Page 45 of Obsession

He seemed so proud of his power over me, and I growled through my teeth as I stood up. I was afraid to say something I would regret, so I walked out of the living room, cursing like a sailor all the way up to my room.

“‘Negotiations are over now,’” I scoffed, muttering, and slamming the door to let him know I wasn’t in the mood to be bothered.

I wanted Julliard and ended up on a high school cheerleading squad.

The definition of success, obviously.

I threw myself on the bed with my arm covering the puncture. I traced the spot with my fingertip and imagined the moment he injected the drug into my veins. How did he do it? Did he use a sterile needle? Did he do something else while I was unconscious? When I thought about how easy it would have been for him to take a peek inside my bra, or maybe my…. no! That scared me.

I snorted, cursing the fact that I had fainted right when I shouldn’t have.

I sat up on the bed, took off my sneakers and threw them on the floor. They looked new, and I hoped they were, because I had no desire to get foot fungus from an unwashed athlete. I already had too many things on my plate.

I stood very still, staring at the floor and analyzing every second, waiting for the dizziness, the headache, the shaking.

Nothing.

I desperately needed a shower because his scent still clung to me, especially on my neck, and I’d had enough of him for today.

As I stepped in front of the mirror, I looked at my legs.

I tensed my muscles, curious to see if they were still there. After falling off the pyramid, I wasn’t so sure I could do it, even if it was just a pompom dance. My body wasn’t as toned, even though I weighed almost as much as before. I had lost about 7 pounds, so it could have been worse.

I’d had weight fluctuations before and had been pretty chubby until I turned fourteen, when I realized I’d never reach my goals with a muffin top. Even though my body was pretty beat up, if I tried hard enough, I could see the body of that dancer.

Feeling brave enough, I did the splits standing up. My tendons ached, my joints were rusty from sitting on my butt so much, but my body did what it had been taught to do in all those years of hard work. My knee touched my shoulder just before I lowered my foot back down. Some time ago, I was able to do a deeper angle, over 180 degrees, which was the definition of a perfect split.

I wasn’t in a movie with a happy ending where all the dancer’s plans are thrown out the window and then, miraculously, everything changes radically in the last tenminutes, and she gets higher than she ever wanted to. In reality, it was almost never like that. I had to erase that chapter from my life and accept that I was now just a cheerleader, and after that… maybe I would figure out what to do with my future. My career as a professional dancer had gone down the drain because of the drugs and the arrests for vandalism.

Completely unprompted, Harris returned to my thoughts as I remembered how he held me. Was there, for the life of me, a state-of-the-art cleanser that would remove the stain of an arrogant, sexy asshole from the brain? Because I desperately needed it.

His voice lived rent-free in my head – hoarse, hard, but soft at the same time. His hot breath on my neck, those molten tar eyes that analyzed me without shame. His electrifying touches… Suddenly I flinched as I realized I was touching myself, retracing the paths his hands had taken.

Ahh, snap out of it, you idiot!

Luckily, I was pulled out of my thoughts when my phone rang, buzzing uncontrollably in my pants. I took it out and mentally prepared a string of insults for Kristen or whoever, but my jaw dropped when I saw the name flash up on the display.

“Nicky,” I shouted into the speaker and jumped for joy.

“Kath! Oh my god! Girl, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for over a week,” her voice seemed upset and thrilled at the same time.

Only Nicky could express two different moods at the same time. She was my best friend, part of my old circle of friends, but also the one who had introduced me to the world of drugs, alcohol, crime, and boundless insanity. Maybe a real friend would have never done something like that, but she knew what I needed back then, and I would never hold that against her.

“You know how it is when you move: new neighborhood, new school, new narcissists…” I apologized, unable to contain the smile on my face.

“Pff, the boys and I plan to visit you as soon as we can. We miss you, bitch. Vandalizing restaurants is not as much fun without you,” I laughed, only now realizing how much I missed her vulgar sarcasm.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Although my dad will lock me in a closet when he finds out you’re coming to Seattle.”

“Eh, who says he’ll find out?” I could feel the devilish grin on her face. “So, tell me, what’s it like there, anything noteworthy?”

I rolled my eyes in amusement. By “noteworthy” she meant boys, of course. Suddenly I was unsure whether I should tell her about Harris or not. She would want to know details, lots of details … Details I wanted to keep to myself.

“Not really, made a few friends, nothing special… boring life,” I lied, biting my nails, and praying to God she didn’t hear the lie in my voice, because she was frighteningly good at it.

“Hmm…” she mumbled.

Oh, no.

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