Treat you better

Chapter 1- Start over

Rosaly opened the door to her little apartment and inspired the freezing morning air. It had snowed the night before, and looking at the outside scenery, she had the impression that the whole world was covered in cotton flakes.

Rosaly had loved winter since she was a child, but since she was born in a tropical country, snow was an almost non-existent item in the place where she lived. She was born in São Paulo, a city in Brazil where there were huge skyscrapers, rain every day and pollution everywhere, due to the large number of cars that circulated around the city. However, despite the large crowd of people who barely had time for a good conversation with their neighbors, São Paulo was an interesting metropolis.

On weekends, there were countless possibilities of entertainment such as theaters, cinemas, restaurants, bars and so many others that could not be counted at your fingertips. Therefore, a city attracted people from all regions of the country, and why not say of the world? Since dates like Carnival and New Year's Eve many foreign tourists, who took advantage of the time to travel to Brazil and get to know the cosmopolitan life that São Paulo had to offer.

Rosaly sighed deeply as she remembered her home, feeling a sharp pain reaching her heart. She had moved to Vancouver, Canada, for a year, leaving all her life and family behind, trying to find there the calm she needed for her heart. She shook her head to put away the memories that mixed with the constant fear that always made her leave home and look at her frightened neighborhood. Could she never have peace? When could she walk the streets without feeling that her whole world was threatened by strange shadows, hidden in every corner of that city?

No, she refused to let the darkness penetrate her soul on this incredible morning. She squeezed her coat closer to her body, wrapped the scarf around her neck, and began to descend the stairs towards the exit of the building. She found the door attendant of the building organizing the garbage of the condominium, and greeted him with a joy that she was far from feeling...:

- Hello, Mr. Smith. What a magnificent day, don't you think?

- Good morning, Miss Rosely. - She had gotten used to the Canadian accent that never pronounced her name with "a" - what a pleasure to see her this morning. We hardly ever met.

- It's true, my life is crazy. With three jobs I don't have time for anything either.

- Careful, my daughter. Take the time to have fun. Working so hard is not good for your health.

- But I have fun, Mr. Smith. My three jobs are fun for me. - It wasn't entirely true, one of her jobs didn't give her that much pleasure, but she needed the money, because life in Vancouver was not cheap at all.

- I'm glad to hear that, but still, take some time to have fun with your friends. Good friendships are good for the soul.

- I'll try to take your advice. Have a nice day. -She said goodbye, leaving for her first job of the day, where she worked as a language teacher at an influential school in Vancouver called Way Ahead. She had always liked the language, which she had still learned in Brazil, but she had never thought that one day she would use it as her live hood.

She arrived at the school and greeted the secretary with her usual smile, then went to the teachers' lounge, which was deserted at that time. She used some coffee from the espresso machine, and sat on a chair near the window leading to the courtyard. As she drank her coffee, she thought about the hours ahead. She checked her watch and realized that her first class was twenty minutes away and sighed discouraged.

She liked to give classes, especially to children, because for them everything was new, and they learned with an impressive speed. The teenagers tested her patience, they seemed to be always with their minds elsewhere. They belonged more to the digital world than to the classes she tried to teach every day. It wasn't easy to get them interested, even if she tried her best, and in the end she ended up exhausted from her frustrated attempts.