Page 30 of Whispers of Obsession

I head for the back. After Mr. Spiro, I don’t want to be on any teacher’s radar.

Thankfully, he doesn’t call me out again or draw attention to me in any way, and I find myself absorbed in his lesson. I zoned out a lot during Victor’s classes, spent too long wondering if he was thinking of me, but without that worry with Mr. Marx, I can actually pay attention. Maybe I’ll even get my grades up before the end of the year. I’m sure it’s not too late. I work hard, but I’ve not been the best student this year with Victor distracting me.

After school, I head to work at the ice cream shop, and it’s a nice, easy shift. We’re not too busy, but not so dead that the time drags. Lizzy sits at a table and does her homework, and I stop by to talk to her whenever I have a free minute.

She’s desperate to spill the beans about what happened at the party after I left, but I don’t want to hear it. Just thinking of thatnight makes my stomach churn, so I look for an excuse to slip away.

When I get home, the house is in darkness, and I’m relieved. I just want to take a long, hot bath, if there’s enough hot water, and relax. Today was harder than I expected it to be. With Slater turning up first thing, a new teacher, and Victor being gone, my emotions are all tangled and twisted.

I climb the stairs and go straight into the bathroom, putting in the plug and turning on the hot tap. It takes so long for the water to warm up that we never need to add any cold to the tub anyway. While it runs, I go to my room and drop off my bag.

Stripping out of my clothes and dumping them in the hamper to wash later, I return to the bathroom and light the scented candles my mom keeps in there. Like me, she likes to relax with a bath when she’s stressed, and I got her a cheap candle set for Christmas last year.

They’re almost gone, and I make a mental promise to use the last of Victor’s money to get her some nice replacements. Something fancy – maybe the ones that come in big glass jars with lids. And some nice bubble bath to go with it.

I wait for the tub to fill before switching out the light and sinking beneath the water. It’s only just warm enough, so I know it won’t be a long bath like I planned, but it’s better than nothing. The candles flicker in the breeze from the slightly drafty window frame which needs replacing, casting eerie shadows on the white tiles that have seen better days.

I know it’s a good thing Victor is gone. That I’m safer now. But I still sort of feel sad about it. My head and my heart are at war. My brain is telling me he was a creep, preying on innocent young girls, and who obviously didn’t care for me, because he ran off and left me with an armed masked man in the dark and never even texted to see if I was okay.

My heart wants me to believe it was all some big misunderstanding and that he’ll be back. It’s in denial because it knows the alternative – the crippling loneliness I’m feeling now in this dark, empty house – is unbearable.

No one else ever wanted me, and it was nice to be desired by him. Even if it was under false pretenses.

The slam of a door downstairs makes me jump.

“Mom?” I call. I wasn’t expecting her home until much later. If at all. She often ends up staying on the ward at night. The kids she nurses – mostly cancer patients – never want her to leave, and she can never tell them no. She doesn’t even get paid when she does that. She just likes to give them comfort.

There’s no answer. Maybe it was our neighbor’s door I heard. The walls are thin enough. The water’s growing cold, and I shiver. I decide I’ll quickly shave my legs while I’m in the bath and then watch a movie with some hot cocoa in my pajamas. Sounds perfect, even with no one to share it with.

A creaky floorboard outside the bathroom makes me drop my razor.

“Fuck!” I hiss as the blade cuts my ankle and blood immediately begins to drip from it. It stings like a bitch, but I’m too distracted by the creaking outside to register much more than that.

“Hello? Mom, are you home?”

Nothing. My pulse spikes.

“Mom?”

My hands start to tremble. No answer.

Then I remember that I never got around to moving the key under the plant pot over the weekend, and my stomach churns.

“Slater?” I call out, trying to make my voice sound more pissed than scared. I fail. “Not funny, you jerk. You have to stop letting yourself in. It’s creepy!”

The door handle jiggles, and I squeak. “You can’t come in! I’m in the bath.”

He doesn’t say anything, and the hair on my arms stands to attention. The ones on the back of my neck prickle, and I gulp.

“S-s-slater?” It’s virtually a whisper. I stand and grab my towel, holding it up in front of me and climbing out of the tub. “Is that you?”

The door bangs open, and a dark, silhouetted figure fills the doorway. I scream and scramble backward, my spine slamming painfully into the sink and knocking the air from my lungs.

The figure steps forward, and the candlelight hits his face. It’s not Slater. It’s the masked man. The same one from before – or the same mask at least – and as he takes another menacing step toward me, my knees tremble.

“P-please.”

“Hello, Cora.”

---