Page 13 of The Obsession

“Dee!” Brandon’s shout jerked me out of my seat, and I stood there for a few moments, my heart jumping, wondering if I’d imagined him yelling at me. Three seconds later, the shout came again, louder this time, tinged with anger. “Delilah!”

I hurried out of my room and down the stairs. It wasn’t a good idea to keep Brandon waiting. When I opened the door to the garage, Pink Floyd drowned me. God, I hated Pink Floyd. I was sure Brandon only listened to them because he thought they were, like the stereo, more “authentic” than pop music. The garage was where Pa and I used to store our badminton rackets and baseball bats. Now all of our stuff was stored in boxes and shoved out of the way to make room for Brandon’s shit. I walked over to where Brandon’s legs were sticking out from under the hood of his Camaro. The music was so loud, he didn’t hear me come in.

“Delilah!” he yelled again. I jumped again. Pathetic.

“Um—yeah?” I bent over, wincing as my back protested, and waved to catch his attention.

“About fucking time,” he snarled. He pointed at a spot behind me, where four empty beer cans sat. “I’m out.”

I looked at the cans strewn about the floor. That would be why he was no longer bothering with the niceties. “I’ll grab you another pack.”

“Get me a sandwich while you’re at it. And be quick. Don’t dawdle like you always do. Hang on. Hey, c’mere.” He leered at me from under the car. “You think I don’t know what’s going on? I saw you walking with that kid the other day.”

I blanched and straightened up instinctively.

“Hey! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

I took a breath. Bent over again.

“The Chinaman might not have given a shit how you behave, but my house, my rules.”

This isn’t your house, I screamed silently.

“I’m not going to have you whoring around, making a fool out of me.”

I’m not the one making a fool out of you, I thought.

“You get me? No boys, Delilah. I mean it. Don’t make me tell you twice.” He gripped his wrench hard and gestured with it for effect. “Say, ‘Yes, Brandon.’”

The rage rose up, blooming, spreading out of control.Stop that, Dee. Control it. Control yourself.My back trembled with the effort staying bent over was costing me. “Yes, Brandon.”

He held my eyes for a second longer, while blood pooled in my head, then he smiled. “All right, now go get my beer. That’s my girl.”

Later, when I finally had some time to let things digest, I’d pinpoint those words as the ones that pushed me over the edge. “That’s my girl.” Pa used to say that to me, usually followed by an affectionate noogie on my head and a proud grin. “That’s my girl,” he’d say when I told him how I completely destroyed my opponent during debate or how I solved the quadratic equation when nobody else could.

And hearing it from Brandon was what made me snap.

I straightened up, my brain buzzing as the blood rushed from my head. And Pink Floyd was still screaming in my ears, that hateful screech of electric guitar scratching my eardrums.

Go get my beer. That’s my girl.

I stared at Brandon’s legs sticking out from under the Camaro. Listened to his off-tune hum. The beer cans that littered the floor, which I would no doubt have to clean up. This was it. My life. It was to be at the beck and call of this man. Even if I were to survive long enough to leave for college in two years’ time, Mom would be stuck with him. No matter how hard I tried to write Mom off, I couldn’t stop playing the movie of her life in my mind. Spoiler alert: It’s not a happy one. It would be a typical Oscar-winning movie—gritty, slow-moving, hard to watch. The leading actress’ performance would be described as “emotionally wrenching” and during interviews she’d talk about how she had to talk to all sorts of trauma experts about various forms of abuse to really get into the damaged head of Ally Moore-Wong. He would tear at her, rip into her, peel her apart layer by bloody layer, until one day I’d come home and she’d be gone, the Mom I knew replaced by some brittle, shrilly bright housewife I wouldn’t recognize. Or maybe she’d just be gone, and Brandon would be on paid vacation.

That’smygirl.

I walked toward the back door. As I passed by the jack that was holding his car up, I swung my foot out and tripped the lever. The car sagged to the floor with terrifying swiftness. Despite the loud music, I heard the crunch as three and a half thousand pounds of solid metal sank into Brandon, crushing his bones. There was a scream, cut short as his ribs cracked and stabbed into his lungs. I stood there, frozen, reality nothing but an abstract concept. Time seemed to stop. Pink Floyd continued blasting in my ears. And still I stood there, staring at the car, registering nothing.

Then I saw it. A puddle of blood creeping out from under the car, so dark it was almost black. I watched numbly as it expanded, its edges crawling toward me. Right as it was about to touch the tips of my sneakers, I leapt back, as though I were a kid playing The Floor Is Lava. Except this puddle wasn’t lava. It was blood, and it was as real as the Camaro in front of me. The Camaro that had my mom’s boyfriend crushed underneath it.

Reality came rushing back in a sickening wave, an uppercut straight to my gut. I leaned over to one side and puked.Oh god. Oh shit. Oh god. What have I—

I glanced back at the growing puddle and heaved again and again. I sank to my knees and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Oh my god. I made the mistake of looking back at the car. From where I was kneeling, I could see Brandon’s arm under the car. The rest of him was bathed in darkness, a blanket of blood and shadows covering him. A scream escaped my mouth before I clapped my hands over it.

It took a while to realize I was gasping, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over and over. I scrambled toward the car on my hands and knees. My fingers scrabbled over the car jack, and I pushed myself back up and heaved at the lever, putting all of my weight on it. The car raised from the floor a few inches, then the catch swung loose and the car fell back down with a sickening squelch. I screamed again. From Brandon there came no sound.

Brandon was dead.

Because I killed him.

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