Rachel stares at her dead phone. It died fifteen minutes ago. Luckily, Rachel had called for help before the screen went blank.

But she wishes the battery had lasted at least until she had called her mom. Rachel can imagine her mother pacing in the living room now, worried at Rachel not being home yet in this weather.

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye Rachel sees movement - A walking human silhouette.

Rachel scratches her head, confused at the sight. She tilts her face to the left, then to the right. She's on her toes stretching to the side without stepping into the rain.

No matter what degree angle her vision is framed in, the boy crossing the road, covering himself with a leather jacket on one hand while carrying some kittens safely tucked into his other, really looks like her school's primo bad boy, Hector Sabith.

Over the plastic crates stacked across the road, Hector squats down and releases the kittens into one of the middle boxes. Rachel sees paws and a tail of an adult cat eagerly pull in the three kittens - The mother.

Hector moves the jacket from over his head to the top of the crates and adjusts its corners to stretch the leather and fully cover the top. Now drenching in the downpour, Hector looks at the reunited family, and smiles.

Rachel's mouth gapes as she gasps at the sight. Maybe that's not him, she thinks. A lightning from the heavens brightens the world around her, and in that brief moment she sees his face clearly.

It is Hector Sabith, smiling at kittens!

When Hector gets up to leave, Rachel quickly backtracks into the bus stop she's in, nearly tripping over her foot, afraid of getting caught. After a few seconds she peeks around the panel to check if he's still there. He's not.

Rachel scratches her head again. What did she just saw? she thinks. She doesn't know Hector personally, and has never even talked to him. But just as everyone else in their school, she knows a lot of alleged facts about him.

Like he's from a family that owns an uber rich business conglomerate but is also secretly a powerful mafia organization.

He's also an alleged playboy, and a ruthless fighter. There was once even a rumor he sent over ten boys from one of their neighboring schools to a hospital with serious injuries, and one of them fell into a coma.

Another rumor is that he has a gun in his car. And that he had an affair with Ms. Stella, the sexy English teacher. That he would break your arm if your arm even accidentally grazed him.

There are so many rumors about him that Rachel had lost track of them. She pulls her backpack to the front and takes out two umbrellas. One black. One yellow.

The yellow one is something she had to buy at a convenience store last month for emergency because she forgot to bring her usual umbrella. It's cheap and second-rate. Opening and closing it is a nuisance. She has been meaning to get rid of it.

She opens both the umbrellas, covers herself with the black one and steps onto the road which is basically a long puddle by now. She takes sloppy strides over to the crates.

She jams the yellow umbrella's handle into one of the gaps in the box. The new shelter is much better than the old one. Rachel takes off the jacket, and sees the kittens snuggled up against their mom, drinking milk.

Rachel returns to the dryness of the bus stop, and stares at the jacket she's holding. It's surprisingly very heavy. What is she supposed to do with it now? she thinks. She glances at the box with the kittens.

Maybe she should just put the jacket back where he left, Rachel wonders. What if he returns tomorrow looking for it? She steps out into the rain once again to replace the jacket when a car arrives at the stop.

It's her sister, Agatha.

Agatha impatiently horns. Cussing, Rachel runs over and gets inside the car at the passenger side.

"Fuck that son of a bitch!" Agatha says out loud while driving away. Rachel looks at her sister, at the white and heavily scratched AirPod plugged into her sister's ear. Agatha is in a call.

Rachel tucks the dripping jacket into her folded umbrella so the water wouldn't get everywhere. She feels troubled by the jacket's presence. A hefty piece of clothing that's someone else's, an infamous boy's, is now in her possession.

"YOU'RE NOT COMING in?" Rachel asks Agatha through the open door. Agatha shakes her head. Rachel closes the door, steps back from the car and stands there until Agatha's car disappears from her sight.

Rachel then turns around and goes inside the house.

"What happened to your phone?" Her mother's concerned and angry voice greets her, "It's late and pouring rain outside."

"Sorry," Rachel says, "The battery died. I forgot to charge it last night."

"You should be more careful," her mother says, "I was going to call your father and ask him to pick you up. Did you catch a cab?"

Rachel shakes her head. "I called Agatha. She was nearby. She gave me a lift."

"Hmmm," is all her mother says at the mention of Rachel's older sister's name. "Go clean up. I'll have the dinner ready."

Rachel heads to her room. She drops her backpack on the floor, and hangs her dripping umbrella on the towel rack in the bathroom.

Then there's the jacket. She's not sure if she's supposed to wash it. Quickly she types on her desktop's keyboard - "What to do when leather gets wet?" and presses Enter.

The long column of blobs from different articles say the same thing - Blot, and air dry.

Rachel grabs a clean towel from the shelf and dabs it across the leather over the bathroom counter. She runs back to her room, and takes out one of the hangers from her closet.

She inserts the hanger into the black jacket and hangs it over the shower rod. A few drops drip down from the garment. Rachel dabs again, and keeps dabbing until water doesn't leak out of the inner fabric anymore.

She also grabs a couple of dryer sheets and tucks them into the inner pockets. There. Done. She did everything she could. The jacket should be fine.

Later when she is tucked into her bed, Rachel keeps glancing at her bathroom, like there's a ghost waiting in there, ready to come out and scare her any second.

She shouldn't have brought the jacket home, she thinks. She wouldn't dare return it to him. He'll know she was there. She can't keep it either. That's... not right.

Maybe she'll let the kittens have it back later. Thinking that's a good idea, Rachel closes her eyes and with one last recollection of Hector's face lit by the lightning Rachel falls asleep.

NEXT DAY MORNING, Rachel stands, arms crossed, in front of the hanging jacket. It does look like it's dry, but when she touched it before it didn't seem so. She can't say if that's because the leather is still damp or just cold.

"Rachel, hurry!" Rachel's mother's voice cuts through Rachel's mental examination of the jacket. Whether it's still damp or not she can't leave it hanging in the bathroom for her mom to find. Neither can she take it to the bus stop today.

Rachel takes another clean towel and rolls the jacket into it. She puts it inside a canvas tote and hides the tote behind the luggages at the top shelf of her closet.

She pauses for a moment and stares at the suitcases to confirm she had hidden it well before heading down for breakfast.

Later, at school, Rachel sees Hector and his friends in the line at lunch. She nervously remembers the jacket that she had forgotten about in the morning. Rachel looks down and ponders over her conundrum again. She should just return it to him, she thinks. There's no reason he would get upset over it.

"Watch it," Hector's voice makes Rachel look up. A tall thin boy carrying a tray of food nervously apologizes to Hector. The boy must've accidentally bumped into him. After the boy leaves, Rachel hangs down her head and shakes it. There's no guarantee the return of the jacket would be well received.

Besides, how is she supposed to return it to him at school in front of others?

Even if he was to get mad at her for unwittingly witnessing his love for kittens, wouldn't it be better if no one else was around to see that?

Or... On the contrary, is Hector more likely to receive the jacket from her without saying anything in front of others so the others won't find out about his cat-loving side?

Rachel's decision is put on hold when her turn at the counter arrives. There's no hurry, she thinks. The jacket properly has to dry first. She can return it to him later when the time is right.

End of chapter