The Obsession

by Jesse Q Sutanto

  How could I make her see that? How?

  Pain exploded from my hand, and I realized that I’d just slammed my fist into the wall. “Shit!” I gripped my fist with my other hand and hopped around in pain. Jesus, it felt like I’d broken all of the bones in my hand. I practically bit through my lower lip as I fought the urge to shriek like a baby.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the pain abated enough for me to draw in a few short breaths. I held up my trembling hand and surveyed it, prodding at it gingerly to make sure nothing was broken. The knuckles were split and bleeding, but aside from that, I was pretty sure the bones were still intact. I breathed hard. I’d lost control there. Not good, Logan. Gotta get a grip. I couldn’t afford to lose my shit, not like that. What if I’d done that in front of Delilah? It would scare her so badly, she’d never ever be able to trust me. And I couldn’t have that. I needed her to see that I was good for her.

  But I couldn’t stay in my room and do nothing either. I had to—

  Had to what? What else was left for me to do? Why did she keep fighting me? Fighting us? The anger simmered again, but before it could come up to another boil, I jumped up, grabbed my hoodie, and strode out of the room. It was dark outside, the air cool and pleasant. I broke into a run. It felt good to run like this, to feel the ground being pounded by my feet, miles being eaten up by my strides. My lungs were bursting, my calves burning in the best possible way, but best of all, my thoughts were finally, blessedly silent. No more whispers at the edge of my hearing, telling me I was doing everything wrong with Dee, that she would never love me back. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about Dee at all, which was amazing. The past few weeks, life had been about Dee this and Dee that, and though I felt a bit guilty to admit it, it was refreshing to not be so hung up on her. Maybe I was getting a tiny bit obsessed, maybe I shouldn’t—

  I slowed to a walk to catch my breath and stopped short, looking around me with wide eyes. Oh, shit.

  I was around the corner from Dee’s house.

  Come on, subconscious. Just when I was congratulating myself for taking a healthy distance from Dee. Dee, who didn’t appreciate how much I’d done for her. Dee, who would most definitely lose her shit if she found me here. How the hell did I get here, anyway? I tried to sift through the last few minutes. I’d been on such an endorphin high thanks to the sprint, I’d reached a meditative state where I wasn’t really aware of my surroundings. But my feet still carried me closer, to the back of the house, to a low fence that would be easy to climb over. But I should go.

  I was very definitely about to make my way home when a light from inside the house caught my eye. I couldn’t help myself. I scaled the fence to investigate. I walked closer to the side of the house, making sure to keep away from any windows, and peeped inside. My heart was beating so fast. I’d never been in here, not like this. Someone moved into view, and I froze. It was her. My vitamin Dee. God, she was beautiful.

  She was carrying a bowl of food with chopsticks and a spoon stuck in. Her mom followed behind with her own bowl. I loved everything about Dee and her mom. They didn’t bother with frills like setting the table. I watched as Dee tied her hair back so she could slurp her noodles without any strands getting in the way. I watched the way she made her mom laugh without even trying.

  Then I inched away but not toward the gate. I went around the corner, and there I hit the jackpot: there was a wall trellis at the back of the house that went all the way up to the second floor. My blood roared in my ears. Surely this was an invitation. Fate was telling me I should take this chance. Climb up. Go inside. Which I shouldn’t do…

  And yet, I found myself doing exactly that, praying that the wood trellis would be enough to hold my weight as I climbed up, and up. Before I knew it, I was at the top, reaching out to pull the nearest window, teeth gritted in anticipation of it creaking. It didn’t creak, which surely went to show how I was meant to climb in undetected. With a deep breath, I grabbed the windowsill and heaved myself up. I landed on a bathroom counter and clambered forward until my legs were through. My heart was beating so fast, I felt sick. What if one of them came in here and found me like this, half hanging from the window?

