be out of his bed that early. Braelyn headed to the bathroom and dumped the sticky note. She set the shower and got in, washing her body and hair. In forty minutes she was out and had applied lotion to her skin.

Braelyn's outfit consisted of black flats, black panty holes and a long sleeve ankle length green dress. Her hair was slicked back in a ponytail with her rosary sitting on top of her chest. On the way out the door Braelyn got her purse and cellphone when she noticed Takashi's cellphone right next to her's. She took it, figuring he must have forgotten it in his rush out this morning. On her lunch break she would drive to his worksite and drop it off.

Braelyn got in her 1967 Volkswagen Beetle and pulled off. The car was pretty old but she's had it for years and didn't want anything else. The car was special to her. It was her first and only car. Her father had given it to her after she graduated from high school. The car was always in need of repairs but Braelyn didn't mind. She wasn't as flashy as her husband who rode around in a Lexus. She liked her Volkswagen just fine.

By time she got to work and set her lesson up, there were only a few minutes left until class began. Braelyn hung her coat and purse in the closet in the room and wrote the heading on the chalkboard. After a few moments the bell rung loudly as kids began to file in the room.

Braelyn waited a little bit until she saw most of the class was full and did attendance. Once she was done she clapped her hands together once and gave them a smile that could light a Christmas tree up better than any artificial lights. "Okay everyone, I hope your weekend was fun! Today I have something really fun planned for you! We're going to play a game!"

"Yay!" The class roared. Braelyn chuckled and covered her ears. She loved kids so much, they gave her so much joy.

"Okay guys sshh, we don't want the other teachers to complain right?"

The kids giggled as they all perked up in excitement. Usually Braelyn was a teacher who made them do work first before any of the fun activities. But for once she figured she'd let them do the fun part first to get them hyper for the rest of the day. Because she taught kids so young, their attention spans weren't fully developed so she had to switch it up and do things sometimes that would keep their attention.

"Okay so I'm gonna need everyone to stand up." Braelyn said, putting her hands in the air.

All the kids got up, standing behind their desks. A small Indian girl named Katie walked into the class and Braelyn went to the attendance and bubbled her in under the late column. She always kept the attendance in the room for an extra half hour just for the latecomers.

"Okay Katie, just take your things off and stand up behind your desk for me." She said. Braelyn gathered all the colorful pieces of construction paper she had cut up and wrote inside, as she began to hand them out to each student.

Once each child had one, she grabbed her stopwatch and stood by her desk. "Alright, here is the game. Some of you guys are holding a quote from the bible, and some of you are holding the chapter and verse to which that quote belongs to. We've studied these quotes all week so find the person who has the matching piece to what you have. Here's a hint, just because you may have a blue piece of paper and someone else has a blue piece of paper doesn't mean that person is your counterpart. First two people to match correctly wins. Start!" Braelyn said, clicking the timer.

She smiled watching the kids run around like crazy as they read their papers, trying to find the person who linked with them. They were all from the ages of five to seven so she knew the lesson would take a while. A lot of them would probably get it wrong. She wasn't surprised when in less than thirty seconds two kids approached her claiming to have the answers already.

"Mrs. Maxwell we have it! We have it!" One girl screamed, roughly dragging the arm of a little boy named David who was rubbing tears out of his eyes.

Braelyn glanced at their papers, "No that's wrong. You're quote doesn't come from the chapter that David has."

The girl ran off, leaving the boy there as she went to go search for somebody else. Braelyn frowned, noticing the little boy's saddened appearance as he just stood there. "What's wrong David?" He was the very quiet one in her class.

"Stephanie kept yelling at me just now."

Braelyn soothingly rubbed his back. "It's okay, your doing great." She looked up to address her class. "You guys no being rough with each other else I'll have to stop the game. We're all friends so be nice."

"Okay!" The class answered.

Braelyn smiled down at the child. "It's okay honey, go try and find somebody you think matches with you, okay?"

David nodded and sniffled, shyly walking back into the crowd.

A couple of minutes must have past when Braelyn heard a faint ringing. She barely heard it over her noisy class but she glanced back at the closet for a moment and figured that's where it was coming from. By time she got to the closet the ringing had stopped. She opened her purse anyway just to see who had called when the phone started ringing in her hand.

She pulled it out and saw that it was Takashi's phone. She glanced at the screen to see the missed call had been from Chase bank and they were the ones calling again. She declined the call and put the phone back. She locked up the closet and returned back to the class.

"Mrs. Maxwell I think me and Tommy have it!"

Braelyn bent down and read her chapter and Tommy's bible quote then smiled. "Yes. Tommy and Melanie have it! They win you guys!"

"Awww!" The class purred sadly.

"I'll give you guys a few more minutes to matchup. After that we have to move on because we still have work to do."

