Page 5 of Obsession

My name was being spoken by many unrecognizable voices. I looked around and saw unfamiliar faces.

I had forgotten how many of us were there when we entered the restaurant, I couldn’t even remember how I got there in the first place. In fact, I didn’t remember who the fuck I was, and I realized why I couldn’t stick to my rule of one dose a day.

Because I wanted to forget who I was.

Katherine Wrise had to disappear forever.

CHAPTER 2

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THE EVIL HIDING AMONG

THE SMILES

KATHERINE

TWO MONTHS LATER

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My head rocked absently on the headrest. I did my best to keep it still and get rid of the drowsiness, but the sun shining through the window and warming my skin turned me into plasticine.

I winced and opened the window, grateful for the cold air hitting my face as it chased away my drowsiness. I ran my hand through my hair and tried not to pay attention to the view around me. The new view, the new formula for ‘home’.

“Are you okay, honey?” I felt my father’s hand on mine and turned to look at him.

“Yeah, just a little jet lagged,” I lied.

That was not why I was on the verge of crying every five seconds.

“We’re almost there. You’ll love the new house, Kath. It’s much bigger than our apartment, and you’ve got your own balcony, and…”

“Dad,” I interrupted his enthusiasm, “you know I hate this move and would do anything to get back home, so please stop trying to cheer me up by telling me the benefits of a house in Seattle.”

He looked at me and nodded as his lips flattened into a straight line.

“Okay,” he sighed and turned his attention back to the road. I crossed my arms and did the same, hoping to get there faster and, at the same time wishing we could get back to my real home.

New York was my home; it had been all my life. Seattle felt like a nightmare that I wanted to wake up from, even though we had only landed an hour before.

“You’ll get used to it; I promise. Don’t think of it as moving to another city, think of it as coming home.”

I snorted in mild amusement and turned my head towards the window. Dad’s efforts to cheer me up were annoying, but also funny.

This place could be called home, but for him. Not for me. I hadn’t even been born here. Of course, it was where my parents had met and married, but they had decided to move to New York as soon as they found out I was coming. That was the situation you got into when the people who gave you life were two teenagers, broke and head over heels in love.

Their story could have had a happy ending. Young or not, my parents had loved each other more than any other couple I’d ever met. They shared everything, and despite our material shortcomings, we were a happy family. Until a year ago, when one member of that family decided to leave.

I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, cursing inwardly because I didn’t want to cry again. My mother’s departure had been my undoing, a simple decision taken by the woman I’d idolized forever, my role model, and I’d alwaysdreaded the moment I would have had to move out and leave her.

She’d left me first.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked down at my arm. The punctures were still slightly visible on my skin, too many and too crowded to count.

What else could have happened to a child who had lost her role model? If said child had been let down by her idol? Abandoned by my own mother in favor of money and a better life? Nothing good.

And this “nothing good” was all I needed. A darkness that soothed me in her absence and helped me survive. Not knowing what was happening to you was the best way to get ahead. That was until my father decided to pluck me out of my darkness to bring me back into the light. That light was now bright and shiny Seattle, a city that would be nothing but my grave.

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