  But neither one did, and, soon enough, I was inside Dee’s house. No, not just that. I was on the second floor, inside her bathroom. I’d never been upstairs, never been allowed, even though I clearly deserved to come up. Whenever I’d been over to her house, it was always with Dee shooting dirty looks at me and the knowledge that I had to behave a certain way so I wouldn’t scare her mom off. Always with that little voice in my head telling me to be careful, to act normal. It was like having to hold my breath. But now I was here—upstairs!—and neither of them knew about it. I was free to really observe without the fear that I was being observed. Above the thudding of my heart, I caught little snippets of her voice, her laugh. I scanned the bathroom counter, looking at the bottles of face cream and toner and other beauty products I didn’t recognize. Were they Dee’s, or her mom’s? I picked up a bottle of moisturizer and opened it. Immediately, my senses were flooded with the image of Dee. This was very definitely hers. The label read: Rose Garden. God, this was so her. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes.

  Footsteps, coming up the stairs.

  Everything inside me shattered. Shit, shit! I jumped as noiselessly as I could into the bathtub and hid behind the shower curtain just as the bathroom door swung open.

  I didn’t dare breathe. Whoever it was came inside and turned on the tap. A second later came the sound of an electric toothbrush being used. I was dying to know if it was Dee or her mom, but I didn’t move a single muscle, just stood there with my back against the tiled wall. At least the whir of the toothbrush meant I could draw in little sips of air without the person on the other side hearing.

  Please, please be done with the brushing soon. Please. But no. After she brushed her teeth, she started washing her face, lathering for what felt like hours before rinsing. Bottles were picked up, sloshed around, and put down. Cabinets were opened, various products slathered on. This was getting ridiculous. How long could someone’s nightly beauty routine possibly take?

  Then a terrifying thought struck me: What if the routine included a bath?

  What would I do?

  The sink turned off. My thoughts cut short in my head, and I waited for the curtain to be yanked aside, for the shriek to come. But instead, the person left the bathroom. I sagged against the wall, my muscles turning into water. God, that had been way too close. I had to get out of here right now. But not without a souvenir. I slipped the bottle of moisturizer into my back pocket and climbed back out the window and down the trellis. Outside, I crept past the house and unlocked the gate. I made sure to wiggle the lock shut behind me; I didn’t want some creep to get into Delilah’s house. Then I walked briskly away, checking once or twice to make sure no one had followed me.

  My heart was singing. I’d just gone up to the second floor of Dee’s house. Been in the bathroom at the same time as she was. I knew her nightly beauty routine now. Well, I supposed there was a chance it was her mom’s nightly beauty routine, which took the wind out of my sails a little. But still. Then a chill crept down my spine. They were so careless. So fucking clueless about how unsafe their house was. Look how easily I got in, without even breaking anything. I could’ve been anyone. I could’ve been a burglar, slinking into the house with a gun, rifling through their stuff while they stood, terrified, at gunpoint. The thought was unbearable. Oh, Dee. You really should be more careful.

  But it was okay. I was around to protect her. I took out the moisturizer, unscrewed the bottle, and took a deep inhale. Everything would be okay, because I was here, and I was never going to leave her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Delilah

  I set my alarm to go off inhumanly early on Saturday. As soon as I’d washed and dressed, I grabbed my wallet and coat and ran all the way to the bus
stop, where I paced restlessly until the bus arrived. The rest of the week had been a continuous march of Logan shoving his way into my life. He’d wait outside of my classrooms whenever his classes happened to be nearby and walk me to the library for my shifts whenever he could. Lunches were always spent with him and his friends, whom I couldn’t help but like, while Aisha shot me death glares from our usual seat. And even though Lisa squeaked, “How sweet!” whenever she saw Logan, I could tell his presence made her nervous, which in turn made me even angrier. On top of everything else, I couldn’t afford to lose my job. On the bright side, at least Detective Mendez had stopped her surprise visits. One could only hope she’d moved on to bigger, more exciting cases.

