Page 262 of Obsession

“Katherine… Baby,” he whimpered, moaning my name as his arms held me close and he offered me all the fulfillment in the world with a single kiss.

He held me against his chest until we lost track of time, until nothing in the world mattered but us. We were in our own universe, and monsters couldn’t reach us there.

“When?” Harris whispered on my lips, “When did you know?”

“The night you took me to the cliff, when you healed me and helped me dance again, when you took away the hellish pain in my soul. I knew it then, but I felt it much earlier, I think when you almost ran me over in the parking lot.”

He laughed, seemingly charging me with the purest energy in the world. He kissed me, and I felt his love pouring into me. It was new, mesmerizing, and maddening. I didn’t need anything else when Harris was with me. I forgot about the danger, the pain and the drugs. He was a whole other realm that I escaped to in order to feel happy.

I remembered my mother’s words.

“When you love someone deeply, their presence fills your life with happiness. But the moment you lose that person, happiness turns into pain. Pain turns into acceptance, acceptance turns into memory, memory turns into forgetting and forgetting eventually turns into happiness. “

For her, there was a second chance for everything. Time could fix everything, and that was frighteningly similar to what Harris’ mother had said about beginnings and endings.

Our whole life was a geometric figure with thousands upon thousands of incomplete circles representing the beginning and end of every single thing we do, from the moment we are born to the moment we die.

There are circles of happiness, circles of sadness, circles of success, circles of failure… they all have a starting point and sooner or later an end, just like the snake that bites its own tail. A beginning starts when something else ends.

That was the course of life. It was fair, and we all lived it. I have lived it until now. Even after my mother left me – which was a circle of pain that almost destroyed me – I somehow managed to survive and found a new beginning in a circle of love with Harris.

But something told me that I would never find the end of this circle, because there is always a second possibility: when the circle wraps itself around you like a poisonous snake and destroys you for good. And that’s exactly how I felt inside Harris’ circle: sealed in, seemingly without end for me.

Nothing could tear me out of its center, not even the fear that I had fallen in love with a criminal.

Perhaps… only death.

***

We went back to his room, hand in hand.

As we walked up the stairs, I looked at the car again. It was absolutely stunning, and the two black stripes splitting the hood down the middle made it look really intimidating, like a strong bodyguard who seemed to be saying, “Just step on the gas, I’ll take care of the rest.”

It wasn’t just a gift, I knew that now. Harris was aware that other unpredictable situations will arise. Situations where I might be alone or where my “protectors” might be attacked or lose sight of me. He wanted me to have my own escape plan,to have another chance. This car was no guarantee of absolute safety, probably nothing will ever guarantee it again, but at least I had a contingency plan.

If I hadn’t experienced today’s incident, I probably wouldn’t have accepted it, but I had felt first hand what an old, useless car meant. His enemies – now ours – had big, strong, fast cars, and I needed my own weapons if I if I didn’t want to hide behind Harris forever.

I didn’t even want to think about what to tell my father, but that was a problem for later.

“Harris, you’re coming to the party with us, right?” Shouted V as we passed the living room.

We turned towards the door and Harris looked at his watch.

“What time does it start?”

“It’s already started, but I thought we’d go around midnight, when all the idiots have gone.”

Harris weighed his options and then looked at me, “Fancy a bit of fun?”

I tried to figure out if he was up for it, but I couldn’t read his face.

“A bit?” I asked, amused.

V jumped up from the couch and came towards me. “A lot of fun and of course he’s up to it. You can borrow anything you want from my closet.”

She looked so excited that even her purple hair seemed to glow.

“Okay,” I finally gave in and laughed.

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