Free The Perfection of Love by J. L. Monro Page A

that I wrote.  At the time I was still with Mitchell, which probably influenced the paper more than it should have.  It was about the concepts of love that women hold onto, where these concepts come from and what their ideas of perfect love are.  It was quite funny to work on the paper.  I was amazed at how many of the concepts of love came from women having daddy issues.  At one point in my life I had thought the love I had with Mitchell was perfection itself and now I wasn’t sure whether I believed in either perfection or love.  If love can go so wrong then why bother at all?
     
    “I don’t know how a person can be attracted to someone through a theoretical paper but congratulations honey, you achieved it.  I jumped at the chance to come and meet the woman behind the words that not only educated and inspired me but moved me.  I want to learn more about you and you can bet your mighty fine toosh that I’m going to try and charm you while I’m at it.  You can try and fight it, that will just make it more interesting for me but I am coming for you, Miss. Daniels.”
     
    Oh, shit.  When the hell did he get so close to my face?  His breath smelled like Werthers Originals.  I loooooove Werthers Originals.  Dana stop head talking the man has got you caged!  Both his muscular arms were beside my head with his palms pressed against the wall.  When the hell had I backed up like that?  Oh, shit.  He’s going to make me have a panic attack, I need to get out of here.  I ducked under his arms and ran for the door, then bolted down the corridor.  I couldn’t control my breathing.  I headed for the staff toilets that were on the top floor that no one used and locked myself in a stall.  Close your eyes, head between your knees and breathe.  Just breathe.  I kept repeating this to myself until my breathing slowed and the blood stopped pumping in my ears.  I hadn’t had a panic attack in a long time and I hardly ever had them this bad.  Deacon Greenwood was no good for me.
     
    ****
    The key jangled in the door and I jumped.  This was my normal response after a year of living with Mitchell.   As I greeted him coming through the door I tried to gage his mood.  If he was happy then I could work with that and just try to keep him that way until it was time for him to leave for work in the morning.  If he was in one of his less than happy moods , then I needed to get the fuck out of his way and find something in the house to keep me busy quickly until he either fell asleep in front of the TV or took himself up to bed.  When he was like that I could only pray that he was knocked out by the time I could no longer keep myself occupied and had to go to bed.
     
    “Dana, you home?”  Shit, I can’t tell what mood he’s in.
     
    “Yes, Mitchell, I’m just in the living room tidying up.”  I hear his footsteps coming towards the living room and then he strolls through the door casually.  Good mood, thank God.
     
    “Hey, babe, I missed you.”  He pulled me close to him and kissed me on my forehead.  Mitchell’s mood could switch within seconds so when his lips touched my skin I flinched.
     
    “What’s wrong, Dana?”
    “Nothing. I think I might be coming down with a cold though.  I’ve had chills all day.  I’ll go see the doctor tomorrow about it.”
     
    “ If that’s all babe.”  He kissed me again and let me go.  Maybe today will be the day that he finally sees what he’s been doing to me as wrong and do a U-turn and he can be nice Mitchell.  This one, who cares about me all the time.
     
    “Did anyone stop over today?”  Shit.  Mara was here while Mitchell was at work.  Mitchell had banned Mara from ever coming to the house and seeing Jacob after they had a bust up last year.  Mitchell had accused me of cheating on him while I was eight months pregnant.  Yeah, I know.  By seven months of pregnancy I didn’t want Mitchell touching me let alone some stranger, so when I