Page 48 of Driving My Obsession

A sob bursts from Oaklyn’s mouth. She cries against my chest and relaxes in my arms until I have to hold her up. No one has ever leaned on me like this. I’ve never comforted someone, and no one has ever comforted me. I don’t know how to do it. So I just do what feels right and hold her up. I won’t let her fall.

We stay like that in the dark room for what feels like hours. When her sobs quiet to sniffles, I let her go and look into her eyes.

“Why didn’t you run?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell your mom the truth?”

She swipes at her puffy eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”

This woman is just as confused as I am.

I lift the bags to my shoulder and move toward the front door. “We’ll head back to New York, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” I say. “I’m not ready to let you go, and I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. We’ll stay at my place until...”

Until what? I almost said until I figured out what to do with her, but I don’t want her to realize how undecided I am. So I leave the sentence hanging. Let her think what she wants.

“Until you kill me,” she whispers.

I don’t answer her. We walk to the car in silence, two paths converging on our way toward the end of the line. One way or another, decisions must be made. Soon.

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Oaklyn

Apainful silence wedges between us as we push toward New York. I watch the side mirrors for the glint of blue lights, but I never see them. Whatever Ambrose said to shut my mother’s mouth has worked.

I watch him as he drives, remembering the first day I sat in this Jeep and stared at him in a similar manner. It feels like years have passed since that moment. In a way, they have. I’m no longer the same person I was that first night. I’m confused as fuck. I don’t understand why my body responds to a monster like him. He should disgust me, but I find myself drawn to him.

“Why do you keep staring at me?” he asks, shifting in his seat.

Because he’s so attractive. Because I like his dark eyes and the way the little ball of muscle tenses at the back of his jaw when he’s thinking. Because instead of scaring me, his scars excite me.

But I can’t say any of that, so I say the only other thing that comes to mind. “Tell me more about what happened to you.”

He doesn’t look at me. He just shakes his head and keeps his eyes on the dark road.

“It’s only fair,” I say. “You got to witness my train wreck of a mother firsthand. Thanks for that, by the way.”

A deep sigh rolls from his nose, and his grip tightens on the steering wheel. “My mother had some kind of breakdown when I was a few months old. Thought I was possessed or something. Took a knife to...Well, she took a knife to all of me. Somehow, I survived, and now I have to look like this for the rest of my life.” He glances out the window and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Sometimes I think I’d have been better off if I hadn’t survived the attack.”

“Why? Because you have scars?” I reach toward his face and run my fingers over the raised flesh.

He yanks his head out of reach. “Don’t pretend I don’t disgust you. That I didn’t have to make a bet to get you to sleep with me.”

I guess I’m not the only one in a self-loathing era.

Ambrose is a piece of shit—there’s no denying that—but as mentally ill as he is, he isn’t ugly. He’s a solid sculpture of carved muscle. A slew of cracks run through the exterior, but despite the damage, I still see the beauty in him.

“You aren’t ugly, Ambrose,” I whisper. I reach for his face again, and he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he only flinches as I graze his scars. “Would I have gotten into your car if I thought you were ugly?”

His eyes soften, rounding a pinch. He’s trying to figure out if I’m lying. This time, I’m not. I have scars too, so I don’t judge him for his. If he had come to the club and bought me my favorite drink, I’d have danced for him for free. If he had asked me out on a date, I’d have said yes. He’s the one sabotaging his own self-worth.

My thoughts bring me to another question. “Why’d you pick me? I know your mother was a dancer, so that has something to do with it, but why me specifically? What do you hope to accomplish by killing me?”

“I don’t know why it had to be you, but I have to kill you because it’s the only way I can make things right. I couldn’t end my mother, and someone has to pay for what she did.”

I turn to face him, eyes wide. “Do you...Do you fuckinghearyourself? How does ending my life make things right?”

His fist collides with the steering wheel, and the Jeep jerks across the center line. “I don’t fucking know, but it does! Don’t make me question this shit more than I already do, tragedy.”

“Who makes things right for me when I’m gone?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper.

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