Chapter 2

Hazz's POV

It was the third time I was late that week.

I could never find on the Internet any explanation of why a nap in the afternoon was so invigorating, but four hours of sleep at night were worse than just not sleeping. There were theories, of course, but I've never been too attached to them. Even because if it were, I would choose much more to look for a job at night and dawn, and leave the afternoon to rest with the angelic harps that played at the time of the nap, unlike the night when insomnia knocked on my door and only allowed me to sleep after the late hours at dawn.

If I had a choice, I would have preferred not to fall asleep, since this would imply the fact that I would erase to the point of not seeing if a herd of mammoths would run over me. But my body, despite the usual years of waking up early and sleeping late, still surrendered to fatigue when my daily tasks were over, and I barely noticed when I was already falling into that sleep of the dead. Therefore, the delays were constant. And the lack of rest too.

I woke up with the brightness of the sun hitting my face, and I was surprised that at eight o’clock in the morning, it was so sunny that way, but I blamed the fact that I had forgotten to close the curtains before going to sleep the next night. The sun's rays illuminated my old wooden wardrobe, and reflected against the mirror, provoking the damn light directly on my face.

I didn't even have the strength to get up and close the curtain. I just blinked, falling asleep again, even aware that the strong sunlight was already heating the leg I had out of the thick covers. The warm sheets were inviting, and I could not deny that offer of a few more minutes of rest, even if it was already eight hours, I would only have half an hour to get ready and go to work.

In addition to being late more than once that week, I still had the constant habit of sleeping until the last second of my free time, totally implying my ability to become presentable enough. At that time, after eight years of working in the same place, people were already used to my hasty choice of clothes, shaggy hair, and crooked glasses. One more day wouldn't change anything. It wasn't like I was going to need to be beautiful enough to please someone's eyes.

A long time ago I had lost hope of finding a woman who understood me by what I was, and not by what was outside. Inner beauty was an important aspect of my relationships, since even far from my fifteen years, the strange traits remained.

I was a twenty-eight-year-old man, too big, with too wide shoulders, and complicated to find clothes that didn't tighten - even though I was far from being overweight, I couldn't adapt to my biotype. I was lucky in that, although I was unlucky at the same level. I had a body that didn't need muscles because the bones were already big enough, and my sedentary life was grateful for the fast metabolism. However, little interest in pleasing. Little knowledge about how women's heads worked. And that made me a standard that no woman had ever been interested in.

Whether for a Divine punishment or just for being, these genetic gifts did not attract women to me, although it was very easy to push them away. This is my lack of tact to know how to deal with a girl's temperament, and it was easy to understand why my previous relationships did not last as I expected.

Maybe it was by the hair at shoulder height, which I used to attach to a low elastic band. Or the glasses of degrees that made my jaw more square and my chin with a hole. Or the lack of a full beard. If I didn't feel so much itching on my face... maybe I could let the hair grow, but that wasn't my reality. Not even the blue eyes had any flash under all that mess that I was. In fact, lucky, but unlucky to the same extent.

The night before, I had arrived home well after midnight. And I wanted to be able to say that I was at night or with many women around me and that I had drunk enough to have a headache, but I would be lying.

I didn't have a large number of women in my life at that moment, apart from my mother and my younger sister, some sweet cousins and aunts, there were none. The reason for that boring and pulsating headache was for working so hard.

I did some jobs as an assistant photographer - although I was still studying journalism - but I worked at night as a glass washer in a busy bar in the city. It was lucky that I was home shortly after midnight the day before since the place worked until three o’clock in the morning. As I never fulfilled my workload, I always received less, but at least I could pay my bills.

The night before, when I got home, I didn’t even have time to eat anything. I collapsed in bed and fell into a deep sleep, so much so that I didn't hear anything but my snoring. So, when I was already ignoring the sunlight and going back to sleep, my cell phone vibrated darkly, like a living and impatient creature.

Grumbling that I still had half an hour to rest, I raised my arm and groped the wooden nightstand in search of the cell phone. My glasses appeared first, and I made a great effort to clean the residues of tiredness in my eyes and put on the accessory. I couldn't see shit without the glasses, and I was still unlucky enough to be allergic to contact lenses. Either I would face a beautiful surgery to correct the tiredness of the eyes, or I needed to get used to the small injuries that the long use of the glasses caused on my nose when I ended up sleeping with them. Luckily, I never broke it. By bad luck, I always needed it.

