SUNRISE692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaUUaALbcBQ
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“Honey?”692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ybotlqnlU
“Rachael, I don’t have the bloody time to – ” Adam drops his cutlery and throws up his hands.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRFwMwl9gJy
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rachael returns back to her breakfast. With a grunt, Adam returns to his.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIgSCAh0wIW
The rest of the meal passes in silence.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgIh4gTu4Wg
The tall, unshaven man rises from his seat and almost trips on a bottle lying on the floor.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuP0Fp78gPW
“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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDnQ0VcFd9H
Biting her lip: “I try.”692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvDjnt2dpJk
As if satisfied by his outbreak of force, Adam deflates. “Good.”692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy71cJfvZqZ
There’s a pause. “…Honey?”692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzN6iN9mQA
“For God’s sake, Rachael, what is it?” Adam turns to face his wife.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvXVbnTw8bs
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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAxSvvH3JoN
“What do you think it is?” His reply is throwaway; he barely gives the bag a glance.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTMErjSXqVZ
“Doesn’t it bother you?” She’s sweating: she knows that she might be crossing a line.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡycaqd3xvB4
“Why would it?” His tone of voice already changes; suspicious of her intentions.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ12FcI54qiE
“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.”692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC4bqucIQHe
“…And?” Questioning. Provoking. Is this the man she married twenty years ago?692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ElQVS0rDS
“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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9wUAUrJP5F
For a moment, everything is frozen – but then it happens – the side of his hand coming into contact with her left cheek.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcG21U6rmOE
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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpqqeedBcz
“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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGlfsq71DZV
Confused, angry, forlorn, ashamed, he curses under his breath. Since when was he like this?692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvbcd1pDwwe
He tears the packet open and pours the contents onto his hand before inhaling them, hating yet relishing the sting up his nostrils.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCqrfRj2JGj
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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg2ArjHXuh4
Dazed, he walks up the street.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIGQ98PJa9n
It hasn’t occurred to him yet that it wasn’t his fault.
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He wakes on something soft. Green. Grass?692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAV7LtayG06
His stomach returns the breakfast it so willingly accepted earlier that day (yesterday, perhaps?), bile burning his throat as the liquid leaves his mouth.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKiZZ8xhLOC
Rachael. Beautiful Rachael. She was upset about something. She’s always upset.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEVIht5QVka
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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvA3ZsCIIsy
He laughs in relief when he sees her, standing all the way at the top of the hill.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOFffUvLUHF
Gone are the creases of worry that lined her face, gone are the tears she often cried.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaFFsULqmMI
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?692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE1SrvCUmez
“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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtGiYEnVXYa
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.692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6JbvhAMGXD
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diende…
~Ad infinitum~692Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsbcxGWEzF
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