The art of getting better

Chapter one

Into each life some rain must fall

But too much is falling in mine

Into each heart some tears must fall

But some day the sun will shine

Into each life some rain must fall -Ella Fitzgerald

It was raining in Beacon Hills on Monday, October 9.

It was raining like it did the day before and the day before that, too, but things were different. Things were changing.

Lydia Martin didn't know it, yet. Obviously, she was oblivious of it all while she was staring at the lead sky from the big window of the modern-looking building.

It looked like a cage, she thought almost leaning her head on the freezing cold glass. And that day her head was just like the sky: so grey and heavy and dead it could have been a lonely child in a desert of bones, if it wasn't for her bright green eyes that sparkled with dying -but existing- hope.

Hope that she didn't really acknowledge, a bit because everyone is exceptionally blind when it comes to themselves, and a bit because she hated herself for believing, deep down, in what she was about to do.

After having followed the journey of a rain drop across the window, from the top to the rock bottom just like her life went in the latest years, she turned to her left to find the as familiar as unknown man she dared to call her husband.

He was sitting in a comfortable-looking red seat that lit up the gray day like a splash of blood on the asphalt, but his slender figure was anything but comfortable: sat on the edge, he was resting his elbows on his spread knees.

He was intensely staring at his clasped hands, right under his nose, like they were hiding the answer to all his questions, he was examining them with the methodical eye of someone accustomed to observe instead of just see.

A weak smile pursued her cherry red lips at the sight of his messy brown hair that looked even darker due to the absence of sun.

His right leg was twitching by anxiety and impatience and his toned biceps were tight under the thin, white sleeve of his shirt.

His chocolate eyes darted to hers, his eyebrows raised in a voiceless question, his full, pink lips slightly ajar. He looked surprised at the sight of her faint smile, it almost seemed like she was about to let a whisper of encouragement slip throw her mouth. She didn't, though.

Not a single word escaped her perfectly painted lips in what felt like ages, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes.

The door in front of the man suddenly opened revealing a woman in her fifties with a tidy, platinum blond bun high on her head.

The man got up straightening his shirt with his hands and glancing briefly at his wife.

"Come in." the woman smiled nodding towards her office and disappearing in it without closing the door.

The redhead did as the doctor said and moved four fast steps to her left. She was just beside her husband, now: their shoulders nearly touching, their hearts painfully apart. She knew she was doing the right thing.

Lydia gave the man a haughty glance before entering the white painted room. He followed right behind her, his head slightly tilted to the right and his tired eyes lazily stroking now his wife's light curls, now the minimalistic furniture that tricked out the office.