Obsession

By Lindsey Little

I can see you but you can’t see me. I am watching you, wondering if you are thinking about me. You are in deep thought as you grab a skeleton key to open your diary.

Your eyes seem to not notice me as I stand here watching you. Every night, I look out my window and I watch you sit at the desk in your living room.

The television flickers onto a music video with some 7-year old boy smoking a cigarette. My eyes do not drift from you. You pick up a pen and write into this diary.

What secrets do I not know about you that lie in this diary? I am curious to know…

Today I have snuck into your room. I watch you sleeping. Your breathing can only indicate sweet dreams filled with rainbows and butterflies.

I kiss your lips as you are away in this dream world. “Sweet dreams, my love.” I say as I start to exit your room.

My eyes drift away towards your desk where you put your journal. Your journal is unlocked. I take it and walk out of your apartment and I go to mine. After one last glance at your unconscious body, I leave.

I read your diary eighteen times through. Only to see my name – Marcel written once. “This one guy was following me around campus whenever I told him to stop following me, he said ‘Marcel’. I didn’t even ask his name. Weird.”

I am blessed to not have any dreams with you in them. I dream about you so much that I want it to happen in the real world. Whenever I dream, I wake up, thinking about you. All of my hours are dedicated to thoughts of you.

I lay in my room, thinking of you as I stare out to the stars drawn with chalk on black paint. I think of you and fall to sleep.

I woke up to hear my alarm clock going off. I pounded the alarm clock and searched my room for a towel. I hadn’t been down to the laundry room in such a long time out of fear of seeing you. You can’t see me like this.

I hopped out of the shower, my unruly blonde hair still dripping wet. I combed it out and used gel to keep it from looking as horrible as it does naturally. I slipped into some ratty jeans. I picked up a red shirt with a design of headphones drooping from my shoulder like a noose on it. I sniffed it to make sure it was okay enough to put on. I put it on even though it smelt like cat piss. Jessica – my black cat I named after you had apparently whored around all over it.

I put on my Chuck Taylor’s, grabbed my backpack and stepped out of my apartment. I didn’t bother locking the door. That was when I saw you, jabbering away into your pocket-sized cell phone. You turned to my direction. Your blonde hair was like that of a queen. Every strand kept in place. Your makeup was too much. I think you look better without it. Your bright blue eyes were focused on my cat. You thought Jessica was a stray and took her into your apartment. I would rescue Jessica later.

You turned and waved at me while I was staring. You got into your car and drove away to College. I bit my lip to hold back my smile and got into the car my parents bought me. I stopped at a Starbucks and slurped down a coffee.

Once I was in the school walls, I went over to English, my first block class. This class is my favorite one. Mostly because you sit beside me and almost every day you ask me to borrow a pen which you never return. I am always overjoyed to let you borrow it.

“Hey Marcel, do you have-” Before you could finish your sentence, I handed it to you and smiled, my wire-framed glasses sagging a little. You didn’t bother saying thank you but you didn’t need to, just your mesmerizing voice was enough to satisfy me but you snatched the pen away.

“Your welcome, my queen.” I whispered, as I started my work. You turned towards me.

“What did you say?” You half laughed. I knew what you thought of me. I knew you didn’t like me. I read your diary. You thought I was weird.

“Nothing…” I continued doing my work, beating myself up mentally for not spilling all of my emotions out on you.

I swing open the door to my apartment to expect Jessica purring away to greet me but she was at your house. I waited until you were home. I knocked on your door. Anxious. I have never been this close to you before. My heart begins to beat faster and faster until I feel like I’m about to faint.

You answer the door with nothing more than a towel on. I wish it would fall off, revealing all that I haven’t seen of you. For some reason, I’m glad the small towel help itself over you because if you were nude this close in front of me, I would not know how to react.

“Marcel? What are you doing over here?” You answered the door. I blushed uncontrollably but I kept looking down to avoid eye contact.

Almost immediately, I saw Jessica the cat, wrapped around your ankle. She was purring up a storm and meowed innocently looking up at me. “That is my cat.” I said quickly.

“Oh well she is really a friendly cat. What is her name?” You asked, dressed in more subtle clothes and your makeup removed. My face turned red. I couldn’t lie to her.

