Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
II
Zico was sitting on the sunlit terrace in the backyard of his house. He looked around the breakfast table and smiled at his two children, fighting about a piece of toast and his dear wife, flitting around the table making sure everyone had orange juice.
He has nice, modest house now, surrounded by nonage trees. In a neighbourhood not too far away form the ocean, allowing him to go to the beach at least a few times a week when he was done working.
He worked in manual labour, making his way up to manager of the factory and now he made an honest life for him and his family.
He still had some of that rebellion spirit him though, going on trips with his friends, he recently came back form am onto long expedition to Colombia.
But mostly he missed his wife and children he was't with them, and wasn't nearly away form them for as long as before
He married late, or at least later than most of his friends, well into his 30s.
He had several chances, but something stopped him every once in a while from fully being able to commit. After having come so close several times, he finally settled down with a girl a few years younger than him named Camilla. She was great to him. Gentle, kind and very motherly. She understood him. She was from North East Brazil, like him, and they had a n easy time getting along with each other. She didn't mind his past, and he didn't mind her cooking. Mostly though, she kept him straight.
After a hard time in jail, he had a few relapses, but nothing serious. He managed to pick himself up, throw himself in to work, and now family life.
Of course, every once in a while, when the moon was shin gin just right and when the waves were soft enough, he could stand at the ocean front and be brought back to a time that seems a different lifetime altogether. And if he listens, it was a s if he could almost hear the tapes lapping back and forth, purring her name; Cle-men-tine,
Of course he wondered, every once in a while, what could have happened. What would have happened if he wasn't such a fool? Of course, he wan't an idiot though, he always knew - in the back of his mind - that their worlds were too far apart for it to ever become anything. He knew he would get hurt, he knew that she would leave him in the end, no matter how much she may have loved him. Or he her. Because, at the end of the day, they were just two comets, intersecting by chance, on their ways to two different poles of the Earth.
Sure, he had his share of love affairs after her. But they were all predictable. Beautiful women he would have met either way, probably. But she was unlike anything that was ever likely to come into his life. A fluke. Which is why so many times he kept his distance, hurt her, only because he knew she had the power to hurt him so much more.
He managed to get back on track though. Coming out, he could have tried beating the dead horse that was his short lived drug career, thinking hw would be bale to reach the heights of money and power - like her father - but instead he learned to accept the modest fate that life had in store for him.
He was baffled how some people had millions while others like him had to fight for every penny. The injustice of it. But he found his happiness in the smaller things in life. He was still wildly charismatic, and had no problem finding people to be around him.
It was that same Sunday morning with his family, the same as so many others, that something finally changed and reminded him of a time lost long ago.
Her letter was in between a mix of bills and ads and other random letters. One to his wife, a couple of invitations. But his breath was knocked out of him when he saw her name. First name at least. Clementine Rhodes. New York City.
Her last name was different, but he knew it was her.
After reading the letter, he had a simultaneous desire to kick himself and high her. Himself for being such a true fool, and also her for coming out on top.
It was like a floodgate was opened within him that represented all his repressed memories of youth and beauty.
He read the letter in silence and then put it away, not showing anything distinct in his reaction.
His wife knew almost everything about him, but she didn't know about her.
<<O que é isso?>> His wife glanced at the newspaper article but it meant little to her.
"Nehuma coisa," Zico smiled at her, but he was thinking of Clementine.
And he realized that even though none of them wanted it back, there was something sacred in what they had.
After breakfast, he stowed the letter in the pocket of his jacket, and he went inside to his small office, turning on the computer.
They have both been through so much loss, and so much gain, and yet here they were. Finding each other again.
He searched Clementine Rhodes and Rio. Not knowing where to stop, he clicked on a suggested YouTube video at the top. It was a 4minute number, the opening lines of the dance show.
The opening lines of the number, accompanied by an eclectic lyrical dance, for a brief moment brought him back to the most beautiful memory of his mind, when it all started...And before he could catch himself, he blinked back a single tear.
In Rio de Janeiro, she met a boy
And In rio de Janeiro she gave him her world...
And a beautiful boy was he
With hands like fire and eyes like the sea...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
