"Samuel you have to slow down" Emma could barely keep up with him. Yet she was a trained athlete but Samuel seemed to hold a strength inside him. A foreign force that dragged him to the limit of himself.
"Let's go Emma, you have to dare to reach the goal," replied the boy who anticipated her by a dozen metres.
"You're going to give me a heart attack and I'm just sixteen"
Samuel smiled when he heard it but Emma couldn't see it. Sweat descended on his shirt and Emma looked at the well-outlineated contours of his body. He was muscular, tense.
Samuel had kept his promise, every morning before school they ran together. A aimless run, to break your breath and legs. Emma was an athlete in good condition but lacked some motivation, a push that brought her back to the levels she had started with, and Samuel needed to run. The reason Samuel needed to run was because he didn't want to go drinking with Jake, or get a joint, he wanted to walk straight, he really wanted to try.
The temptation to go to the roof of the school and do something not to think was huge. Blanca was far away and he had his heart broken. He did nothing but think about how he could have been so stupid that he let a person into his bowels and now he couldn't send her away. A broken heart that he could no longer put back together in any way but his mother's gaze forced him to reflect on himself, to think about what was best for him. Seeing her worried caused him pain. There had really been a time when it was just his mother and him, she was the whole world he had and had almost forgotten how it felt to be loved that way. How his mother loved him.
He took a quick look at Emma as she was beginning to recover. She was focussed. The blonde hair tied in a tail that had now unraveled, the soft features. Honestly he liked to spend time with Emma, the two of them were friends but they had never been too close, she was Blanca's friend, her classmate, only later did she become his friend.
He had discovered a funny and determined girl, and he really liked that.
Samuel stopped the stopwatch by touching the clock with two fingers.
"Okay miss, that's enough for today"
Emma was exhausted and dropped on the lawn "you'll make me die"
"The mid-season Championships are closer than you think..."
"yeah I Know"She sighed
Emma looked at Samuel.
"Why do you care so much about helping me?"
"Because we're friends," Samuel tried to say.
"Friends.." she repeated with her head down "just friends?" Emma didn't even know why she had asked him that question she tried to withdraw the words she had said but by now it was impossible, Samuel already had his eyes on her.
'Emma...'
"No" she shook her head quickly "I was joking, we are friends" pulled out her hand to hold it to him and seal a non-existent pact. She looked at Samuel's blue eyes and thought they were able to make a hole in her heart. An instant hole into which she would have fallen.
Samuel took Emma's hand and shook it.
"Let's go to my house," he told her, "Did we deserve breakfast?"
Emma nodded and thanked heaven that Samuel had slipped her words, she couldn't face a no, and not even a yes.
"But let's go walking..." laughed Emma.
Samuel helped her get up "as you want miss".
The two made their way to Sammy's house.
XX
Kelly, Brandon and Grace were already in the kitchen. Brandon and Kelly were trying to fix the schedule board for the week. A kind of marching board to organise schedules and their work commitments.
That organisation was vital for them because they had already split once because those same troubles had damaged and suffocated them, they had been holding on to each other ever since. They had promised themselves never to go to sleep separately or with debts of words to each other and to try to take a step back, to defuse when they could.
Kelly couldn't stand Brandon's physical distance, Brandon couldn't stand Kelly's emotional distance. They found themselves at the centre of their desires and shed new light on them. New stimulus. New love.
Samuel and Emma entered at that moment.
"Hi Emma" Brandon greeted her with a warm smile "how did the training go?"
Damn Emma thought Brandon's eyes were identical to Samuel's, it seemed to see him when he would have grown up
"We're working on it," Samuel laughed, "but the young lady doesn't have confidence in herself"
Those words of Sammy made Emma blush and Kelly realised it by putting a hand on her shoulders "I'm sure you'll make it, the secret is that you don't know what you're capable of until you do"
"Thank you Mrs. Walsh," Emma whispered.
"Come, sit down, do your parents know you're here?"
