Orphans

10

"What is a home, if not the first place you learn to run from?"

~ Clementine Von Radics

Sweat pours from almost every pore in her skin, her muscles are starting to ache and yet she continues on the treadmill. She prepares to do stretching exercises when Kristy stops her, "Up for a challenge Furtado?"

"Sure," she puts on the boxing gloves and they begin.

Kick punch dodge. Kick kick. Punch punch. Dodge. Kick...

They continue for about twenty minutes before they tire.

"You are getting rusty Kristy..."

"You always give me a run for my money..." the chemistry lecturer tells her.

They playfully bicker for a bit before saying their goodbyes and Ana exists the university gym for staff members, jogging back to her house.

She takes a nice long shower relaxing all her muscles from pushing herself at the gym. She washes her hair thoroughly before moving on to the rest of her body. She finishes showering and wraps her body in a towel. She puts it down and admires the tattoo on her thigh before putting on a sports bra and leggings matching outfit. She comes out of her bedroom. She checks the time and it is almost eleven am. Which means she was at the gym for over three hours.

She makes a smoothie and waters some of her plants. She checks her emails and sees an email from Savannah, a student she is supervising for a project. She reads the corrected Chapter one of her proposal. Looks good, just minor mistakes otherwise she's good to go.

"Start working on chapter two."

Sent

She closes her laptop and goes to prepare herself some breakfast. She finishes about twenty minutes later. She takes her food to the sitting room and sits down on the couch. She turns on the television and starts watching current affairs Africa.

She finishes eating and washes her dishes, moving back to the couch and tuning to the drama tv show scandal and watching the omnibus.

"Hello?"

"Are you sleeping?"

"Yes... i fell asleep on the couch watching tv..."

"Okay... I wanted us to go for lunch..."

"Sure... sounds nice..."

"Will pick you up in about an hour..."

"Okay..." Ana agrees, her body is still full of sleep and exhaustion.

The moment Elica ends the call, she switches off the tv and goes inside her bedroom to nap for a bit... just for like ten minutes...

And ten minutes turns into an hour.

Elica has been knocking for a bit when Ana finally hears her in her sleep, dragging herself out of bed. She answers the door, her eyes red, full of sleep.

"Hey..."

"Wow... you are sleeping sleeping..."

"Sorry... i don't know how i fell asleep for so long again... just give me a few minutes I'll be ready"

"Hey it's okay... you are really sleepy... you can continue sleeping... you look exhausted..."

"Yeah... i think i went too hard at the gym... maybe we can just order in?? Of course not, I'm not going back to sleep..."

She goes inside the bathroom and washes her face before settling down with Eli.

"So how are you?" She leans back on the couch and smiles at Elica as they look at each other.