Cold Feet (COMPLETED)

Motherwort

Happy morning my dears, I hope you all had a good night's sleep and woke up refreshed and ready to face the day.

I like to believe that no matter how twisted a person is, there is still an ounce of good in them, and that ounce is enough to beat the odds and make them do a good deed. I also like to believe that the concept of having a conscience to balance off good and evil in us does exist, and this conscience is what prompts us to do what we have to do.

But God gave us the gift of free will to follow or defy what our conscience tells us to do. It would be easier sometimes if we were on auto-pilot, to just automatically do good deeds and save us from pain and regrets later on, but sometimes, the wrong decisions teach us lessons too, lessons we need to learn the hard way.

Both Shayne and Coleen have their share of misdeeds in their lives, borne out of wrong decisions they make as a result of a mistaken feeling of entitlement. Both women actually have parallel lives in the sense that they both feel they are entitled to things that they forget they need to earn first.

Read on and discover if they are on the threshold of change. Can you guess their next moves? Share your thoughts with us please :)  

Calvin woke up to the sound of retching, and quickly shook off the drowsiness from his head. He rushed to the bathroom and caught Shayne hunched over the toilet bowl, her stomach heaving. He rubbed her back, prepared a glass of water with a few drops of mouthwash.

After a few minutes, she slumped on the floor, pale and dizzy. She lost a few pounds already as a result of her morning sickness, but strangely, she didn't mind. Her breasts felt tender and fuller, her lower abdomen was now slightly rounded, her pregnancy was actually beginning to show. 

Calvin was insisting that they get married, even just a civil ceremony for the meantime but she refused. He had been so good to her, she couldn't take advantage of his generosity by marrying him. If she was going to marry him, it would be for the right reason, if and when she was sure of what she felt for him.

Sometimes late at night after they've made love, she would cry herself to sleep, wishing she was a better person, that she could undo all the nasty things she went through when she was still sowing her wild oats. She wished there was no Richard before him, that there were no in-betweens, those flitting flings she indulged in when she was waiting for Richard. She never had any intimacies after she and Richard split up, but there were men she went out with, men who attempted to touch her, men who have seen more than they should have. 

The regrets were painful and nagging, filling her head with repeated admonishing of how stupid she had been to be careless about her body. She wished she were clean for Calvin, because he deserved someone pristine, not her. She wished Calvin was her first.

"Shayne, how bad is it?" He was wiping her forehead with a cold towel.

"It's ok, baby, not so bad this morning. I'm a little dizzy though."

"Don't go to work today. I can work from home too."

She smiled, despite her dizziness, caressing his jaw.

"You'd like that, don't you?"

"Like what?" He was trying to suppress a smile, doing a bad job at looking innocent.

"This. Playing hookie from work, staying home, staying in bed."

"I never mentioned us staying bed, Shayne." His smile was full-blown now, as a hand pulled her closer. They were still seated on the bathroom floor, his beefy arms hugging her slight frame, his mouth nuzzling her neck.

"Stoooopppp, Cal. I'm still a little dizzy," She protested weakly, but her head was already moving to the side, to give him better access.

"I love you, Shayne."

She turned to him and hugged him tightly. Someday, when she was brave enough to admit that she did love him back, she would say those words and mean it. She would get Richard totally out of her system and love Calvin back wholeheartedly, because he deserved to be loved back.

Did she still love Richard? She actually didn't know the answer to this. She stayed away from him for a few weeks now, and the compulsion to make him come back to her has ebbed somewhat. Even her hatred for Dei has diminished, replaced by an envy for all things Dei enjoys and stands for.

"What's going on in that pretty head of yours, Shayne?"

She stood up and gargled with the glass of mouthwash on the sink. She pulled Calvin out of the bathroom and seated him on the bed, sitting beside him.

"Cal........I wish I were a better woman for you. I don't think you deserve me. You're a good guy, a nice, respectable girl would be better for you. I have so much baggage with me."

"Where are these thoughts coming from? Shayne, whatever mistakes you've committed in the past, the important thing is you've learned from those mistakes. Stop thinking of things that make you sad. We have a baby together, it's a blessing we can be happy together. Can you imagine a beautiful baby girl looking like you? It will be great, I promise you that."

"Don't you wish that I love you back, even just a little?"

Calvin pulled her to his lap, cupped her chin and whispered against her mouth, "You probably do already, you just don't know it yet."

-----

Coleen was in the guest room of her cousin's house in Magallanes, sorting out things she purchased from the mall. As she organized stuff she was going to take back to the US with her, her thoughts were on Dei and Richard.

Dei was so lucky to have someone like him to take care of her and protect her. She wasn't envious of Richard's stature, she married well herself in the US, Marcus was a well-respected restaurateur in Michigan, and she was also enjoying a good life there. But what she had with Marcus was not the same as the dynamics between Richard and Dei.

She was far from a damsel in distress, she was a strong woman. Marcus liked that about her, joked her about it sometimes. But being strong does not mean she didn't need protecting too. She needed to feel nurtured and treated like fine China sometimes. When she gets sick from the cold and from working 24 hours straight at the hospital, she needs to be taken care of by her husband, instead of being alone at home because hubby was busy with his business.

She thought about the things Richard said, things even her cousins were telling her, about being fair to Dei. When Dei relinquished her rights to all the properties their parents owned, she had to admit it was an empty victory. The properties did not fill the void that her parents vacated, nor did she ease the feeling that her parents were probably not pleased with what she did to Dei.

She checked her bag, making sure that the key to a safety deposit box was there. The box contained things important to Dei, things she should have given Dei before she left for the US.

Was it time to relent from her animosity and give Dei the contents of this safety deposit box?