While You Slept

8

Back at his home, Richard took a long hot shower and made sure his tensed muscles were relaxed. He felt like his whole body had been in knots all day. But not when he talked to Sloane, he wasn't stressed out at all when he was with her. He loved that glimmer he always saw in her almond shaped, turquoise green eyes. He just wondered why she was just so stubborn. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel on his waist and walked into the adjoining bedroom. He looked at himself in the full length mirror and flexed his muscles. He had even skin tone and a very broad chest. Beneath his collar bone laid a very long scar that ran transversely across his chest and stopped below his breast. He ran a finger on it and the memory of how he got it ran through his mind. But he did not want to remember the gruesome memory so he got busy. Throwing on sweat pants and a shirt, he went downstairs to the kitchen to eat something. Luckily for him he's mum; Elite Austen was already fixing dinner. His mother believed he was too young to own a place of his own so he still lived with her.
"Oh hi Richard darling. I did not know you were around." She said once she saw him.
"Yeah, I got back a while ago and man I am famished."
"Good thing I thought about fixing dinner early." She said placing a plate of stir fried vegetables and turkey escalope in front of him. Thankful for the sight, he ate quickly but neatly.
"That was delicious. Thanks mother." He said after eating.
His mum smiled at him from across the table where she was eating green salad and braised endive. After a moment of silence she said,
"A penny for your thoughts?"
"Oh it's nothing."
"Come on. I know that look."
"You know I'm always here for you Richard." She looked at him with those affectionate eyes of a mother. After a pause he said
"It's just that most times I feel a major part of me is missing after..."
She did not need him to complete his sentence. She knew he was referring to his father, Owen Austen. They rarely discussed the topic because it brought tears. To cut a long story short, Richard lost his father when he was about ten years old. On that faithful day, he's dad being one of the best spies that time, had a mission. Richard had pestered him to allow him to tag along because he loved his dad stories about his spy missions and dreamed of being one. After a long thought about it and after asking the people in charge, Owen finally agreed. But Richard did not know that would be last time he would ever see his father. The mission wasn't easy and somewhere between hiding behind burning obstacles and running from lasers Owen realized it was a big mistake for Richard to be there. Why didn't he just take him to the office? He kept asking himself. He knew he had to protect him but considering the circumstances he was not going to live. He was already losing his team mates and the Gores had killed almost all of them. The Gores were huge killing machines and he just had to protect Richard from them. Very hot shrapnel whizzed past them and cut through Richard's shirt, leaving the scar. He cried out in pain and Owen knew it would not be long before the Gores would find them. So he had to act fast but it was too late, there were already seen and before he could avoid it Owen got shot and all Richard could do was to stare with his eyes wide open forgetting his own pain. He rushed to his father side and his dad could only say "Richard I love you." Then he passed on. Those were the last words Richard heard his father say. He refused to let go of his father even when they found him and pulled him away from the corpse. It took time before he could look past it and before his mother could stop shedding tears. So they hardly talked about it.
"You have always been strong Richard, for the both of us for so long." Elite said in a low tone while she held Richard's hands. "We will pull through. We always do."
Richard smiled at his mother and got up and kissed the top of her head. That never gets old.
"I love you mum." He said and proceeded to clearing the dishes.
"Don't worry about that, I'll take care of it." Elite said stopping him.
"Go ahead and rest, you had a long day."
Richard dropped the dishes at once because he knew he could not convince her that he was capable of doing just dirty dishes. He went back to his room and slept for what seemed like hours.