Her Anger

"Calling someone?" Lucas grinned looking at his friend who is unusually flustered.

"Nothing much. More than that, why are you here?" Althea proceeded to turn her laptop off and hastily evade the question.

It wasn't that she wanted to hide her relationship with Ray, she just didn't know how to take other's reaction to it. Not when it's still full of thorns.

"You left a book at the student council room. Thought you'd need it." Lucas said as he handed over a math notebook. Indeed, Althea tried to solve the math homework during the short spare time she had between her meetings.

"Oh, I must've forgotten as I left in a hurry. Thanks, Lucas." Althea smiled nervously as she received her book. They were just talking about boys and here she was throwing fuel to the fire.

"So are you staying longer?" Lucas asked.

"No." Althea looked at the classroom's clock. Still another ten minutes before she needed to go home, "I'll go home now." Althea stuffed her laptop in her bag, bidding farewell to Lucas who watched her with raised eyebrows and took quick steps to disappear from his sight.

She crossed the rows of empty rooms in quick steps to try reducing her nervousness.

"Who the hell was that?" Althea's phone buzzed with Ray's message.

"It's Lucas, my student council president." she replied as she saw the building next to the parking lot in front of her, pain growing in her to Ray's way of speaking.

"And what did I say about not getting close to boys?"

"Lucas is a friend, dear. And he just went to give me my book." Althea leaned her back on the class' wall, taking small gasps she didn't know from the run or mixed emotions in her.

"The hell? A friend need not get as close as that to you." Althea frowned at the message as anger started rising in her.

"It wasn't even that close." Althea argued, "And even if it was, you couldn't be mad at me. It wasn't my fault."

"It was your fault." Ray said a matter-of-factly, thickening the tense atmosphere.

"How can it be my fault? Lucas just came in suddenly. I wouldn't know he would get close to me or anything." Althea huffed.

'Can this guy be more irrational?'

"It was yours. You were supposed to be more aware of your surroundings, Thea."

'Oh, be aware of my surroundings, you said?'

"Or maybe it's you who need to freaking calm your possessiveness down, Ray." Althea typed with gritted teeth, irritation lacing her message.

"You don't even have the right to tell me to do anything when you couldn't even accompany me that much." she added.

A part of Althea scolded herself for blaming Ray since she also knew he was working hard to meet her, but her anger drowned it.

"I'm your boyfriend, Thea. I have the right to ask for at least that much." Ray emphasized, "And you're not supposed to disobey me."

Althea inhaled a sharp breath as the burn in her heart blazed to a boiling point.

"AND WHO ARE YOU TO MAKE ME OBEY?" Althea capitalized her whole sentence, wishing nothing more than landing a slap to her talking opponent.

No one should touch her freedom.

Not the little bit of freedom she had. Not her mother, not even Ray.

"I have my own life, for fuck's sake!" Althea replied, a part of her felt guilty of her choice of words, while a big part which engulfed her entirely right now was rejoicing the fact that she *did* picked up the curse words she used to vehemently reject to use.

"Now you curse?" Ray's message felt like mocking her.

"Don't take that tone with me, Althea."

"And you can???" Althea fired back, "Just what have you done for me that you think you can decide what I'm allowed and not allowed to do?!" Althea felt so mad for the first time in a while. Mostly because she couldn't even express her anger when she did feel so all this time.

"You're indeed my boyfriend, Ray. But know that you have done nothing for me."

'Stop, Thea.' a rational part of her warned.

But she couldn't.

"No. You didn't pay for my tuition, you didn't give me money to live, you weren't one who gave me shelter."

'Stop, Thea. Before it's too late.'

"You have no right what so ever to give those rules to me. You don't even have the right of being mad about it." Althea felt like punching something really hard until she bleeds. But the clock at the top of her phone screen reminded her that she couldn't delay going home any longer or she would get another problem with her mother.

"Is that what you really think?" Ray asked, "That I've done nothing?"

Althea told herself that it wasn't true, for even if her parents provided all material stuff for her to live, they didn't give any mental support for her to keep being sane for this long.

They were not the ones who listened to her worries nor gave her enough courage to start something in her life, with her own will.

It was Ray. And Karin, in some cases.

But she was too mad she refused to reply after reading it and head home.

Whatever plan she had to make things back to normal with Ray, it didn't work.

It's over.