  I came up with half a dozen plans to deal with Logan, each one flimsier than the last. I spent all of my free time trying to look up information on Logan that I could use against him, but I always came up empty.

  It surprised me how much I missed Aisha. Seeing her at school and not talking to her was killing me. I needed her now, more than ever.

  By the time I got off at Draycott, all of my fingernails had been bitten into ragged stubs. I wrapped my arms around myself as I walked across campus. The atmosphere on a weekend was completely different. This early, the school was off-puttingly silent. When I got to the girls’ dorm, I hung around outside, pretending to text someone. I couldn’t ask Aisha to let me in since she’d been ignoring my messages. Luckily, a couple of girls wearing running gear came out, laughing over something, and I was able to slip inside before the doors closed.

  The first time I visited Aisha’s dorm, I’d paused in the foyer, my mouth falling open at how grand the place was. An elaborate chandelier hung in the center of the wood-paneled room, giving the place a soft, rich glow. My footsteps were immediately muffled by a thick, green carpet. Paintings of important women throughout history smiled down at me. I’d never felt so much like an impostor as I did then.

  Aisha had taken me to the common room, which was bright and sunny with high ceilings, picture windows, and overstuffed couches and beanbags. We’d hung out there for hours, stuffing ourselves with cookies and hot chocolate and talking about everything and nothing. The memory of that afternoon brought tears rushing into my eyes. I shook my head and hurried up to the second floor. Each room had a whiteboard next to the front door. Aisha’s board had a doodle of her licking an ice cream cone. I knocked on the door.

  There was some muffled sound and then silence. I knocked again.

  “Aisha, I know you’re there. Open up.”

  A bump, then footsteps. The door was wrenched open, revealing a half-awake Aisha, grumpy with sleep, wearing her blanket like a cloak. She peered at me and scowled. “What’re you doing here?”

  Tears rushed into my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her. “I need to talk to you. Please?”

  I could see she wanted to snap at me, but she must have sensed my desperation, because she hesitated, started to say something again, hesitated again. Then she sighed, swung the door wide open, and cocked her head at me. “What’re you gawking at? Get in.”

  And I burst into tears.

  Later, forever later, or maybe minutes later, we both sat on the floor, leaning against Aisha’s bed. I had a mug of hot chocolate cradled in my hands and Aisha’s arm around my shoulders, and I had never felt so comforted.

  “You know what you need right now?” Aisha said. “Breakfast.”

  I lifted my mug of hot chocolate. “I already have this.”

  Aisha sniffed. “Please, those instant cocoa mixes are basically corn starch and sugar. Gimme that.” She plucked the mug out of my hands. “Come on. We’re going to Liberica. My treat.”

  I was about to protest when it hit me that breakfast actually sounded good. Now that I’d cried myself empty, I was too exhausted to even begin to tell Aisha what had happened. Liberica’s breakfasts—which featured stacks of pancakes so big, the edges flopped over the sides of the plates and breakfast burritos the size of my calves—were just the thing I needed to jump-start the conversation. The whole way there, Aisha linked arms with me, like old times, and filled me in on the latest gossip, as though she knew I wasn’t quite ready to share what had happened.

  Half an hour later, we were seated at a table loaded with a ridiculous amount of food. How do you reveal to your BFF that you crushed your mother’s boyfriend with his car and you were now being coerced into dating some creepy stalker who’d caught the whole thing on camera? Being made to date Logan sounded so absurd when I went over it in my head. Yeah, I’m being forced into dating one of the hottest guys in school. Part of me was convinced if anyone knew, they’d roll their eyes and go, “Oh, poor you. You have to go out with Hot Logan, a guy you were lusting over, who has promised not to touch you unless you want him to. Let me play you a sad song on the world’s smallest violin.”

