Page 41 of The Obsession

“About eleven, I think?” Delilah said, coming to my rescue, what a champ, what a perfect girlfriend she was. “Brandon called for—” She paused, stumbled.

I didn’t understand why Delilah halted, why she looked like she could burst into tears, but Detective Mendez did.

“Brandon called for you?” she said, the two caterpillars now trained on Delilah. “Didn’t you say you went down to see if he wanted anything from the supermarket and found him that way?”That way. Even now, even when she was homing in for the kill, Detective Mendez was well-mannered enough to say “that way” instead of dead.

“Yeah, well, it took quite a while for Dee to get downstairs, because we had to, you know, get dressed and stuff, and then she snuck me out, and the accident probably happened then,” I said.

“I’m so sorry for not telling the truth,” Delilah said, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve believed her. Everything about her was steeped in regret—her eyes shiny with tears, her mouth twisted with sadness, her voice wavering but brave. “I can’t stop thinking about it. At night I lie in bed and I ask myself, ‘If I’d come down sooner, could I have stopped it? Could I have helped? If I’d learned more about cars and jacks and all that stuff, maybe I could’ve lifted it, maybe…’”

I pulled Delilah close, rubbing my hand up and down her arm soothingly.

“Hey, no, don’t do that to yourself,” Detective Mendez said, all sympathy now. “It’s no one’s fault. It was an old jack, and Brandon hadn’t maintained it well. There was nothing you could’ve done.”

Delilah nodded, tasking a deep breath.

“Well, it was probably just a prank call,” Detective Mendez said.

“People do that? To cops?” Delilah asked, her voice tinged with anger. “About someone who died?”

“All the time,” Detective Mendez said. “Normally I wouldn’t even be here, but like I said, I was in the area and I thought I’d drop by, see how you and your mom are doing.”

“Thank you,” Delilah said. “That’s really nice of you.” She sounded like she meant it.

“All right, I should get back to the station. You kids stay out of trouble now.” She gave us a quick smile and strolled back toward her car, giving the garage a couple of glances along the way.

Once the door was closed, Delilah snatched her hand out of mine and sagged against the wall. “God,” she whispered. Then she turned to face me and I got that jolt again, because her eyes were no longer bright with anger or wide with fear. “You gave me an alibi,” she said.

I resisted the urge to hold her hand.Careful, tread gently, this is new territory.“I was serious when I told you I love you. I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you, even if it means sacrificing myself. Look, Dee, our fates are tied to each other’s now. If you go to jail, I go down with you as an accessory. Doesn’t that tell you how serious I am about us?”

Curiosity flared in her eyes, another new emotion. “What is it you like about me?”

Careful. This was my chance to really get her to see, to understand why we were meant to be with each other. “You know those old couples who have been together forever? When you ask them how they met, they’d say something like, ‘I saw her walking inside the library where I worked and that was it. I knew.’ This is exactly like that. I saw you and I knew.”

“Well, that’s a load of crap,” she muttered, but there was no sting in her voice. There was something else, something dawning, wary, but there. A new understanding.

“It’s how I feel about you.” I took her hand, and she didn’t fight it. I could leap to the skies, I was filled with so many bubbles. Delilah had let me save her. All along, she just wanted someone to save her, someone to be on her side. And I’d shown her I was that someone.

“Feelings change.”

“Mine won’t.”

“We’re seventeen,” she said. “Our feelings change from minute to minute.” She wanted to be convinced, to be courted, to not be an easy kill.

“Mine won’t,” I said, again, pulling her close. I caught a lock of her hair gently, tucked it behind her ear, and leaned in. My lips brushed her cheek, soft, and I whispered in her ear, “I promise.”

Chapter Thirteen

Delilah

As expected, Mom was totally enamored by the dish I insisted on calling Stalketti Carbonara when she wasn’t within earshot. Logan had sighed when I came up with the name while he was cooking it, but then he smiled and told me my sense of humor was one of the many things he loved about me. I had given him the finger, then, in the name of humor.

Dinner conversation flowed so easily, I started to forget to be awful toward Logan and had to go to the bathroom and remind myself what a disgusting creep he was. It was incredible; he’d basically shoved himself into my life, but part of me was beginning to actually enjoy his company. Clearly it was a part of me that needed to be strangled and dumped into a vat of toxic waste, but it was still part of me. Maybe it was a “like attracts like” thing. Who was I to judge Logan so harshly, after everything I’d done, everything I was doing?

“Gosh, Logan, you are really spoiling us!” Mom said after she finished her second plate of Stalketti.

I glowered at her.

“You both deserve it, after everything you’ve been through,” he said.

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