Between Love and Hate
Disclaimer: Me no own Gundan Wing.
burgandy3721 - Impatience... yeah it's one my bad traits lol. Anyways, yeah, Nikki's cool but... umm yea, can't tell ya yet, it'll spoil the plot lol. Thanks for the review.
Charliechaz - It's ME! I do like them as a couple, i just tend to have different plots lol. Don't worry, i'll update EY soon, just you know... keep reading! Thanks for the review.
Rin Amaru - Yeah... umm... Nikki, she won't do anything bad, i promise, just watch and see (grins) Thanks for the review.
Faerex - Trowa's so cute, isn't he, you just wana give him a BIG hug lol. Anyways, he will, don't worry, but i can't say too much yet, just please kep reading. Thanks for the review!
RayxJade - Thank you for the review, but i can't give the main couples away yet, but i can tell you that Nikki and Matthew won't play big roles.
miroku-has-darkness - Thanks for the review, yeah i liked that chapter too!
Gemini Wings - Umm... thanks for the rant? All i can say is that, i understand all the characters as well, but does everyone want to read about the same plot lines, the same character couples and the same basic story over and over again? I hope not because then they aren't liking mine very much. I like to use my imagination, its what writing stories is all about. And Quatre is a kind, forgiving guy, you can see this after Dorothy stabs him and he seems to forgive her. He's not a guy to hold grudges, and there was a strange spark between them, i thought i would work on this spark and expand it, also maybe Quatre could tame Dorothy's aggressive nature... you never know. As for Heero, he has cut himself off from Relena in this story and Relena, well when one has domestic problems and they are scared of the one they are with, they tend not to tell anyone about what's happening, as i explain in this chapter. Sorry if my story in anyway has offended you.
Chapter three: Nothing to lose
Matthew Connors. An amazing politician, heartbreakingly handsome features, he's rich, charming, enticing and dangerous.
You couldn't tell by looking at him, you couldn't tell by talking to him, hell, you couldn't even tell by dating him. However, you could tell by living with him. Relena Peacecraft found this out the hard way.
She ran swiftly down the dark mahogany stairs, her slender pale hands skimming across the dark polished wood of the banister as she went. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, she slowed to a fast pace and entered the kitchen.
"Took you long enough." Matthew stated, greeting her with his rough voice.
Relena glanced up at him, he looked sober, at least that meant he couldn't do her any real harm.
"Sorry, I was… umm, in the shower." She told him, rather nervously.
"Right okay, well like I told you, I have a business trip and I probably won't be back until late next week."
"Uh that's fine." Relena answered, grabbing a few slices of bread and shoving them in the toaster.
"I'm leaving at two o'clock today." He turned to face her, sipping from a cup of coffee.
"Okay." Relena, who was still occupied with making her breakfast, did not meet his gaze.
"I have to go and get myself packed. Go and get my mail for me, before I finish my breakfast." Relena sighed and looked up at him; she knew that if she refused his request he would become infuriated.
"Fine." She said not being able to hold the bitterness from her voice; she dropped what she was doing and walked out of the room to get the mail from the foyer.
Scanning through the mail she noticed that only a few letters were for her; she stuffed them in her pocket to open later and walked back to the kitchen slowly.
"Here." She held the mail out for Matthew to take and he snatched it from her and walked from the room, looking for privacy.
Relena didn't exactly mind, she had some letters she wanted to read privately anyway.
"Work related, work related, work related," She muttered to herself fingering through her letters. "Hmm, who's this from, it's handwritten." She tore it open and pulled the letter out, unfolding it and then reading it.
Relena,
I am contacting you to inform you that I shall be having a 'get-together' at my house next week. I shall be inviting everyone from our group and would be delighted if you would also attend. To make the arrangements more suitable, you are all more than welcome to stay here for a few weeks. I feel that this should give us all more time to catch up on things that we have missed.
