The Tears Devourer

XXIV

     The thunderous sound of the alarm brought Rachel back to life, floating above her body and dreaming of a multi-colored blindfolded world.

     She stretched slowly, extending her arms to the ceiling and yawning from ear to ear, showing to her bedroom all those perfectly aligned teeth inside his mouth. She untangled her hair with a hand comb when she got to the bathroom.

      Washed her face, and splashed water on her arms. She put on a black sports top, with a thin stripe that indicated the edges that fitted her slim figure, and a jogger that went with the snowy lines. Picked up her running shoes, a wide elastic wrist strap, and a watch already set in stopwatch mode.

     Rachel trotted down to the kitchen, not before taking a look at his sister's room. Julie was with the sheets almost on the floor, her belly button almost exposed. At her side, cuddled tenderly, was Sleepy. Poor cat. Her mother had to leave her in charge of the Bullocks to take care of her. After an emotional speech by Rachel, defending the innocence and enthusiasm of little Julie, she gave them permission to have a pet, but on the condition that they return it to Mrs. Shepard until the little feline already can walk on her own, and not depend too much on her own mother.

     Once in the kitchen, everything happened fast enough that she didn't even notice she was home. Grabbed a glass of water, drank it without lowering her arm, put on a pair of wireless headphones connected to her phone, and went out on the march.

     "I told you it would happen."

     "It's true, you've got it right." Patton smiled as Rachel trotted out of her house. "I only had to wait eight hours sitting on crumpled leather."

     "She went for a run, Michael. This is not a coincidence, this is fate screaming in your ear that she is the one."

     Rachel snuck through the first exit she saw. She noticed that to be so early (6:00 a.m.) people were already beginning to show signs of life around her, so she preferred the stillness that the cold and cloudy morning of the thick forest could offer her.

     Those winding paths that guarded the back of the city, looked splendid in the rays of the sun that filtered through the sky. Use Somebody was softly sung into her headphones, as the trot began to pick up the pace.

     It was difficult to breathe with so much humidity in the air, besides that the slippery state of the sidewalks had forced her to get down to the track, which luckily (or more out of habit) was completely empty.

     Some bushes were already hidden by a thin whitish blanket, as were small patches of grass and specks in the treetops. She regretted the sports top when she felt an icy breeze scratch her back, but she was already far away, she was not going to return just for a coat. In addition, Rachel well knew that after a short time of trotting she would enter fully into a penetrating heat, which would wrap her in a natural way at any moment of the journey.

     Michael was always present inside that brown and giddy head. That first outing within that almost desolate city was not only to see a deep smile grow on her mother's face, it was also for her, to have a moment alone with herself and clarify the feelings that this boy provoked in her.

     As the icy wind whistled in her face, she completely forgot the sound in her eardrums, and the ticking of the timer, and focused mainly on the request of the previous afternoon.

     She noticed Michael as somewhat shy, more than usual, and very hesitant. Perhaps the nature of a quiet and not so social boy forces him to act that way when under pressure, and in her that caused a domino effect, which knocked down all her defenses and left her naked from head to toe in front of his eyes.

     Despite thinking of behaving eternally annoyed with him, for not having contacted even once while going camping with his father, she could not keep her word, and fall back into his delightful charisma.

     A resounding HONG! woke her up from her trotting reverie, and warned her that the road was getting closer and closer, that she had to turn and circle the neighborhood if she didn't want to catch the rushing, fierce highway winds.

     She rambled between returning and entering an avenue little known to her, but completely empty. Quickly calculated where her home was behind so few lined houses and settled on the continuous stillness of the asphalt, which gave her an exciting and scandalous thought alone.

     Out of the corner of her eye, Sweet saw a car enter and exit, so she hurried to the corner and turned to the left. That last sting made her lose the beat of her breaths, and the burning in her throat made her cough with effort. She recovered quickly, helping herself with small puffs, regaining her rhythm after a few steps. By the time she got to the next street, she decided to keep going, parallel to the highway, and always trying to remember where she left her home behind.

     Michael didn't look good at all that afternoon at lunch. Sweet definitely thought something had happened, either to him or to his father. He had heard more than once from his peers, that this guy had many unsolved problems, as well as, his urban legends increased every time he met someone new.

     For this reason, she understood perfectly Michael's behavior, so evasive to have or even hold a conversation with any i***t at school. But maybe, just maybe, those stories would have their little bit of truth inside. She had only seen Michael's father once, and by pure chance, the first time she had left home with her mother and sister, within hours of arriving at Dells.

     The city's Walmart is the only one big enough to find almost anything there, without having to make more than one trip. She never imagined that the scruffy guy, with that beanie stuck to his head, flattening his coiled hair, his rough and dense beard, with dark circles that covered a large part of his cheekbones, and whose presence emanated a disgusting perfume, made basically of the stench in liquor, it was actually Michael's father, Mathew Patton.

     Rachel wondered where Michael came from so handsome... Perhaps his mother, a person who would never in life get to know, but whose esteem is already higher than that of Mathew Patton. Maybe, just maybe, if she got closer to Michael, she could help him in some way. But who was she kidding? The real reason was that inside, she already felt something for the boy.