Page 20 of Obsession

Oh, fuck it.

I switched on the computer and searched the internet for pictures. Tattooed arms, strong hands, masculine lips that resembled his. Out of curiosity, I searched for him on Facebook, but there was no Harris Stone with his face, neither on Instagram nor on any other social media platform. Well, shit! Although I couldn’t judge him; I’d given up on all my profiles too. Amber Wrise had an impressive Instagram account – a budding mini-star – who posted herself in sexy poses aroundHarris’ car and more. But he wasn’t featured in any of her posts, even without a face. She was also a cheerleader, of course.

Curiosity led me to search for his car, and it wasn’t hard to identify it after I typed “Ferrari” into Google.

It was the latest model to hit the market, and even though it looked different in Vantablack, I could have sworn it was an F8 Tributo. I had learned that its price was a whopping 280,000 dollars, and that was without any tuning. So, his parents were rich, that was the most logical explanation.

Thoughts of the car I could have had flashed through my head. My mother’s new millionaire husband had given me a Mercedes CLS for my eighteenth birthday. I’d come so close to wrecking it, but my dad had managed to send it back before I’d had the chance to dump it in a lake or something. He’d stolen my mom and offered me a car. Hell of a deal.

I went back to Harris and focused my attention on him. I started to look like I was obsessed, but it seemed to calm my nerves and make me forget about the drama. To get in the right mood, I plugged in my headphones and played Nightmare by 2Scratch. There was no way I was going to leave the page white, so I stuck a black page over it, printed out the pictures and tore them into little pictures. I did find a sticker with black wings, but they were different than the ones on his car, so I printed out a few other variations. I taped everything to the page. I wasn’t a fan of scissors; messy and torn edges seemed more appealing. I crowded them onto the black surface and scribbled his name in the corner with a white marker.

I had a box full of torn book pages, quotes I’d liked at some point, and I flipped through them until I found one that I’d never used; it seemed too bleak.

Somehow it fit Harris so perfectly that it scared me.

“It will be easy to fall for me,

But impossible to rise again.

Love me and I will tear your wings.”

I stuck the text in the middle of the pictures, pushed the chair away from the desk and admired the result. It was the darkest page in my diary, the most demonic.

Since I had no photos of Harris, I managed to piece him together from parts of other men, though none evoked the right feeling – the feeling he had brought to life. I imagined photographing these parts of him, and goosebumps spread across my skin as I slammed the journal shut and stepped away from the desk before I could talk myself into tearing the page to shreds. I should have, though, because I seemed to have lost my mind.

I wasted two hours doing that. God, I was obsessed with a guy without seeing his face up close, without hearing his voice. No one had ever affected me like that in my entire life.

This city would drive me insane. I was sure of that now.

***

The next morning, I woke up with a terrible headache.

I had been in a bad mood since the day before, largely due to a person who seemed to have taken up residence in my head.

The dim light in my bedroom didn’t seem to be much help as I got out of bed. My vision was foggy, and I could barely stand up straight.

I made my way downstairs in my pajamas.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Dad greeted me with his new cheerfulness, “are you okay?”

Was it so obvious that I wasn’t? His face became concerned as he looked at me with serious eyes, a bowl of cereal in his hand.

“Yeah, just… tired,” I lied, forcing myself to smile.

I didn’t want my father to get skeptical. I would die before I set foot in a rehab facility again.

I sat down next to him, sipped my coffee, and refused to eat the cereal he had put in front of me. Just the sight of food made me nauseous; my body was craving a different kind of nourishment. My addiction had a firm grip on me.

He looked at me for a few seconds, carefully analyzing my reactions, and I forced a yawn to make him think fatigue was the reason.

“Want me to take you to school?” he finally asked, smiling again as he checked the phone on the table where messages were buzzing.

“No, Zac and the others will pick me up.”

“Oh, okay. Can I meet your new friends?”

“Sure. You’d get to know them if you were home more.”

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