Please respond soon, so I can get an idea of who all will be attending.
Many thanks for your time.
Yours truly,
Quatre and Dorothy Winner
Relena stared at the letter, and then re-reading it, decided what she was going to do.
'This is it, my chance for an escape from this hellish life I've been drifting through.'
Matthew walked back into the kitchen and Relena quickly shoved the letter back into her pocket. She would reply later, when Matthew was gone.
"Right I'm going to pack now, and once I'm finished I'm leaving for France. Turns out, that I'll be gone for three weeks. You won't do anything stupid right?" He muttered the last part so quietly that it was nearly incoherent, and walked out of the room.
"I guess that was a rhetorical question then." Relena told herself, and gathering her thoughts, she left the room to find spare writing paper to write her reply. She was going, and no one could stop her, not even Matthew.
Relena had met Matthew at a political conference a little more than a year ago. They had started talking there and not long after were having regular dates together. Relena and Matthew had bought this house, a year into their blossoming relationship. Thinking about it, Relena regularly regretted not waiting for a while longer, to let the relationship develop further, maybe then she could have prevented herself from gaining a few too many bruises.
Her relationship hadn't started out like this. In fact, Relena had been pretty sure that this guy might even have been the one for her, the one to take her mind off another person from her past. For a few months, he was able to do just that. Take her mind off Heero that is.
Relena loved going out on dates with him, he was charming, attractive, admirable, and most of all, he made her feel good. She found herself falling in love with his quirky little traits. Like the way that he would regularly run his strong hands through his silky blond locks, the way he would crack silly and ridiculous jokes at events to get people to pay attention to him, or even to break the ice. The way he would kiss her with so much passion that she felt she would almost explode, even the way when another guy looked at her in a way that was a little more than friendly, he would pull her into him, wrapping his hands firmly around her and shooting the other man a warning look. She loved them all.
However, a few weeks after moving into the house with him, he had begun to get curious to where she was going during the day and night. He frequently started asked her questions such as who was she going out with, where was she going and how long for. It confused Relena to why he was acting like this; but, she just shrugged it off as nothing, until that is, the day that he had saw her hugging Quatre.
Quatre had just left her off after they had attended a conference together, and Quatre, being the good-natured, friendly person that he is, hugged Relena goodbye, little did Relena know that Matthew had been watching her from an upstairs window.
As she entered the house, a pair of cold slate grey eyes instantly greeted her.
"Matthew!" Relena gasped, clutching her chest, "You startled me. Don't do that, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
She was met with no answer; her boyfriend just stared at her, a strange ravenous fire burning in his cold eyes. Relena frowned.
"What is it? What is wrong with you?" She asked curiously.
"Who was that?" He asked her, ignoring her question, his voice icy and callous.
"What?" Relena asked, confused, "Quatre? I told you earlier that he was taking me to the conference."
"Quatre… What were you doing with him? Did you go out with him afterwards?"
"What?" Relena asked again in shock, "No, he brought me straight home."
Matthew glared at her, seeming to pin Relena to the ground with his eyes. She swallowed hard; she could feel the tension in the room turn up a few notches.
"I seen the two of you in the garden together," he told her.
Relena's eyebrows creased as she tried to remember what he was talking about. The garden… She gasped in recognition as it dawned on her.
"That was just a hug Matthew! Nothing more than a friendly hug!"
"A friendly hug?"
"Yes, a friendly hug." Relena answered becoming irritated, 'what was up with him and why was he acting so jealous?'
"Right, fine then, I'm sorry Relena." His eyes immediately softened and it seemed as if the iciness that had been like an aura, surrounding him, had melted.
Relena cracked a slow and insincere smile.
"It's ok. Just don't jump to conclusions so fast."
He hadn't said anything for a few months after that, he hadn't even questioned her to what she was doing, she felt free in a way and felt glad that she was being trusted again and getting her own free space back.
