𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

1.

Kindness - the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
Everyone is kind and has compassion within themselves, if only a little.

Bullshit.

I believe that we are all born pure and innocent, kind and with a beautiful heart. What fills us with fear, hatred, and evil are our experiences and life choices. Of course nothing happens by chance and our destiny is set, but there are people who choose to be evil and do evil.

For example, the day I turned 13, I put on my new pants and took them to school. My dear abuela (grandmother) had given them to me the day before, as a birthday present, even though she was extremely poor she did everything to never let my day go blank, as my parents always did.

Anyway, when I got to school I went to meet Lia, my best friend, or so I thought because the only thing she gave to our friendship was bullying me. She made fun of my beloved new pants, insulted my abuela's good taste, and threw me in the mud. She threw me so hard that my pants ripped and everyone could see my favorite michey and minnie mouse panties.

I cried at the laughter of the others and hid in the bathroom all day until my mother picked me up and called me fat. She thought the pants had torn because I didn't fit into my usual size anymore.

My birthday is, still today, the most important date of the year, it is another year of memories and learning that I celebrate. I could never forgive Lia and my mother for ruining my birthday, even though it was not the first and last of my progenitor.

The next day, my father gave me the money of the month and I spent it all buying chocolates and cakes at the bakery next to the school, that was my revenge for my mother forcing me to have a calorie counted diet.

When lunch time came, I got revenge on Lia by pretending that my money had been stolen and I couldn't eat lunch for that reason. I yelled "thief" several times at Lia until she left the cafeteria in tears.

I was called to the principal and told him that I knew she had stolen from me. She was expelled the next day.

And with this we come to the point that we only have evil and hate within us when someone deposits that evil and hate in us. Lia was going through a divorce from her parents, who didn't care about her, and she deposited her hate in me, my mother didn't want me to be born and her whole life was dedicated to depositing that regret in me.

"Serena, are you listening?" the newsroom editor called out to me.

"What?" I said turning my chair to his desk.

He rolled his eyes "I was asking if you have everything ready for tomorrow". Ah tomorrow. I smiled. Of course I am, more than ready. "This report is important, don't screw up" he sighed, meaning it will be worth a lot of money and renown for the paper.

I have been a journalist for only 2 years and I have never screwed up. I have always worked in the field of reporting and documenting events when in fact I am passionate about investigative journalism.

3 months ago, the newsroom received an email inviting a journalist to write 10 pages about the "Nutrition for All" foundation, obviously I volunteered to write all about the association because of my huge background with food.

When I started to research more, I found out that the founder was quite generous: A man who belonged to a family that had founded several hospitals on the African continent and had set up shelters for refugees. Such kindness surprised me and with that I continued to research more and more.

This man, in just 1 year, had dedicated himself to constructing buildings for charitable foundations and had created 3 health-related associations of his own. 

But that was not what caught my attention, what caught my attention were the thousands of night clubs and bars, also associated with his name, that were in the news due to cases of extreme violence, illegal gambling and prostitution.

I became so distracted by this subject that I often lost track of other reports in the newspaper.

After several failed attempts to talk to someone who had been through one of these situations, I began to become addicted to this man and the monetary power he had. Whenever something negative came out in his name, the next day he opened a new charity. This man is intelligent, indeed.

At 6pm I left the office for my small, comfortable apartment in downtown Boston. Dirt and noise filled the city streets as I walked toward home. Burning calories is better than the bad smells of the subway, I guess.

Boston became my new home a few years ago when I came here to study journalism. Leaving my home and my parents to come study and work in what I love was, without a doubt, the best choice of my life. I have never had as much freedom as I have now and I have never been happier. 

Of course, sometimes I feel quite lonely cutting relationships with the people who brought you into the world and being a doesn't help at all either. My college friends are scattered all over the world and my co-workers are just that, co-workers.

I count only with Amy, a 26 year old girl that I meet one year ago during self-defense classes. She works at a strip club and wanted to start defending herself from unwanted touches. I needed a distraction and took the opportunity to learn how to defend myself. 

We met once a week and always ended up either so drunk that we couldn't walk or talk or so drunk that we couldn't stop dancing. In the end, we ended up hooke up with any guy from the disco in the bathroom.

I walk inside the building where I live and take out my keys to put them in the door.

The entrance to the house was in the same place as the small kitchen table, the small refrigerator with a microwave on top and the small stove beside it with matching white cabinets. A brown couch made the division to the living room that was just him and a television.

Locking the door, I headed for the only other door inside the house: my bedroom with bathroom included. With a bed that my 5'7 was sore on, a brown closet, and my desk full of papers and the bathroom that was nothing much, a white sink, white a toilet and a white shower filled its small space along with a mirror.

The opening of the nutrition clinic of "Nutririon for All" is tomorrow afternoon in New York and I need a shower to rest and prepare for the trip.

As I pass into the bathroom I see my documents on the desk and the name of the man who got me hooked, jumps out at me: Nicola Ricci.

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hey «3 thank you sooo much for giving this story a chance. i promise to post several times a week!! and and start publishing longer chapters.

- Musa