Page 19 of Obsession

Zac immediately turned and looked at me.

“What?”

I waved it off as if to say it was no big deal.

“It was my fault, I didn’t move.”

“You shouldn’t have had to move in the first place,” he gritted his teeth and turned to open the door.

Chris stopped him in time.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I can’t take this asshole anymore,” Zac glared at Chris.

“Zac, don’t be stupid.”

That was all Kristen said, but her tone spoke volumes. He wasn’t going to confront Harris, was he?

“Zac, please, let’s just go,” he sighed, but a wave of relief washed over me as he started the car.

“Do you want to go somewhere? Maybe to the movies, I am sure it won’t be so easy to skip class tomorrow,” Chris suggested, trying to lighten the mood, and everyone agreed.

“Could you take me home? I am not feeling very well,” I asked, not sure if I was lying or not.

I was trying to regain my mental equilibrium after the events of the last hour.

“Sure, Kath,” Zac glanced at me and smiled.

I held my breath as we passed the black vehicle, trying to keep my eyes on the seat in front of me so I wouldn’t look out the window and accidentally meet his gaze. From what I’d said about him, he certainly would not be smiling.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we left the parking lot behind us, dreading the day tomorrow when I would have to come back.

Although I’d never looked forward to something that terrified me so much.

My dad was not home when I arrived, which was good because I didn’t have to explain why I was skipping school. I dragged myself into the kitchen and got a bottle of water from the fridge. I leaned against the counter and looked down as I reviewed the events of the last few hours in my head.

A shocked smile spread across my face, then I shook it off and took a sip of water. I immediately felt the need to vomit and rummaged in my backpack for the pills. I wasn’t hungry yet, but a nap couldn’t hurt. I had been tempted to go out with the others, but I felt so exhausted that I could barely crawl into my room and throw myself on the bed.

I looked up at the ceiling and closed my eyes.

The first thing that materialized in my mind were those lips.

Hands, arms, hair, that body.

I opened my eyes and cursed through my teeth.

It bothered me that I hadn’t seen his face completely, especially the color of his eyes. Since Harris didn’t fit the pattern that I was used to, I could not even picture them. There were a few unpacked boxes in the corner, and I sprinted to them. I fished in one of them for my memory box, unsure if I had brought it with me or left it behind in New York.

“There you are,” I smiled when I saw the journal I hadn’t used in almost a year and pulled it out from between old notebooks and folders.

After finding the box of stickers, markers, and scrapbook paper, I sat down at my desk and started the gold cover, which was filled with stickers for every stage of my development, from butterflies to skulls. I had always wanted to keep a journal, but since I did not have the skill or patience to write or the talent to draw, I preferred to preserve my memories with photographs.

I couldn’t find my Polaroid camera, but it wouldn’t have helped me anyway.

I was afraid to open it. My whole childhood was in that thing – first dance moves, first competitions and first awards, my high school, my classmates, my friends…. My mom. Everything I had once been, packed haphazardly between the pages of this notebook – one that I had fought so hard not to destroy when she had left. I opened it without glancing at the pages, leaving a blank page between my last entry and the current one to mark a fresh start of sorts, and then stared at the next blank white page. Ideas formed like a whirlwind in my head, imagination taking over as I envisioned exactly what I wanted to do.

Did I really want to do this?

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