Page 32 of Wild Obsession

“I’m hanging up now,” I say through clenched teeth. I’ll be damned before I let them hear me crying. “I wish this could have gone differently, but I guess it can’t. Goodbye, Mom. Dad.”

I hang up, and in the silence that follows, it strikes me that that might be the last time I ever hear my parents’ voices.

Alone in the dark, everything I clenched behind my teeth breaks free. A harsh breath bursts out of me, and when I inhale, the sound wobbles and wavers. I scrub hard at my eyes, managing to wipe away the tears before they can fall,but I probably make my face redder in the process.

I stand outside the hotel for several minutes, struggling to collect myself before I attempt to go back inside. Cameron was already worried. I don’t want him knowing about any of this. I don’t want him thinking I was out here crying.

When I finally gather myself and turn toward the door, however, I freeze.

Across trees and hedges, Keannen stares straight back at me. His eyes are wide, his mouth firm and tight. I’ve never seen him look so serious, or so scared. My heart drops as I realize the worst possible person just overheard the moment my parents disowned me.

Interlude

Keannen

WE KISS UNDER THOSE bleachers a lot more than once. That day during band practice might have been a fluke, but the day after isn’t, and the next week isn’t, and the first half of the school year sure as hell isn’t.

Then I start bringing Tim to my car. For two teenagers, it’s about the most privacy we’ll ever get. It suits our purposes, or mine, at least. The second I get Tim into the backseat, I climb on top of him, not just kissing, but touching, grinding, rubbing. We’re young and we’re stupid, and the blunt friction of our bodies is enough to spark something bigger than either of us expects.

After the first time we ruin our pants this way, we try to be more careful. We usually don’t succeed, but hey, what is youth for if not being a mess?

Tim finds me smoking under the bleachers on the day it all collapses.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” he says. “It’s bad for you.”

He says that a lot. It hasn’t convinced me to quit yet.

I blow out a plume of smoke and flick my dwindling cigarette aside. “Boys think it’s hot when I smoke.”

I saunter up to Tim, whose eyes flicker up and down me.

“Do they?” he says.

“You do.”

He whimpers when I kiss him, as he does every time. I could live off that sound. Every time he clings to my shirt like this I want to throw him on the ground and tear at those stupid slacks he wears every day. This isn’t a Catholic school. What teenage boy dresses in slacks? And why does that only make me want him more?

“It tastes bad,” he says when we part.

“You keep kissing me every time anyway. It can’t taste that bad.”

“It does. I just like kissing you enough to ignore it.”

A smile creeps across my face, even as I roll my eyes. “Come on.”

I take his hand, even though he knows the way to my car as well as I do by now. I always park in the same spot, the very back corner of the student parking lot, under that big tree that drops shit all over it. That’s why no one else parksthere, but I don’t mind the debris if it places us farther from prying eyes.

I unlock the back door and shove Tim inside. He climbs in eagerly, twisting around to lie on his back before I clamber in after him. One day, we’re going to go so much farther than dry humping. I know it, but I won’t push him for it. One day, we won’t have to do it in the backseat of my car. We’ll get out of Baltimore and leave all our bullshit behind. Then we can do whatever we want however we want.

I shake myself. When did I start imagining white picket fences? That stuff is for other people, but it’s never been in the cards for me, especially not with someone as different from me as Tim.

I climb into the car, choosing action over musing. I neither want nor need to think about the future. I’ll deal with it when it comes. It’ll probably suck anyway. Everything up to now has sucked; why wouldn’t the trend continue?

Touching Tim doesn’t suck. Kissing him into the seat cushions doesn’t suck. Feeling his body under me definitely doesn’t suck. He grabs at my hair, whimpering sweetly when our hips connect. It’s obvious how badly he also wants more than these frantic encounters in my car, but right now, simply touching him is everything. Kissing and grinding while he tugs at my hair fries my brain into mush. I could kiss him forever. I could stay like this for the rest ofmy life. I could—

Something thumps against the window so hard we startle apart. We whip toward the sound, but it’s not like there’s anywhere to go, so I’m still lying atop Tim with his hand in my hair when we behold the furious woman on the other side of the glass.

She thumps her hand against the window a couple more times.

---