Page 27 of My Sweetest Obsession
It may be naïve. It may merely be wishful thinking and hoping for something that will never happen, that can never happen, but I have to believe in something right now. I need something I can cling to in these dangerous waters I’ve been struggling to stay afloat in, or I fear slipping under the surface.
I’ve been swimming harder since the day I came clean to Mom.
Fighting with everything I have.
But it doesn’t seem like enough on days like today.
I tip my head back and stare at the gray sky overhead, the clouds slowly passing over me, pushed by the breeze that promises winter coming far too soon.
Drawing more smoke into my lungs, I search for shapes like Drew and I used to as children, but all I see are swirling coils of varying darkness that threaten a chilly rain.
A shiver runs down my spine, and I return my gaze to the neighborhood around my building.
It hasn’t changed in the almost ten years I’ve owned the studio, but just like with Prometheus Bound, I always seem to find something new to look at out here.
Old, faded brick walls holding up buildings that have stood here for decades line the street. My fingers itch to paint one, and five years ago, I would have without a second thought.
I would throw paint on it so fast that people would go to sleep and wake to find the completed piece where there was a bare wall the night before.
But that was before.
Before I betrayed Drew.
Before everything felt so wrong.
Back when we were truly brothers, connected by so much more than shared DNA and the same face.
Memories flood my head, my eyes burning with tears that blur my vision as I take another drag from my cigarette.
The answer hits me so hard that I stagger a step.
I know what I have to do…
And I don’t know why it took me this long to figure it out.
But my plans are interrupted by my phone dinging with an incoming message in my pocket.
It’s probably just Mom or Dale checking in, but I know better than to ignore either of them, so I fish it out and scan the screen quickly.
The words take a moment to register, and when they do, my cigarette falls from my hand to the sidewalk and all the smoke rushes from my lungs…
9
CAM
My heart thunders violently against my ribcage as I take the stairs two at a time, charging up them toward the sixth floor of the medical office building.
The elevator would have taken far too long.
I couldn’t have just stood there, waiting for those doors to open, wasting all those precious seconds. I couldn’t have walked into it and stood there casually in the car as if my world isn’t falling apart—again—while it glided upward.
Paint still covers my hand that grips my phone, and I check it at each landing I hit to see if Mom has responded to me. But all I see on the screen are our original texts.
Either she hasn’t seen the final one or she’s ignoring my questions intentionally.
Neither option is one I want to consider, given the contents of her message and what that might mean.
Mom