  “Oh, man, I needed this,” Aisha said, stuffing a heaping forkful of pumpkin and candied pecan pancake into her mouth before chasing it down with a gulp of red velvet Oreo milkshake. “The food at school is bullshit. Know what we were served for dinner last night?” She didn’t wait for me to guess. “Organic microgreens with a side of free-range chicken breast. Sans hormones, sans chemicals, sans flavor. I don’t even know what their deal is with microgreens. Does being micro somehow make it better for you or something?”

  “The food at lunch isn’t that bad,” I said, laughing.

  “That’s ’cause the boarders pay a lot more than day students do, so the school thinks it should save up all the pretentious food for dinner. You got lucky, my friend.” She attacked the burrito and crammed what looked like a fistful of it into her mouth.

  As the carbs and sugar hit us, the conversation flowed faster, easier. We complained about our classes, bitched and laughed about our classmates, and chatted about the latest celebrity scandals. I felt almost like my old self again, pre-Logan, pre-Brandon, even pre-Pa.

  Aisha dropped her fork on the plate and leaned back, groaning. “Ugh. I ate too much again. Why didn’t you stop me?” She pushed the plate toward me. “Argh, get this away from me. I can’t even look at food right now.”

  “Want me to get them to clear the table?”

  “No! I might want some more.”

  I laughed.

  “You love me.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes, but I was still grinning.

  “So.” Aisha leaned forward, her face suddenly turning serious. “Tell me, what happened with Hot Logan?”

  The syrupy pancake turned to mealy cement in my mouth. I put my fork down and pushed the plate off to one side. I glanced around the room. The diner was filled with people—townies, tourists, but no one from Draycott, thank god. I guessed it was still too early for students, even with the lure of giant pancakes. Nobody was paying any attention to us. It was time. I had to tell her. I needed somebody on my side. I swallowed, clenched my hands together. “Um, something happened. Something…bad.”

  Aisha’s eyes widened and she straightened up in her seat. “Shit,” she muttered. “I didn’t think Logan would—shit.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Dee, I’ll be by your side a hundred percent, I swear, no matter how bad it gets. These things… There will always be assholes who blame the victim.”

  I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  Aisha scanned the room before whispering, “Did he force you to do something you didn’t want to do? I should’ve known. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize it sooner—”

  “What? No! No, it’s nothing like that,” I cried.

  “Oh, thank god.” Aisha sighed. “Then what is it? You’re acting so weird.”

  “It’s really hard to explain. But, um, Logan has something on me.”

  “Something on you. A…crush? He has a crush on you?”

  “No, something bad. I did something”—my voice cracked, and I had to take a
deep breath before continuing—“something really, really bad.” The last bit came out in a strangled whisper, my eyes rushing with tears.

  For the first time, Aisha didn’t make any smart-ass remarks. She only squeezed my hand and nodded, encouraging me to keep going.

  “It’s really bad, Aisha,” I whispered.

  “What is it?” she pressed.

  “Promise me you’ll never tell anyone?”

  Aisha nodded furiously, her eyes wide and trusting.

  I took a deep breath. “It’s a video of me, uh…cheating on the chem test.”

  Aisha’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa. Jesus.” She blinked a few times, as though she’d just gotten punched. “Seriously? You cheated on a test? But Dee, you’re—” She flapped her arms wildly, gesturing at me. “You’re you! You’d never do something like that.”

  Good grief. If this was how badly she reacted over something like cheating, I couldn’t even fathom how she’d react if she ever found out the truth. “I was desperate,” I cried. “You know what Brandon was doing to me, and I couldn’t focus on anything, I was living in fear. And I couldn’t afford to flunk it. If I did, Brandon would get so angry.”

  The expression on Aisha’s face melted from shock into sympathy. “Oh, Dee, of course. Yeah, I get it. That was an impossible situation for you.” She grabbed my hand. “Okay, what can I do to help?”

  Relief rushed through me. I wanted to hug her so tight right now. Instead, I wiped at my eyes, taking a couple deep breaths.

  “Anyway, Logan knows about it, and he’s kind of—well, not kind of, he is blackmailing me into going out with him.”