Some time went by before Braelyn ended the lesson and got everyone settled down. She moved onto the chalkboard but could hear the cellphone buzzing in the closet again. Spinning around with a piece of chalk in her hand, Braelyn had a big smile plastered on her face.

"Okay, so we just finished the first part of the lesson. Putting together the terms and numbers from the passage. Now comes what?"

All of the kids raised their hand and Braelyn pointed to a boy in the back. "Leo?"

"Understanding them!"

"Yes. Just because you can put something together doesn't mean you know what it means, right? So now that you guys put your bible quotes together with your chapter, you have to understand the meaning. So..." Braelyn said turning back to the chalkboard as she began to write out one of the scriptures they were currently learning about across the board.

Genesis 3:19 "By the sweat of a man's brown shall you eat bread."

"Ooooo," Braelyn said wiggling her body, causing a few of the kids to giggle. "Who can tell me what this means?"

All of the kids put their hands up while Braelyn pointed to a female in the back with red and black beads on the ends of her hair. "Mia."

"I-It means like when you work really really hard you can eat because you, you did a good job. Because God, like God, he doesn't like when you, like, he doesn't...like people, he doesn't, like if your lazy, yeah, if your lazy, then God, he doesn't like that, yeah he doesn't like that." The stuttering child said finally getting her words together.

Braelyn smiled, "Yes Mia, and—"

There was a knock on the door and a fellow teacher stuck her head inside, informing Braelyn of the phone call she had in the main office. She stepped in to watch the kids until the teacher returned. Braelyn headed down the hall to the main office and when she got there one of the women behind the desk already had the phone extended for her. Braelyn smiled and took it, speaking into the line.

"Braelyn Maxwell here."

"Hey Brae, I think I forgot my phone home this morning. Did you see it at the house?"

"Yes honey I have it, on my lunch break I'll bring it to you." She said glancing up at the big circle clock in the office to see it was nearing afternoon.

"Nah it's cool, I'll come through and pick it up just now. See you later."

"Okay."

Braelyn hung up and scurried back off to class. She carried on with her lesson, writing a few more scriptures on the board and had the kids explain them to her before the bell rang once signaling lunchtime. The school was small enough where the kids could walk to the cafeteria themselves. There was security in the hallway so it wasn't like they would act out or anything.

While the kids were at lunch, Braelyn went around fixing up the classroom when she heard the phone ringing again. She marched over to the closet and pulled it out. There were now six missed calls from the bank and they were calling still. Braelyn answered the phone knowing at this point something had to be wrong.

"Yes, hello? Braelyn Maxwell speaking."

"Hi, this is Gwendolyn from Chase bank and I'm calling to speak to a Mr. Takashi Maxwell."

"Oh I'm sorry, he's not here right now. He left his phone home so I have it and he's coming to get it soon. This is his wife Braelyn Maxwell."

"Okay, well when you get in touch with Mr. Maxwell can you please tell him to call us back immediately?"

"Is something wrong?"

"Well actually yes, we believe so. This is very important so—"

"Well can you just tell me? I'm his wife."

"I understand that but the issue is going on with a personal account of Mr. Maxwell's. Only his name is on it so I'm not allowed to discuss the matter with anyone else."

Braelyn knew the bank was just doing there job but she was really worried at this point. "Please if you can just tell me what the issue is. I may be able to help, I know it's confidential but please, nothing bad is going to happen by just informing me."

The woman was quiet on the other end like she felt Braelyn's pain. She knew it was Mr. Maxwell's wife anyway because she had a very distinct voice. It wasn't annoying or whiny, but she was very soft spoken and mousy. They've spoken a few times in person at the bank for her to remember who she was.

Braelyn could hear excessive typing in the back as Gwendolyn explained, "Okay so this morning around approximately eight o' clock, there was a cash checked from Mr. Maxwell's account for twenty five thousand dollars."

Braelyn's eyes widened as she put a hand on her chest. Takashi had just called her at around twelve. So if the cash was checked since eight this morning and he just called her and didn't mention it, she knew it wasn't him. Which means he probably didn't know about it as well.

"Because the bank is not use to Mr. Maxwell withdrawing so much money at once, we automatically froze his account. So anywhere he goes, his credit card will be declined and he will no longer be able to withdraw or deposit. We believe this may be a case of identity theft or that someone has stolen his credit card. So we need him to contact us as soon as possible to verify it was him who withdrew the money. Or that he is aware that the money was taken from his account in order for us to lift the hold off his account and restore everything to normal."

"Okay, I'll let him know once he gets here."

"Perfect. Again my name is Gwendolyn, extension 0241 and that is where you can reach me if you want to talk to me specifically. Have a great day!"

The phone call ended and Braelyn decided to take the phone with her since Takashi was suppose to be coming any minute. She went to the teachers lounge to eat her food. She searched the mini refrigerator and found her brown paper bag that contained her food inside. She heated it up in the microwave and took a seat at the table. She was the only one in the lounge so she figured all the teachers went out to eat.

