Mr.. Rodriguez got into the hospital room first while Richard stood by the doorway, hesitant about going into the room. Susan was still seated by the head of the bed, where her husband had left her earlier. She was rubbing her finger in circles on her daughter’s forehead. Elise’s eyes drew to a close and she was almost falling asleep when she heard a loud gasp from her mother. Her eyes opened and began to dart around. Cold sweat broke out from her forehead. Her mother had stood up from where she was and was now trying to get past her father.“Allow me to face him myself, please!” She said in a slightly raised voice.James placed his hands on her shoulder and was firmly trying to take her away from where Richard stood.“I have always had a bad feeling about you, Richard!” She cried in a bitter voice “Just one night you failed to carry out your duty as my daughter’s security personnel. Now, look! Something nasty happened to her”Her husband rolled his eyes as he tried to lead her to
That night, Elise had no one to keep her company in the hospital room as her father had left a while earlier. She woke up quite early the following morning to the sound of a nurse arranging some medical equipment on the take beside her.“Hello!” The nurse greeted me in a loud, cheerful voice. She had double dimples on her cheek. Her eyes shone with delight as she spoke to Elise.“Hi” Elise muttered“ You’re up already?” Her smile broke into a grin. It was so contagious that Elise smiled back. “I came in here to administer your final dose of medications. You’ll be leaving today, Elise”Elise nodded. “I Know”“From the look of things, you’re not strong enough to make it out of the hospital on your own.”“Someone will drive me home” Elise blurted, partly hoping that the overly friendly nurse wouldn’t pry any further and ask her about the person that would be coming to pick her up. The nurse didn’t, instead, she nodded and began to prepare Elise for another shot of the injections.She was
When Richard took her home, and he helped her out of the car, he decided to stay behind at the residence and wait for James to return from his business trip. When he waited in the large, quiet living room, he picked up an old workout book that lay on one of the couches.Richard started to skim through the pages of the book, slowly getting absorbed in the book and he didn’t realize when time flew by. Soon, it was evening and the clouds had gathered outside. Richard checked his wristwatch for the time. It was almost 6:30 pm. As Richard stood up to head out of the living room, the door opened and James walked into the house.He had a tired smile on his face. The uniformed staff that came in after hon collected his briefcase and left the room. His eyes fell on Richard and he bobbed his head. “Have you been here for long? How’s my daughter? Is she at home?”Richard cracked his knuckles “Yes, Sir. I wanted to see you today, Sir. I decided to wait till you got backJames nodded and he
The students of Richard’s department were called back to class later that day because the examining council of the school had marked the test scripts of each student and graded them accordingly.So, they called the students back to announce the top three that were expected to represent the school at the international level.Richard was seated in his usual spot at the back of the hall, scrolling through his phone and trying to ignore Judy’s chattering voice. She was trying to explain the difficulty that she had experienced on the test and she wondered if she was going to scale through to the top three students.Richard was calm. The test was quite easy for him and he didn’t seem to understand why the other students were all worked up about their scores on the test. The professor called out the names of students and each of them went out to meet him at the podium of the lecture hall, where they collected their test script from him.After each student had gotten their test script, the
Later that evening, Richard decided to meet up with Niko at his apartment. He took a bus from the school’s dormitory to the highway where his old apartment was. There was a light drizzle and the street was mostly deserted. Most of the streetlights had gone off, only a few shone. Once in a while, a lone car would drive pass. He threw a quick glance at his wristwatch.9pm. A coffee shop was open down the road and some teenagers were huddled by the door, smoking. The street was strangely quiet and quite deserted. It wasn’t only because of the light rain, but because it was already late. The bus stopped a few distance away from his regular stop and he got off.As soon as he got down from the bus, a sudden pang of regret hit him.Damn it! He cursed under his breath. The light rain was going to make him wet because he had not gone along with his umbrella. How could he have forgotten so fast? He fumed, kicking his feet against a stubble of grass.The air was chilling and he wrapped hi
The following morning, Richard took a public taxi straight to his university. As soon as he arrived at the campus he called Elise.She said that she had not yet had breakfast and she doubted if she would show up at school on time. Richard then told her that she should call him as soon as she as she got to school.He decided to go to the school’s cafeteria that morning to get breakfast. He felt a bit guilty that he was skipping breakfast most of the last few days because he had gotten too caught up with the activities going on in his life.He strolled into the cafeteria, trying to stifle a yawn that was going up his throat.His stomach growled quietly within him and he held on to the bag that was slung from his left shoulder. Fortunately, it was quite early in the morning and there were no queues in front of the food vendors; rather, a few students hung around trying to get their meals.Richard scabbed the large hall of the cafeteria. There were more empty tables that there were occupi
As Richard walked out of the cafeteria, He got a message from Elise that she had just gotten to school.He rolled his eyes in anger and sent a reply to her that he was coming after her. Then, he slipped his phone into his pocket and started walking towards the school’s main gate.He still did not understand why Elise picked up this new habit of coming to school about an hour late. He had sighted her from a distance as she alighted from her car and he waited for her to walk a while before he shook his position behind her, as he trailed her.She wasn’t with any handbag that morning and as she walked, her hands swung by her side. Her hair bounced behind her as she walked.When they arrived at class, the lecturer had almost completed the lessons for the morning and he frowned at Elise and Richard as they walked into the hall.Richard went to his usual spot at the back of the hall. Judy was already there.She flashed a quick smile at him and pushed her open note book to him.Then, she whis
“Yes, Sir. That is true”“Is there no way you could turn down this offer to represent your school?”Richard was surprised but he chose not to say anything.“You will get you meet most of the big shots in the works of real estate at that competition. Are you were of this?”“Yes sir.”“Doesn’t it bother you that you could be in open danger? These people are your company’s rivals. After you finally come out as the true owner of your company, you could face a lot of attacks from these people”Richard understood his Master’s point and he decided to convince him that there wasn’t any actual danger in him going to the competition.His Master still argued that he had to be extra careful with the way he carried himself because he had unseen and unidentified enemies.While the conversation lasted, Richard pondered over the words of his Master. And, afterward, he hung up, still assuring his Master that he was old enough to take care of himself and defend himself in the face of any attack.Elise