"I warned them as we came, sorry for bothering you but Samuel insisted and honestly your house is closer than mine and Samuel wants to give me a heart attack"
"No," Sammy interrupted her, "it's Sanchez who wants to throw you out, but we won't let It, we're a team, Emma," her, putting his face close to Emma's.
That was the hole in Emma's heart that she knew was coming. His eyes straight and close to her.
Brandon and Kelly looked at each other with a smile of understanding and when Emma greeted, the eyes of his family, including Grace, they were all on Samuel.
'What?' He asked, biting into a pancake.
"Nothing" the mother shrugged "I like Emma"
"Okay," Samuel interrupted, "let's not make strange ideas. I don't like her in that way if that's what you mean"
"I don't mean anything," Kelly smiled.
"I like Emma, she's cute, and she's funny," Grace added.
"Thank you Grace" her brother smiled "when I have marriage advice to ask you will be the first one I turn to"
Grace shook her head "it's really true that you can't see what you have under your nose" she took her book and went to get ready for school.
Samuel looked back at his parents.
'What?' He repeated without Brandon and Kelly telling him anything "Emma is like a sister to me!"
Brandon spit out the juice he was drinking.
"Great," Kelly said, rolling her eyes.
XX
"Ashley I've been trying to contact you on the phone for days" Dylan was pretty annoyed.
"You're right Dylan, I'm sorry, but I had some problems with the phone, I didn't get any calls"
Dylan was doubtful but had too much urgency to finish his work and Ashely had become indispensable to him.
"Have you reviewed the last chapters I sent you?"
"Just right now I'm clicking to re-enve on your email"
This news gave Dylan relief.
"If I may say, Dylan, and I know I shouldn't because I should maintain an aseptic vision, this story is fabulous, even better than the first."
Dylan was flattered by the woman's words, he didn't like to let anyone read his work before it was published, but Ashley had managed to give him the necessary creative space and also the right directions to move forward at a time when he was in a total impasse from which he didn't come out.
"Thank you Ashley," Dylan just said with a half-smile that the woman couldn't see on the phone.
"I have a couple of good ideas that I would like to submit, I mean that I know your way of working but we use our method, I submit the ideas to you and to you the free choice to follow them".
"Do we want to meet at Doina tomorrow at 1pm?" Ashley asked, concluding her request
"Great," Dylan replied before ending the conversation.
Then he stood looking at the flashing cursor on his laptop. Ashley was right, even according to him this story was built better than the previous one, it was more intense, more raw, more rude. A difficult past, a rape, a culprit who seems innocent and instead is the culprit but manages to get away with it. He was just missing a few details, maybe among Ashley's ideas was what he was looking for.
Dylan's phone ringed again and saw Brenda's face flash.
"Who's talking?" Dylan replied with a smile.
"The love of your life," Brenda replied.
"Exactly," he said, snapping his tongue, "tell me everything"
"They gave me the role" Brenda was over the moon.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. Co-star, now I'm no longer a little girl but I've moved on to the role of a mother"
"It fits you perfectly because you're a gorgeous mother"
"Well yes thank you, it's true"
Both laughed at the same time.
"Let's start in a couple of months"
Dylan smiled again "does this mean you're not going to Germany?"
"That means I love you and I'm not going to Germany"
Dylan looked at the window of his studio. He could see the clear sky, exactly as he felt and very few of clear skies he had seen in his life, he often believed to see them, to be able to sew them, to be able to adapt them, but it was not so and those skies had taken him back and sunk. Then one day he did the only thing his instinct told him to do for He was back in London. He had found the wire that kept him afloat and the sky had suddenly cleared.
"Are you still there Dylan?" Brenda's voice diverted him from his thoughts.
"Yeah," he sighed.
"You should go pick up the twins at school, and then there's Blanca's debate"
"Blanca doesn't want us to go see her"
"Reason why we're going to, right Mckay?"
'Exactly...'
"At 4 pm, be on time with the kids"
XX
Blanca was reviewing her notes. She had worn a suit for the occasion, which she honestly liked to wear, it gave her a very professional air. The other contenders had already arrived, each focussed on their own things. Everyone had arrived except Nate.