Braelyn turned the TV on and found the prayer channel. She ate her beef patty with her bottle of juice. Every couple of minutes she would glance at the clock on the wall as the time went by. Teachers only got half an hour lunch and Takashi was taking a long time. She figured he either forgot to come or was just gonna leave it with her and get it back when he came home.

She knew he wasn't in the building because he's been here plenty of times to know where the main office was and that someone there would direct him to her. So she continued her meal and finished up with three minutes to spare. She left the teachers lounge the same time all the kids were coming back up from lunch. On her way down the hall back to her classroom, she felt a hand wrap around her wrist and turned around.

"Tee? I thought you weren't coming. Why'd you come so late? I have class in three minutes." She said taking his appearance in. It looked like he had been running from how hard he was breathing. Braelyn began to fix him up while he spoke.

"I know, I just came to get my phone girl." He said kissing her on the forehead. "Everything good?"

"Yeah, but," She started to say. Children suddenly calling her name made them both look to see her students waving at her as they returned to the classroom. "I'm coming guys! Just sit tight and behave!" Braelyn said.

In no time the hallway had cleared out and became quiet as only the two of them occupied the space.

"The bank called and said they had to freeze your account. Did you take twenty five thousand dollars out of it?" She said extending his cellphone to him.

In their seven years of being together Braelyn had never seen his expression change so quickly. His mouth dropped and his eyes narrowed as he glanced down at her like she was the culprit behind the bad news. "What?"

"The bank—"

He snatched his cellphone out of her hand, roughly pocketing it in his murky gray suit pocket. "You clocking my account now, Braelyn?"

Braelyn's eyebrows slowly came together and she put a hand on her chest, "Wh-what? Tee, no. The bank was calling and I didn't answer at first. But they were being consistent so I thought something was wrong so I answered. They told me twenty five thousand was gone and I knew it wasn't you, because we just spoke a while ago and you didn't bring it up to me."

"And I wouldn't have brought it up because it ain't your fuckin' business," He snapped through gritted teeth. "When the bank calls your phone do I pick it up trying to find out how much you got in your account?"

Braelyn's chest started to rise up and down as her mini pink lips quivered. She had absolutely no idea what was going on with him but for the past few days he's been acting really cold and snapping for no reason. It was like walking on eggshells around him. One minute he wanted to be around her every minute of the day or make love to her all night and the next she was doing something to irritate him or start a fight. She knew learning from her mother that marriage wasn't always going to be easy. But sometimes she felt so lost when Takashi got like this.

Braelyn looked around the empty hallway before turning back to her irate husband. She made sure to keep her voice low. "Takashi please stop swearing at me. And I'm sorry I was just trying to help."

"Helping is telling me the bank called. You didn't have to pick my phone up." Takashi said.

To be honest he had no idea why he was so mad. Maybe it was because of Toryn. The fact she didn't remember him or anything from her past and it had him stressed out. Maybe it was the stress of recently not being able to sell houses. Maybe it was his mother and her health. Maybe it was all of the above.

Braelyn knew at this point he had to be the one that withdrew the money. There was no way he would be this mad that she was only looking out for him.

A single tear slid down the soft-hearted woman's cheek as she looked at her husband. "Why are you yelling at me, Takashi? Did you think I would be mad about it? Are you in some sort of danger? Is it money you owned somebody?"

Takashi's lips turned upward, showing off his beautiful white teeth. He chuckled, the sound of his deep voice making her remember the first time she fell in love with that laugh. Takashi looked at her, ignoring the water in her eyes. "Why you tryna get me mad? Huh? Don't go through my fucking account and then try to ask me what I did with my money."

"Okay," Braelyn said, not liking his aggression. He couldn't even talk without cursing at her. She sniffled and looked toward the ground as she put her hand between the space that separated them. "I think you should go now."

Takashi smacked her hand down before snatching her face toward him. "Don't put your hand in my face." He said before letting go of her cheeks, "and wipe your damn tears. Ain't nobody did anything to you, you so dramatic." He hated how she started shit sometimes then turned around trying to play victim.

"I'm sorry Tee, I was just trying to help." Braelyn reassured for the tenth time.

They were so engrossed in their heated discussion they didn't even notice Miguel coming up the hall. Miguel was shocked when he saw the hot tears rolling down Braelyn's usual glowing brown skin. Her lips were pursed together and her eyes were red as she seemed like she was trying to calm her husband down. But from the way he was standing over her snapping, it was clear his aggression was directed at her.

"Umm...Braelyn? Are you alright?" He asked concerned as a coworker and male in general. She was so sweet and to see a man coming down on her so harshly was every bit of surprising. She didn't look like the type to be in a domestic violence relationship, but then again there was never a look to anything.