Page 1 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

Chapter 1

Antony

Calling me the most boring guy in this college wouldn’t be straying too far from the truth. I, Antony Andino, was the definition of straight-laced hard-working good student, even if my best friends were too nice to tell me to my face. Three rules were my constant companions in college: get straight-As, don’t even think about dating, and don’t mess around.

They were simple, practical, and went straight to the point. They were the guiding compass that kept my life on track and my goals at the forefront of my mind.

So yeah, you could say I was boring.

But I was fine with it. I liked my life that way. It was predictable and as orderly as life in a chaotic universe could be.

And then, there was Henry Campbell. Well-known as the Heartbreaker, the unofficial college King, and the most charming asshole to ever live.

Unlike me, there were few people that didn’t know about him. He was popular to a fault, with his shoulder-length light-chestnut hair that shone in the sun, dark eyes that captivated his prey without fail, and he walked around campus like he owned it. Like the world was his oyster.

And maybe that wasn’t far from the truth.

Because people called him ‘Heartbreaker’ for a reason. People wanted to be him or do him, but very few got to have him, and no one got to own him. Henry Campbell was as unknowable as the wind, and people liked him even more that way. Getting emotionally stomped on by him was an honor. Being the center of his attention even for an hour was like a ten-year blessing.

So what did he have to do with me?

Well. Once upon a time, I used to call him a friend. We wereneighbors. But not the ones who did the tense nod across the street when they saw each other. We were the sort to hang out for hours, laying down side by side in the grass, speaking quietly to one another, sharing secrets.

We were friends.

And then we weren’t.

Seeing how different we were, you could say it was just how things were supposed to be, but it didn’t take away the fact that Henry had been a sore spot for me for three years. I was still working on getting over the sudden loss of our friendship, but I was almost there. I was almost free.

Then he had to ruin it.

Because three weeks ago, while I was in the library of all places, I found out he was obsessed with me.

And once I knew, I couldn’t un-know it.

The stinging truth of it couldn’t be unseen. It was burnt into my chest, into my brain, in the very core of my being. It left me reeling, thinking about it as I stared at my dorm ceiling at night. It made my heart threaten to beat out of my chest every time I caught sight of him across campus.

It happened in a day just like any other. At this point, the library was my unofficial second home, as a surprise to no one, and I had a spot that I considered to be mine. I had a certain way to set my workspace around me and a routine that was both predictable and practical. Nothing about me was screaming for attention, and people’s gazes usually glossed over me, uninterested, as they looked for a suitable spot to study.

I had basically become an extra piece of furniture in this place, and yet I hadn’t been able to miss the insistent press of someone’s eyes on me.

It was a bit unnerving, at first. People had always told me I was quite perceptive, annoyingly so at times, so of course, I felt the prickling in my neck every time this person watched me. I felt their eyes on me as I wrote my notes, as I secretly snacked (such a rebel), and as I stared out the window right beside me, resting my eyes but not my ever-working brain.

It was nothing to worry about. They would get bored of me eventually. Once they realized they were watching the same old movie again and again, they would move on and it would be forgotten like it had never happened.

But one day, I caught the scent.

Fruity shampoo. Delicious, expensive, and so fuckingnostalgic, it made my heart squeeze inside my chest.

It was the scent of Henry’s hair.

I’d thought I was dreaming it. That I’d really started going mad and somehow made up his scent in the last place he would be. Because, God, was I really so desperate that I would imagine the Heartbreaker watching me like a creep in between bookshelves?

And yet my madness was disproven once I caught him quietly talking to someone right outside the library. Talkingabout me. Henry had pulled away one of the guys in my study group and asked something that I couldn’t quite catch, but I’d definitely caught my name.

It was completely nonsensical. Why would he be asking about me? Why now, after several years of pretending I didn’t exist, of avoiding every joint dinner from his family and mine?

Why me?

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