Early the next morning, when Tristan had just got up, his cell phone vibrated.

He got it and frowned when he saw the number. He pressed the button and walked to the door, buttoning his shirt at the same time. But he stopped halfway.

Kate had been awake when the phone vibrated on their nightstand. She opened her eyes and saw Tristan standing still in the middle of the room. He looked stiff. "What is it?"

After keeping quiet for a few seconds, he turned back to her mechanically and looked at her. "My mom is gone."

Gone? Where?

He repeated, "My mom passed away last night. Cerebral infarction."

He only had buttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, and his abs were visible. His face was expressionless, and he seemed to be in a daze. He went back to the bed and sat down at the corner.

His shoulders drooped, and his arms hung by his side spiritless. He looked like a silent sculpture.

It took Kate quite some time to digest this news. She lifted up the blanket and moved to his side of the bed slowly. She touched his arm accidentally and was startled by the hardness of the muscle. She looked down to find that under his palm, the sheets were wrung into a ball.

She covered his hand with hers and asked softly, "Do you want me to go with you?"

She heard him heave a sigh a few seconds later, and he agreed in a low voice.

Before they set off, Kate put the bracelet on. She thought of the old lady's persistence yesterday, and tears came to her eyes.

In the colorful room, Kate saw the old lady for the last time.

She looked peaceful as if she was just sleeping.

Kate felt both sad and helpless. Life was so fragile and unpredictable.

She caught sight of the pizza in a transparent plastic container, and she could not hold her tears. Tristan, by contrast, was calm the whole time. Only the people who knew him well could see that air of sadness surrounded him.

Kate didn't attend the following events. Tristan had somebody send her back after she stayed for one hour. In the evening, he called and said he would not be back and asked her to get some rest.

It was four days later that she received more information.

Ed, who she had not seen for a long time, asked anxiously, "Is Boss at home?"

Kate told him no.

"Did he call these past two days?"

"No."

"Shit."

"How's that?"

"Boss disappeared."

Tristan stayed a day with his mother, and the next day her body was cremated. Ed and the crew went together and sent the ashes to be buried in the same place as his father. On the way back, Tristan wanted to go alone.

They thought he needed to have some space and left him. However, a few hours later, when they called him again, his phone was off. His secretary said he hadn't shown up at the company these past few days.

Tristan was a difficult person to understand, and the loss of contact under this situation made them worried. Ed was fretting, "I am worried that was more than he can take. He took it too hard."

The scene of Tristan sitting on the bed with his hands wringing the sheet flashed in Kate's mind, but she said, "No. He should be OK."

"You don't know that the time when his wife passed away, Boss was driven by an impulse to kill…" Ed stopped in time and sighed, "And it is his mother this time."

Kate seemed not to hear the word he slipped out of his tongue by accident and muttered, "He won't do anything stupid. He is a person with a sense and strong will…"

The sun was sinking into the sea inch by inch, and the strong and sensible man was sitting in a car.

The window of the car was slid down thoroughly, and the cold and hard sea wind blew in and hit Tristan's face mercilessly. He seemed not to feel it. The collar of his coat was pulled up to resist some of the cold.

A row of beer cans stood on the dashboard. Every can was squeezed to an odd shape.

He fumbled in his pocket, but the pack of cigarettes he got out was empty.

He played with the lighter, flipping it on and watching the flame, and then turned it off. After some time, he got tired of this game and threw the lighter out of the window. It dropped into the sea and made a small sound when it hit the water.

He started the car, and the wheel of the limousine ground the gravel below and made loud noises. The noise stimulated his nerves and also gave him a feeling of self-abuse.

He got on the coastal highway and smashed the gas pedal. The car shot forward. Every man has some crazy genes. All the restraint and self-control were just suppressed temporarily and would explode when the time came.

Tristan turned the radio to the maximum volume, and the sound of the piano filled up the air inside the car and crashed into his ears. The music carried fury as well as sorrow.

What flew in his blood vessels was not blood anymore. It was roaring water.

Nothing could stop him. The car was at top speed until he heard a thud.

The car bumped into a stone column, which marked the boundary of private land. The head of the car was arched inward, and the headlight on the left was broken.

The forceful and sonorous music was still on.

