Things Must End To Begin Again

Taste of autumn

The autumn leaves started to showing up. It's the color that Raquel loved. It's the season that she missed the most. The roads, the crisp fallen leaves, the shades of golden colors and the red crimson hues, the atmosphere, the feel of the breezy air, all of them reminded her of those time when she loved to secretly go to hideous coffee shops just to have a taste of pumpkin spice latte or any other fall special menus. It was just a simple thing but very memorable for her, because sometimes, small things matter the most.

In fact, it was the memory that close to her heart, the kind of memory that brought warmness to her heart. She admitted, it's not only about the cafe or the special menu or the feel of the autumn itself. It could be because of the person who always made time to accompany her doing those small things, the person who understood what she loved, the person who saw her as her true self, the person who would willingly drove her around to see the autumn skies while eating apple pies in a car without any destination whenever her job tired her off, the person who would wrap her in his arms in all those rainy days, a person who's warmer than her sweater. Until without her realizing, her eyes were moistened just by thinking of that person.

"What's wrong?" Alicia caught her.

"Nothing... " she shook her thoughts away.

Raquel's eyes were still busy scanning all the sceneries through the car window. She missed this city a lot. Alicia let out a bitter smile as a response because she thought she knew what Raquel was thinking about. However, she didn't want to bring up that topic right now. It's her first day after all. Instead, she played the upbeat music to lighten up the atmosphere and they began to sing like they were in a karaoke room, just like the old days.

As they were singing their hearts out like free souls, the red traffic light stopped them. There's a huge building with a huge advertisement screen that could be seen from where they were. Alicia — the first who noticed the advertisement — was surprised and got panicky all of a sudden; it was Sergio Marquina who appeared on the screen. "Gosh! I'm avoiding talking about him and now he serves his face?" said the protest voice inside of her head.

It's about the matter of seconds till Raquel saw that screen too because the it's too obvious to not ignore.. Out of reflect, Alicia called Raquel to have her full attention, she thought it'd be better if Raquel didn't see his face — at least for now —, she didn't want to make her day harder than it already was.

"Raquel -ah... Uhmm.. Paula!!!"

Alicia said random things out of the blue, but it worked. Raquel was now looking only at her. By now Alicia had to keep talking to keep Raquel's attention until the traffic lamp turned green or his face disappear from the screen.

"Paula what?" Raquel answered without any suspicion.

"Uhm... she grew up so well.. Yes, she is" Alicia nervously laughed, but Raquel was touched, it's about her daughter anyway.

"I think so, she's a smart and healthy girl, I'm a proud mom" Raquel react with a sincere smile, still no suspicion at all.

"You're right. I watch her growing day by day through video calls. Well, do we need to buy something for her? Like snacks or toys or..." Alicia kept on talking while secretly checking on both the traffic light and the advertisement screen.

Only when the advertisement was changed, she let out a breath of relief and silly smiling afterwards.

At Marquina's office

The day when the weather was so fine, Sergio only could enjoy it through the window. He's in his office just like his typical days. He looked outside, both his hands were in pockets while his mind reminiscing why autumn was a memorable season for him.