I Love You I Do (under construction)

Chapter Fourteen

Her heartbeat thuds loudly in her eardrums. Her face is so tense that her teeth are tightly clamped together and her jaw is throbbing from being clenched so vigorously. 

Standing about a foot taller than her Steven gazes down at the woman who he has blamed for his erratic emotions. The things she does have an unfamiliar effect on him. When she smiles his heart skips a beat. When her dark brown eyes twinkle a flutter arises in his belly. 

He is so confused. He doesn't know why his emotions go haywire when Mareena is around him. It frustrates him so much that when she got upset he decided to set his frustration loose as well. It's been building up waiting to boil to the surface. 

Not only for him but for Mareena too.

Her hurt and frustration has boiled over.

All the moments he's been rude to her and she didn't know why. All the smiles she sent his way that he returned with a scowl.  

He stares into her eyes and instead of the twinkle he loves seeing there is pain and anger pooling in her round eyes. His face splotchy red from his temper and his knuckles popping due to his fist tightly clenching.

A staredown.

That breaks once a lone tear streams down Mareena's full cheek. His eyes watch as the tear drips onto the front of her shirt. 

After that tear came another and another and......... another.  Her chest heaves up and down as her shirt dampens more and more. Panting, she zeros her eyes in on Steven peering through the pool of tears in her eyes.

Steven was confused and saddened at the same time. The woman stands before him with a silent solemn rage. It sounds unusual and it kinda looks it too. Tears and fury. An intense anger in her eyes that is blurred by the pool of tears in front of them.

After a minute of audible panting and a soaked shirt Mareena sucks in a big breath or more like a wheeze. Tonight, she's been trying so hard to keep her temper subdued. 

Has she been yelling and screaming? Unproudly Yes she has.

Has she said mean things? Once again unproudly yes she has.

What she is trying to prevent is the breakdown. Steven isn't the only one who had a temper. Before Mareena turned to GOD she had a nasty temper and attitude. Her pain from childhood was bottled up and she would lash out.

Cutting people with her tongue with harsh and cruel words.

Fighting. Coming home with bruises from a drag out fight. Sometimes with people she didn't even know.

She was a brokenhearted angry little girl.

The tears she's crying aren't only from anger and they aren't only from sadness and hurt. She feels trapped.

Cornered with two options.  Love or Rage. Rage is a loud option to her right now. Her fingers itch to strike the man standing in front of her. To release her pain with a punch or kick or curse. Loud in her mind was a voice shouting. Urging her to snap. To drop all her restraint and attack.

Then there is Love.Love seems to come to her like a firm whisper. Quiet and calm but very powerful.                     

Don't fight Mareena.

You've come too far from where you used to be.

As she begins to focus on Love, rage is drowned out. When rage was clouding her and she fed into it Love wasn't in her attention at the moment. Not any less powerful, but she hadn't focused on it. Love gets clearer to her as she focuses on it.