RAINSTORM

Ch. 5

At the night club, Hector makes out with a girl he doesn't know anything about. He stops when her hand tugs at the waist of his pants. He's done for the day and there's an early practice tomorrow.

Hector leaves the unsatisfied girl behind, and lets his friends know he's leaving. Outside, he gets up on his bike and rides to his home, a large mansion at the North East Square where all the rich people of the city live.

The gates part at the sight of the familiar black Ducati. When Hector walks into his home he's greeted with a bow by a couple of his father's henchmen who guard the mansion.

Hector doesn't stop anywhere. Not at his mother's side of the house or his father's. He goes straight to his room, takes a shower and hits the bed.

After a minute, he cusses himself as he realizes he's not tired enough since his eyes want to stay open.

Hector turns his head and sees on the desk the Physics notes that Rachel gave him a day ago. He grabs them and returns to the bed. While lied down he roughly flips through all the pages before going back to the first page and starts reading.

ON SUNDAY, RACHEL inserts the key and opens the front door of her sister Agatha's apartment. She's greeted by empty boxes of takeout food and bundled up dirty clothes loitered all over the surface.

Agatha is a senior set designer at one of the TV series currently being produced at the Hermikk Studios. Agatha has odd and grueling working hours. Rachel drops by at her sister's place whenever she can so she could tidy it up.

Rachel immediately starts collecting the trash. When she reaches the coffee table she winces at the topped up ashtray.

Her sister smokes and so do her acquaintances. Rachel was here once when Agatha was with her friends from work. The apartment was covered in a fog of cigarette smoke. Even though Rachel had never particularly abhorred the smell before, after that day she has come to dislike it. It reminds her of how different her sister is from her. How grown up. How changed. How distant.

It's like they no longer have anything in common anymore. If they didn't need each other for trivial things like a ride or cleaning up, Rachel wonders if they would even still be in touch.

It scares her - the thought of growing apart from her sister.

After she's done, Rachel closes the door and takes away her copy of the key. At the bus stop Rachel looks across the road. The crates are gone. The garbagemen must've taken them away along with her yellow umbrella. The cat probably had relocated the kittens soon after that night, she thinks.

An approaching motorbike stops by the spot where the crates were. Rachel hides herself and glances over to across the road.

She recognizes the bike, and the brown leather jacket its rider is wearing.

Hector gets off the bike, and takes off his helmet. He looks around. Then he walks over to a little farther in from the pavement. Searching.

Rachel wonders if he's looking for the kittens or his jacket.

Hector fingers through his hair. He should've taken those kittens to the rescue center instead of taking them to their mother, he thinks. He regrets his decision. And he hopes the cat didn't let the kittens stray away again, or worse abandon them. He puts on his helmet and returns to his bike and drives away.

Rachel starts biting her nails. What is this feeling? She thinks. At school she's terrified of him. And yet she just saw him return to check on some stray animals he reunited with their mother during the heavy rain on that day.