“Jessica.” I said, quickly. I picked up the cat and started petting her as she meowed a goodbye to you.

“Well my name is Jessica.” You said, tilting your eyes as you looked at Jessica in my arms.

“I know…” I said, turning away and walking towards my apartment.

You stared at me as I defeated made my way into my apartment, across the street from yours.

The wind carried your voice to my ears. “How’d you know my name? I never told you my name.”

I wished I did not leave. I wished I had told you this. I wish that I had enough balls to spill out everything. All of the fantasies. All of the dreams where your in the pool. All of the feelings I have felt for you. But I didn’t. I am such a gutless freak sometimes.

I sat on the edge of my bed, petting Jessica the cat as she lay beside me, purring as if she were in heaven… or at your house.

That was when I saw a truck pull up in front of your apartment.

Jay Henderson, the most popular boy in our school stepped out of the truck, wearing khaki pants and a black shirt with some fake subliminal messaged advertisement printed on his shirt. I rolled my eyes. It was your boyfriend.

Jay’s face was like a Ken doll, so perfect and clear… like plastic. And you were Barbie. He went around to the passenger’s side of the truck and pulled out a 6 pack of beer.

I wish I was him. As long as I have these freckles riddled all over my face, I will never be like him. He was the luckiest guy in the world to be with you and yet he still felt the urge to bring beer into your apartment.

I hated Jay. Every day in the 6th grade, he would always be in the bathroom. I have never forgiven him since. Before lunch, I would always wash my hands and after lunch, I would brush my teeth. Always Jay Henderson would appear in the bathroom. He would grab me by my collar and drag me off to a stall, where he would drown me in a soup of piss. I skipped lunch and got my mom to take me home so I could wash off. I skipped lunch almost entirely.

He was your football king as you were the cheerleading squad captain. I tried out for football, only to be denied because I was too skinny and too weak. I wanted to be your football king. I worked out for the longest time, and my muscles didn’t seem to be growing any. So I gave up.

Jay could always take steroids to make him bigger but I am against using medication to fix something that wasn’t painful.

He rang your doorbell. I felt the urge to watch, having nothing else to do. You let him in. How could you? He set up the case of beer and started glugging down the first bottle. It took a matter of minutes for him to gulp down three beers and already appeared drunk.

You disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower. He drank two more. On his half of the second bottle, you came out in only a bath robe. I wished I were Jay. He looked at you with lustful eyes. He was thinking about sex. I would have been thinking you were cold.

He walked up to you and put his hand around your waist. I couldn’t hear what you two were saying but as an expert at body language, I could tell by your face.

He cuddled up next to you and slid his hands up under your bath robe. I couldn’t believe he was doing this to you. By the look in your eyes, the pleading look, I could tell you didn’t want him to do anything more.

He took off the bathrobe. You stood there naked. You weren’t enjoying this. There were tears flowing down your cheeks and those tears were not tears of joy but they were tears of terror.

You shook your head no but he didn’t care. He never has been a caring person.

I got your journal again. You had written in it. You broke up with that Jerk and you were single. I wished I was suitable for you. You’d never in your life stoop to my level.

I got a shower and put on a yellow t shirt with ‘join the circus’ written on it in big letters with a silhouette of an elephant under. I put on my suede pants and went to start up the car. I twisted the keys seventeen times when I gave up and threw the keys down. The battery was probably dead.

I got out of the car, yelling, unaware of you outside.

“Damn car! Now I’ll have to get a taxi to take me to school! GRRR!!!” I kicked the tire and winced with pain. I forgot I wore my chuck tailors.

“Marcel, do you need a ride?”

I showered you with a million ‘thank you’s. You stopped by a coffee shop and got both of us a coffee. I offered to pay her back but she refused to take the money. “Jay and I broke up.” That was the beginning of our first real conversation. “I knew he was mean to you. What I didn’t realize was that how mean until he took it out on me…”

“I’m sorry…” I began to say but you interrupted.

“Don’t be. I want to make it up to you…” You said, smiling. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I wished there was a save button like there is on video game. I looked into your blue eyes.

Distractions can kill you. I guess I am your distraction because all within the same second you began to speak, it would be your last. Your head went into the windshield. I was shocked. It was like you gave your life for mine. I survived the car wreck. You did not.