In the days following the afternoon of the kiss and barbeque, Nate had behaved in a normal way. The group had lunch together, went to football practice, joked with Samuel and Sean like every single day, it seemed that what he had told her and what had happened had never happened, but had happened and Blanca had talked about it with her mother.
"Wow," Brenda had exclaimed, "that's why he left so quickly?"
Blanca nodded "Mom, can I tell you something?"
"Anything ," Brenda replied.
Blanca sighed "it was so weird, it was like something clicked inside me. It was perfectly framed," Blanca told, "I don't know if you can understand."
"I understand it perfectly," Brenda explained to him "because it happened to me too"
'With Dad?'
"Exactly, and it happened in such a strong way that it was terrible when we broke up"
"For Aunt Kelly?"
Brenda took the brush and began combing her daughter's hair. It was something the two liked to share.
"It was a terrible pain"
"Was Aunty Kelly your best friend?"
"At the time I thought so, then evidently things couldn't be the same anymore and we walked away for good."
"The bond with dad never broke though..."
"No, that click you heard was real, some people find themselves and then stay tied up forever but don't believe that the road to each other was easy. The wound they inflicted on me was lethal"
Brenda thought back to that afternoon at the park, Kelly's face, Dylan's expression, that anger seemed to be able to resurface at all times. Brenda knew she was not healed and that she would never be healed.
"What should I do mom?"
Brenda looked at her daughter softly in the mirror and resumed her thoughts.
"What do you want?"
"I don't know. Samuel would suffer for such a thing, their friendship would break and I feel like I've already hurt him"
Brenda cleared her throat and repeated 'what do you want?'
Blanca shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know"
Brenda put her hands on her daughter's head and then kissed her hair.
"Sooner or later you'll have to ask yourself Blanca, the only thing I've learned is this: be honest. As soon as you know what you want you'll have to be honest, with everyone, especially with yourself."
Blanca nodded and smiled and as she smiled her attention returned to the room full of students.
Nate arrived just then with Janet.
"Hei" Blanca greeted him "you're late"
"Excuse us," Janet replied maliciously, stroking Nate's hair, "we had a little busy."
Nate turned his head away. Sometimes Janet was unbearable with that ostentation craze of hers.
Blanca felt hurt and jealous.
"I'm sorry," he replied, "if you want we can go rewiew a little bit."
Janet kissed Nate quickly and then cast a dirty look at Blanca.
"Would you like to go to another classroom? There's too much noise here," Blanca proposed.
Nate shook his shoulders "it's okay".
They found the literature room and slipped into it.
"So you feel ready?" Blanca asked him.
"You care a lot more than me," Nate replied distractedly.
Blanca shut up right away and kept staring at him.
'Nate?'
"Mmh?" He took his eyes off the book.
"That afternoon..." Blanca began to say.
Nate interrupted her almost immediately "leave it alone, it was a mistake.."
"Let me finish," the girl replied.
"That afternoon" Blanca filmed "when we kissed I felt something, something uncontrollable, did you feel it too?"
Nate was staring at her. The athletic physique, the dark hair, the shirt pulled on the sleeves and that tie a little crooked.
"Nate..." she pressed on Blanca.
"Yes," said Nate, "I felt it too."
Blanca closed the book and walked up to his face. She stroked his cheek barely touching it with her fingers.
Nate looked her straight in the eye.
"It would be wrong wouldn't it?"
"Wrong," he replied as their lips approached again.
The kiss was the next step, Nate squeezing her body while Blanca passed her hands behind Nate's neck.
Their kiss became violent and sweet. In moments of sweetness, when that kiss slowed down he docilely licked her upper lip.
They looked into each other's eyes. A million questions were going through theirs while in each direction. What could have happened, Samuel, Janet. What were they doing and why couldn't they stop.
"We have to go," she said as their lips parted and his hands were exploring her body.
"Yeah ," Nate sighed.
Please some opinion and some rewiew would be very useful for me.