However, one day, after she had come home from a hen night party at Hilde's he dragged her into the living room, violently shouting at her.
"Where have you been, I thought you said that you wouldn't be home late?" Matthew spat at her, Relena turned her head away from the smell of alcohol that was strongly reeking from his breath. This however, was not a good idea; Matthew grabbed her chin harshly and twisted her head back to look at him.
"Answer me!" He yelled.
"I don't have to Matthew; I already told you that I was at Hilde's party." Relena told him, withdrawing the fear she felt from her voice.
"A PARTY? I never said that you could go to any party!"
"What and now I have to ask for your permission to go out?" Relena asked, the anger coursing through her body was overtaking the fear she felt inside and causing her voice to rise.
"Yes!" He yelled at her. "That's it, I don't want you going out anymore, you go to work and come straight home, do you understand?"
"No Matthew I don't. You cannot tell me what and what not to do."
Matthew grabbed her, his anger escalating, and pinned her to the wall, his hands gripped firmly around her shoulders. Relena stood under his grip, shocked at the power that he contained. Suddenly all of her strength disappeared, and she felt weak, defenceless and not herself.
"You better abide by these rules or else you will find out just what I can do." He threatened her.
And so it started. Relena's hollow life surrounded by fear and darkness and consumed by intimidating threats and abuse from her boyfriend.
She went to work with Trowa every morning, plastering a fake smile across her face and worked in her office silently, sometimes she worked longer than necessary in order to stay away from the scrutinising wrath that lay at home. Then she would come straight home, breaking his rules would be just too risky, and though she didn't feel like it anymore, she still valued her life.
To the world, Relena had gotten into the habit of pretending that everything was just 'fine and dandy' but secretly she was dying inside, being eaten up by her depression and as she walked around she could only describe herself as a zombie, outside she was alive, inside she was dead.
She had also become an expert at hiding what was happening in her life from the prying eyes of other people and denying that anything was wrong. She felt like a pathological liar, it seemed to her that her whole life was built upon lies and if she were to let the truth slip out, her life would crumble.
Days, weeks and months seemed to drag past her. She had never felt so worthless and pathetic in her whole life. She often questioned why she still stayed with him; it wouldn't be too hard to get away from him. But Matthew was a man of high status and power, he knew many people in many places, and wherever she went, she knew that he would find her and she feared what retaliation he would carry out upon her if he ever caught her. As mentioned before, Matthew is a strong man, strong enough to hold even Relena, the most 'strong woman' in the eyes of the public, from escaping from his grasp.
Sometimes, Relena even came to blame herself for his abuse, feeling that it was somehow her fault, that it was she who had made his behaviour change so dramatically over the past few years. And she often found herself wondering what she did to drive him to his limits, to make him so angry and hateful towards her.
When they left the house, for political parties, Matthew would act completely different to her than he did in private; he acted as if he really did love her and displayed this affection towards her in front of everyone else.
Somehow, through doing this, acting differently in public than he did at home, Matthew had gained control over her and the relationship.
Relena became very confused, she knew that Matthew kept her trapped because he loved her and was a jealous man, but how could somebody act so hateful towards the one that they loved. Where was the line that was drawn to border the realms of love and hate? And had Matthew crossed it?
Now Relena knew. She knew that Matthew had indeed crossed the line. She knew that she had to get out and away from him, she knew the risks and she knew that not only her wellbeing was in danger, but also her life.
She wrote a reply to Quatre and posted it that day, and after Matthew had left for his trip to France, she packed her bags and she fled.
She fled away from her mortal hell, her abusive boyfriend and her hollow, dull, imprisonment of a life.
"There's nothing in this world so sweet as love, and next to love the sweetest thing is hate." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hey there, thanks for reading, please tell me what you think and review.
I don't know whether i have given enough detail into Relena's past few years or not, so please tell me what your opinions are.
And REVIEW! Thank you!
Love ya'll Allura
