SUNRISE826Please respect copyright.PENANAxnIeU9m81e
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“Honey?”826Please respect copyright.PENANA6LrxaeYP07
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.826Please respect copyright.PENANANHTRKKBHgF
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.826Please respect copyright.PENANAkXXx0acoIX
The rest of the meal passes in silence.826Please respect copyright.PENANA1NNbb4aMNM
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.826Please respect copyright.PENANAqJzkzBZqQk
“Idiot!” He yells. “Don’t you ever clean this rotten house up?” He kicks at it forcefully and it smashes against the wall, tiny green crystals cascading onto the ground.826Please respect copyright.PENANAvWAV2Eb1ND
Biting her lip: “I try.”826Please respect copyright.PENANA5Gq2ODB3dS
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”826Please respect copyright.PENANA0ZXONbKO4P
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”826Please respect copyright.PENANAo6ZoPPNJ0w
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.826Please respect copyright.PENANAEiFjHtMen1
Tentatively, she takes a small packet of white powder out from under the table. “…I found this in your pockets after you passed out last night. Adam, what is this?” Her eyes are wide, worried and pleading.826Please respect copyright.PENANAKdoJL6i7aB
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.826Please respect copyright.PENANALGkk1SNzM3
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.826Please respect copyright.PENANA1SOHCfbsDm
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.826Please respect copyright.PENANADkT3Z4wys4
“I mean, for him.” She gestures vaguely to the bedroom at the back of the apartment where their son is still sleeping. “I don’t think all of this is good for him… He scratches himself.”826Please respect copyright.PENANAuNnxUKZQT4
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?826Please respect copyright.PENANAU7Iv2hCt9G
“I think you shouldn’t drink so much. Or take…” She throws the packet onto the floor. “It’s not good. For you. Or for him.” She gasps, then holds her breath, waiting for the explosion.826Please respect copyright.PENANALu8yvnU3G9
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.826Please respect copyright.PENANAG1ySYjuDAJ
Her cry of pain isn’t registered in Adam’s mind. He’s staring at his hand as if it is somehow dirty, and with a growing feeling of shame he stumbles out of the apartment, but not before grabbing the abandoned bag on the floor.826Please respect copyright.PENANANtqf4qt5ML
“S***, I’m sorry, Rachael.” But the words are said long after his leaving, leaving his mouth only when he is sitting on the curb of the path outside.826Please respect copyright.PENANAly5Nv0s5za
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?826Please respect copyright.PENANA3EFO1P9m0Q
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.826Please respect copyright.PENANAWp7aesuE6X
He just wants to forget. In his younger and more vulnerable years his father beat him: and every day he asks himself what he did wrong.826Please respect copyright.PENANAMCgDUKZaaB
Dazed, he walks up the street.826Please respect copyright.PENANAyrHuRqzGvn
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?826Please respect copyright.PENANAkBj68X30qa
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.826Please respect copyright.PENANAl2Up7UZ4tE
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.826Please respect copyright.PENANA1854Dhi0oo
He gets up onto his knees. “Rachael!” He yells. Where is she? He wants to say something to her. Something he hasn’t said to her for a long time.826Please respect copyright.PENANAL7PIPWZ8Ck
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.826Please respect copyright.PENANAooLrxP7zVM
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.826Please respect copyright.PENANA9HW1Czdtwc
And, can he see – or is it just his imagination? – just like the first strands of sunlight dancing over the tops of distant mountains, the faintest of smiles lifting the corners of her lips?826Please respect copyright.PENANAs0brszoYNx
“Rachael!” He runs up towards her with all of his dissipating strength, not stopping, not even when his legs protest in pain, he’s rushing towards her open arms, the clouds in the blue sky singing a symphony of joy – he falls into her embrace, feeling her warmth, her happiness, surround him entirely.826Please respect copyright.PENANAAoYCLxmQ7q
He whispers into her ear what he never had the courage to say; just a few words, but he can tell how much they mean to her, and finally – finally! – as the sun rises on Icarus Point, her growing smile lights up those final moments, with her laugh outplaying the birds spiraling into the heavens, he knows that she forgives him.826Please respect copyright.PENANA1oFeShgz7z
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~826Please respect copyright.PENANAdJNCYVYjqB
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