A Deceiving Passion

Scars

It was a quiet morning; Maya had picked up the kids and Brian had been in and out of the house, working off and on although it wasn't bothersome enough to disturb Stevie and her rest; in fact she slept till noon that day.

When she woke up, it was to the sounds of the ocean crashing against the rocks but it was muffled due to the windows in the house being shut.

Rolling over onto her back, she felt a bit of a headache coming on considering she had slept for so long although, she was refreshed not having to wake up early; she felt rested.

She had become used to Sofia waking her around five in the morning and then when she would get her settled down, the boys would begin shuffling around between 7:15 and 7:30 in the morning to get ready for school. Even on a weekend, it was pretty similar except she would hear them in the kitchen rather than getting ready.

Brian was there, he took them to school every day but once he was gone, he was gone for the day and Stevie did not see him until evening. Unbeknownst to her, that was how it was back when Samantha was around although his real wife didn't have the ability to handle being a wife and mother nor did she try; for the singer, it came easily but she did feel alone even if she had the baby all day.

Stevie only understood a handful of what could have been not going well in her marriage but she hadn't questioned anything yet. She was still observing.

She would get up that morning, take herself a long hot shower, pamper herself back to life, washing her hair as well.

It seemed that no matter what she did to make herself feel better; long baths, pampering herself, doing her hair, her makeup, restyling her clothes, shopping, being with her children, cooking, cleaning---she just couldn't figure out what was missing in her life when it seemed like she had a good amount of control in her life. It wasn't that she was terribly unhappy, but she felt like she had misplaced a part of her heart and she almost didn't know where it belonged.

After bathing, she slipped into some fluffy white slippers and a plush robe to get ready in. She then began styling it the way her friends did; ringlets at the bottom, bumping up her crown section but she realized a moment later that it was just not what she wanted. So, she took the time to brush out the teasing, she re-wet it and blew it out straight and gave herself a side part, something she felt comfortable with.

She had thick hair that was pretty voluminous so she didn't know why she teased it anyway.

Once her hair was nice and fluffy, hitting her waist, she went straight into makeup and she calmed down almost everything the girls had given her. She put on dark eye shadow, she lined the lash line, instead of the water line; brown instead of black and and she switched out all her blushes; using a peachy-mauve tone that matched her skin much better as far as her opinion went and she decided to give the bold lip a try, although she went with a matte red and it was deep but it had more of brown hue instead of an orange or blue undertone. Most importantly, she decided against putting on fake lashes and she opted for a couple coats of mascara instead.

She felt better and she looked at herself in the mirror, she stared for a long time.

She stared so long that at some point, she swore she saw somebody in the mirror with her.

She quickly allowed for her eyes to shift over to the right and of course, there was nobody there.

She was almost certain she had saw the figure of a man, but deep in her heart, she knew it wasn't Brian; the frame was off and quite frankly, she didn't see it long enough to figure it out because it freaked her out.

When she saw the figure in the mirror, she had assumed it was Brian coming in or something, perhaps his shadow in the light but when she looked over and nobody was there, and anything she could observe was gone. Although, she could sense that the figure had a hand on her shoulder.