My cell phone fell on the bed a few times, because my fingers were as tired as the rest of my body, and I couldn't hold it firmly enough to check the time. My consolation that morning was knowing that it was a Friday. At least I would have off on the weekend, but I would still have to study for the college exams, so it wasn't exactly a day off.

Still grumbling as the cell phone escaped from my hands and my eyes full of mess did not allow me to see the screen reflected by the glasses, I thought about how wonderful it would be to have at least one day off from that shitty life.

Just one day when I didn't have to worry about the bills, or the amount of electricity or water I could spend, and I wouldn't even have to pay the rent. Just one day was enough. I've never been too demanding, I would settle for a vacation, but I could never take a vacation. Since I was born, I had bills to pay, and I thought I would die owing some loan shark.

“Oh, holyshit!” I cursed when I turned on the cell phone screen, getting up in a jump. The glasses slipped, almost falling, and my cell phone also almost collapsed from the fright. “No. No. No.”

I was finally able to check the time.

And it was past ten in the morning. The damn ray of sunshine rose a little more in front of my wardrobe as if mocking his attempts to wake me up, and that terrible sleep that still made my eyes burn, even widened by the despair of delay. I was screwed. Screwed up. Once again that week, my delay would earn me more despicable looks from my co-workers, and less credit from my superiors.

Jumping from the bed, falling face down on the floor, I pulled the blanket out of my body. I had the habit of curling up like a caterpillar in the cocoon, and although that was great for cold days, at the moment of despair, it was hell.

I started running through the small apartment, sticking myself in the bathroom with the door slightly tilted to the side (I had already complained hundreds of times to the landlord that the fault of the falling of the door was not mine and, yes, of the termites), and then running frantically to get the pants and the crumpled shirt on the couch and wear it anyway. I didn't answer the phone and he kept ringing Ruth's number.

Ruth was my boss. Ruth could send me away in a magical way. Ruth was the name I thought the most about from dawn to dusk because that was my work shift. Rute gave me an opportunity at the renowned station to which she was executive director thanks to my mother.

Both for my mother and Ruth, I was a disappointment. I stuck a tasteless toast in my mouth, put the cell phone in my pocket, and groped the strands of my hair to keep them aligned. I mean, as aligned as possible for a person who sweated all night and caused the long strands to curl up in curls and fall on the forehead.

I didn't have time to apply gel that day. I used to fill my hair with any cream or ointment, just because people on the station said I had to look better, and I was always late and never seemed better.

Despite always cutting my hair, it grew so fast that in one week it was already possible to realize the size, but nothing could defend me by keeping the strands long. I could very well leave it at the height of the nape of the neck, in a way that normal men used to leave, but the sloppiness never allowed me to go to a barber to do the cut. I ventured with a small silver pair of scissors and swore it was good enough. In my head, the small elastic tape I kept to attach it would be enough, but the strands in front were shorter and kept loosening at any sudden movement.

So, as soon as I knocked on the apartment door and the movement caused a breath of hot air against my face, my hair fell back on my forehead. I cursed as many swear as I could, and it was still very early. My neighbors were already used to the rush I provoked on the stairs when running down and because of the haste that prevented me from greeting them with more than shouted words.

When I arrived at the courtyard of the building, I ran away from my bike, always located on the side of the building to facilitate my rush, I rode and started cycling towards work. Ruth would kill me. Every time my cell phone warmed up in my pocket for another missed call, I knew she cursed me and wanted my head on a tray. I didn't judge her. It must be horrible to give someone the opportunity and see that person not fulfilling their obligations.

However, she understood that my life was not easy. She understood, because, at some point, she was already that way, until her position in the company made her grow enough not to depend on how many jobs arose in the week. I wasn't late because I was partying every night, or because I depended on some public transport.

My problem was being an extremely unlucky, tired, and indebted guy. My name was so dirty that I didn't even know what it was like to receive a call other than charges. I didn't even have the money to use buses and avoid the fatigue of arriving sweaty and even more tired at work. It was a vicious and hellish cycle.

The city sighed with long traffic and full of angry people, horns sounded everywhere, and swearing and complaints as well. I deviated three times to get there faster, even so, when I saw the station building and mentioned going into the garage with my bike, I had to brake at the last minute because Ruth in person was waiting for me at the doors.

With her arms crossed and an unfriendly expression, she acted like a mother who intends to beat a child the moment he decided to pass by her, raising an eyebrow in a gesture of threat.