THE PACE OF THE HEART

CHAPTER 2

The number of people on the street made Leonardo feel slightly panicked. He walked with shorter steps, while trying not to bump into anyone. He looked at the floor sometimes. The clothes that were too tight on him ended up taking away all his confidence.

With a slight desire to hide and get it over with as quickly as possible, he quickened his pace, and began to avoid looking at people on the street, as he walked, he only thought about how he would do, if in such a short time, he already felt tired. Before even getting to the race point.

The weather was milder, the sky was blue and there were few clouds. People decided to stop at bars and cafes to refresh themselves. Unlike other days in Rio de Janeiro, the heat was not so strong.

As a new way in Leonardo's life, he had already tried to get back together with old friends before, more than once, but it never worked out very well. Everyone has already followed his plans, got married, has children, is far away.

There were many words left to say the reasons for the distance, and there were few left to try to get closer, and they continued, as if all this was something normal, for everyone it is, normal, but Leonardo still did not accept that.

There was still something to be done, he needed more time with his friends, but his friends were already fed up with all of this.

Jonathan was waving towards Leonardo, he was doing small jumps, warming up for the run. He prepared the body, made the blood flow, had an awkward smile on his face, the same one that Leonardo knew.

"Hi! Leonardo, this is my wife, Fernanda, and her friends, Isabela and Marcelle" Jonathan pointed to the three women who accompanied him.

Leonardo immediately recognized Fernanda from some photos, she was very chubby and taller than the other women. She wore red lycra pants and a light pink t-shirt, she must have been around 1.77m, fair skin, long black hair, and always had a happy smile on her face. Fernanda spoke loudly and showed enormous sympathy for Leonardo.

Isabela was also very chubby, and very short, she was wearing a shirt from a light green running event, and gray lycra pants, she must have been around 1.55m tall and was the shortest among the three, she had dark skin. , a round face and seemed to be very shy. She spoke softly and seemed even more shy in front of strangers. She wears glasses, but it seemed like they wouldn't cause any problems when running.

The third is Marcelle. Quieter, she said a few words, wearing an all-black outfit, short running shorts and underneath the shorts there appeared to be compression pants, a black dryfit t-shirt, she seemed more accustomed to sports. She was very thin, her hair was black and short, just above her shoulders, but tied up like a ponytail. She was around 1.70m tall, and was very focused on running, she said practically nothing, but she was more extroverted than Isabela.

After getting to know each other a little, they soon started running, Jonathan had told some old stories about him and Leonardo at school, how they both liked Japanese manga and going to the movies. He was trying to make Leonardo fit into that group as best as possible. It seemed to have worked, but for Fernanda, Jonathan's wife, Leonardo was already in a way a friend of hers, even though they had never met before. But since he was a great friend of Jonathan's, she also saw him as a friend.

Sweat ran down Leonardo's face. Before completing 2 kilometers, he was already completely out of breath. Tired from running and with pain in his arms, he should have stretched more before leaving the house, now he needed it, especially seeing Jonathan and Marcelle running much further ahead. They were well in tune, and one could handle the other's rhythm well, on the other hand, Fernanda and Isabela were close behind, chatting something. They talked more than they ran, for Leonardo it was a strange thing to see, but if he could, he would have done the same with Jonathan. He didn't even care that much about the race after all, despite everything, he was just interested in getting closer to his friend.