Tristan put his head on the steering wheel for a long time without moving.

After he didn't know how long, he heard police sirens.

It was dark in the night, and neither her cell phone nor the phone in the living room had ever rung. Kate was haunted by anxiety and bad presentiment, but she could do nothing. Finally, she had to go to bed. She fell asleep in exhaustion only after the day started to break.

She didn't know how long she had slept when she was woken up by thunderbolts. It was dark outside, and heavy rain pounded on the windows.

She wondered if the sky also felt sad.

She grabbed her cell phone, and there wasn't any message. And the time was showing 21:00. She slept for a whole day!

The rain outside made it feel quieter inside the house.

And it also made it lonely.

Kate walked out of the bedroom. When she passed the study, she was suddenly alert. She seemed to detect the smell of smoke and heard something from the door.

She pushed the door open. It was pitch dark inside, but the smoke smell was heavy. There seemed to be a shadow by the couch, and a spark flickered.

She put one hand to her mouth and waved away the smoke. She pushed the door wide open and reached for the switch of the lights when she heard someone say, "Don't turn the lights on."

The voice was husky and a little unfamiliar.

Kate stood by the door, not knowing if she should walk in or retreat. Then she heard him say, "Come here."

It was ordered as usual, but it sounded less like an order than like pleading.

She walked over, and as soon as she got close, she was grabbed by the wrist. She was pulled forward, and forceful arms grasped her waist. His face leaned against her belly, tyrannically but also reliantly.

"I have no home now." Smoke and alcohol had made his voice harsh and aged. The tone was desperate. "Give me a home."

Kate's heart seized.

Not hearing an answer for quite a long pause, Tristan raised his face and called, "Kate…"

She finally found her voice, "Don't smoke anymore. It is bad for your health."

He extinguished his cigarette and flipped away from the ashes on his l.a.p. "OK. I won't smoke."

And he leaned his face against her belly again.

She had seen many sides of him, cruel and cold at the very beginning, gentle and hypocritical the second time they met, indifferent and unpredictable very often. And this time, it was the first time she saw him as fragile and helpless as a child.

"Where had you been these past two days?"

Tristan didn't reply.

As she no longer expected him to answer, he said in a low voice, "Nowhere. I just stayed in the car for two days…"

And he had been to the police station once, and after being recognized, he was almost sent to the hospital.

Kate thought of words her grandmother had always said. One has a family at 70 years old and a mom at 80 years old. She didn't understand it until she saw her taciturn father howl when her grandmother had died. She didn't know how to comfort her father.

The sorrow couldn't be talked away. Only time could pacify and dilute it.

Kate's hand sought Tristan's head and stroked his hair, which was softer than usual. She combed it with her fingers and said, "You might feel better if you cry."

He shook his head, "Can't cry."

To prove he was telling the truth, he led her fingers to the corners of his eyes, and it was dry, without any moisture.

Then he took her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it softly.

Then he felt that the kiss wasn't enough. So he pulled her to sit on his legs, and his mouth sought her lips.

His kiss carried the smell of alcohol and cigarettes, and with heat and tyranny. What scared Kate most was his face with messy and scratchy stubble. She reached her hand to touch his chin and found it stung.

Her hand lingered there for a while, as it was unfamiliar.

Suddenly the room was lit up by lightning that crashed across the window. And a series of thunderbolts followed. The sky looked like it was being torn into two.

Kate jerked out of fear and clung to Tristan's waist out of instinct.

And it was like she had pressed some critical button on a machine or as if she lit up a pile of dry logs.

The body she clung to jerked back, and then all of a sudden, she was pressed down on the couch, accompanied by a cry.

The man on top of her wasn't a man anymore. He was a leopard who had just lost its parents and had nowhere to vent its sorrow. Its eyes were dark and shining a little red.

She was the prey under its claws.

After a short moment of stalemate, he didn't reach his teeth to her throat. Instead, his fingers went through the clothes, followed the route he was familiar with into her body.

It was rude and a little painful.

Strangely, after a short moment of panic, she didn't resist much. She spread her legs wider slightly to reduce the pain for herself or obstacles for him. Probably subconsciously, she also needed to vent her feelings, and there was no other way except these most primitive means.