Page 10 of Total Obsession

I shrugged. "I guess."

Cassie wiggled her shoulders. "Depends on how good-looking he is."

I gave her a disgusted look. "Not even funny."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Sorry, sorry. Jeez, didn't know you were all trigger happy today."

"I'm not trigger-happy," I said. "I'm just a little shaken up by the whole encounter. I never thought I'd get the chance to see him again." I paused. "In some ways, I always hoped I wouldn't."

Cassie scrunched her face. "Why?"

"I wasn't very nice to him before he left."

"You're a total bitch, so if you're admitting that, I can't even imagine what you did."

I thought back to the two days before the incident. I'd been truly horrible to Axe. It was one of those things that still haunted me. Like, at random times when I was falling asleep at night or taking a shower, what I'd said to him would pop into my head, and it would make me gag.

"It was our first two days of high school. We always walked home together. We were inseparable for a while. But, I dunno, I guess I just got tired of always being his protector. Like, if anyone teased him, I'd have to step in and defend him. I knew he loved me, but as I got older, I realized it wasn't healthy. His feelings for me and stuff." I squeezed my eyes shut. It was hard to even think about it, let alone talk about it.

"But, I was young, and I was just starting to become popular. I liked the feeling. You know what my parents are like. Always so critical. Nitpicking every little thing about me, always in public if they could. It just felt good to be liked by others. But, they didn't like him," I vented to Cassie.

"What did you dooooo?" Cassie asked in an exasperated tone.

"I publicly humiliated him," I said. "He waited for me both days, and I let people make fun of him, about things I really shouldn't have stood for. Horrible, personal things. And then, on the second day, when he tried to talk to me, I yelled at him. Told him we weren't friends. Told him he was weird. Told him every nasty thing a teenager could say in front of people she desperately wanted to like her so that she could be cool."

"Brutal," said Cassie.

"Yeah," I said, a tear rolling down my face. "I've never really forgiven myself for it."

Cassie waved her hands before shaking out her beautiful blonde hair. "I'm sure he got over it. It's high school. People are going to say and do shitty things," she said dismissively.

"Maybe," I said quietly.

"So, are you going to contact him?" she asked, turning to face the mirror and putting on some lipstick.

"Honestly, I don't know. My schedule is so busy for the next few months. Like, my agent has me booked for every single day. Even if I wanted to, I don't know that I'd have the time."

"Geez, what a terrible problem to have," Cassie said with a roll of her eyes.

Whenever Cassie got like that, I just shut down the conversation. I just didn't want to get into why I was doing so much better than her right now and all the crying and frustration that came with it on her part.

"I'm exhausted," I said with a yawn. "I'm going to go to bed early."

"Yeah, whatever," Cassie said as I made my way over to my own bedroom. I closed the door quietly and got into bed. My entire body ached. People didn't appreciate it, but modeling was very exhausting. You were constantly worried about your posture, the crazy shoes they made you wear, not tripping, walking under super hot spotlights, the dress changes, all of it. There was just so much that went into it that people didn't appreciate.

I stretched my legs out and let out a second yawn. I turned the light off but still had the card in my hand. I turned it over and over again as the red metallic font caught the bits of light that filtered through the blinds.

Part of me wondered if it would just be better to throw the card away. I'd worried for decades about whether what I'd said to Axe had played any small role in his disappearance. It was guilt I'd let eat away at me for years. But, he looked completely fine when I'd seen him.

Confident.

Successful.

Enigmatic.

All this blame I was carrying seemed to be for nothing.

I turned on my side and opened the top drawer to my nightstand. I pushed aside the mountains of bras and underwear I’d stuffed into the little space until I felt something glossy at the bottom. I pulled out the little Polaroid and turned it this way and that way so it would catch the little bit of light in the room. I hadn’t been able to look at this picture for years, but I’d never been able to throw it away.

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