“And one hundred!”

Val finally finished her hundredth lap around her neighborhood. She got back to the gym from her morning run, sweating and huffing profusely. In her arms, she carried groceries she had bought from the local food market. It was the cheapest shit she could find.

“Bread,” she called out. “Bought some stuff for dinner.” It was awfully quiet though. “Bread?” No answer. “Bread!”

Was he hiding somewhere? Inside the walls? Under the table? There was nowhere to hide here. It was a gym. It was wide fucking open. With the shoddy renovation she’d done, the place was lacking in everything. Especially the furniture. There was literally nowhere to hide. But then where was he? Kidnapped? By scrap pirates?

No. Calm it, Val. He had a tendency to run around, didn’t he? Maybe he was sleeping?

She ran over to the workshop to check.

No Bread.

Calm down, she told herself. Don’t freak out. He was probably just out on an adventure or something. No, but if he was, he would’ve told her before he’d left.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This wasn’t normal, was it?

She made her way out to the front to check if there were any signs of struggling or maybe even just specks of blood.

No, everything looked normal.

She peered over at the roof.

Nothing. No signs of movement.

What the fuck? He wasn’t inside. He wasn’t outside. He wasn’t watching the dandelion up top. There where? Where was he? Was he in the back? Maybe next to Coach?

She sprinted to the backyard.

“Bread?” she called out, but there was still no answer. Where the hell… And then she saw something hanging off Coach’s headstone—

A pair of boxing gloves.

“No way. These are brand new! Who would—” Bread? It was just this gut feeling… She knelt down. There was also a fresh pair of hand wraps. The only person who knew her gloves had burnt in the fire was Bread. Nobody else. Why would he—

No…

Was this why he’d looked so troubled that one time? Had he already decided back then?

“Bread…” Her head fell. She hugged the headstone in front of her, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. “You too? You just had to go too…”

She got up and took a deep breath.

“Okay, fuck this!” She wiped the tears away. At this rate, she felt like she was going insane. All this negativity was eating her brains out. “When you come back, I’ll be someone you can look up to. I promise!” Her heart thumped with more vigor. “So you better come back to say goodbye, you idiot!”

This was just the beginning.