Secret obsession

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After Jake’s confession, I let him go. To be honest, his very sudden confession made me feel uncomfortable and uneasy. I don’t think I will be able to see my friend the same way. I could have stopped him and made him feel better, but I don’t want to give him false hope, and besides, I don’t think I can think of him as a brother anymore. I lay on my bed covering my face with my hands, and after a few deep breaths I got the need to cry. I wasn’t expecting to lose one of my best friends today and, actually, I guess I never had him as a friend. I trusted him with so many things and I felt secure with him because I thought he was taking care of me like a sister. He said he had been in love with me since the day we met. That doesn’t even make sense. And what about Kim? I know she is in love with him, and I don’t think he was lying when he told me he loves her, but I also have the feeling that he has been using her. All of this is so confusing and so annoying, I can’t hold the tears anymore, so I cry, and I cry until I feel tired and get sleepy.

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The ringtone of my phone wakes me up. I don’t know how much time I have been asleep. I look at the screen and I see Kim’s name; I try to clear my throat and sit to answer the call.

“Hello”

“Erin! Oh my God, thank God you answered.” She starts talking so fast and scared. “Something happened, we are going to the hospital. Jake was in an accident”, she starts to cry.

“What?!... an accident?! Where?... which hospital?” I ask scared while getting up to run downstairs.

“The Saint Catherine’s Hospital… he was fighting with Henry again, come quickly!” she only gives me that much information and then hangs up. I stop in the middle of the stairs processing what she told me, he fought with Henry again? How? Where? I don’t think Jake went to Henry’s house, and why was Kim with him? I run downstairs and go to my mom to ask her if she can take me to Saint Catherine’s Hospital quickly. I don’t explain too much to her because I don’t even have enough information. She accepts once she hears it’s about Jake, and we both run out of the house.

We are getting close to the Hospital and it occurs to me that the hospital closest to Henry’s house would be Saint Patrick’s, not Catherine’s. We are going to a hospital too far from home. What were the three of them doing there? While thinking that we had arrived at the hospital, I ask my mom to drop me at the front door while she looks for a parking space. She agrees, and I run out of the car while I call Kim.

“I am at the main door, where are you?” my voice out of breath makes the people in the hospital look at me. I just ignore them.

“We are in the emergency room.”

“Ok, see you in a bit” I hung up and text my mom to let her know where I am going to be. I run to the emergency room and I see Kim standing up next to a bed where Jake is with his parents. While I approach there, his dad looks at me and smiles.

“Erin sweety! Everything is fine, he is fine” he says while hugging me to calm down.

“Mr. Thompson what happened?” I ask, still worried.

“Apparently, they were at a party with some friends and Jake fell down a few steps… he fainted for a moment, but he is better now. He is conscious, and I bet he will be happy to see you” he gives me a warm smile and moves aside so I can go see Jake lying on the bed.

“Erin honey, he is fine now” Mrs. Thompson says. Kim stays quiet.

“Hi Jake, how… how are you feeling?” I ask, scanning his whole body, only noticing some new scars on his face and another punch on his cheek. He looks at me embarrassed.

“He is fine sweetheart. The doctor ran some tests to see if there was something wrong, but he is fine. Apparently he just hit his head when he fell down but nothing bigger than a couple of bruises” Mrs. Thompson says in her son’s place.

“Are you in pain?” I avoid asking exactly what happened because his parents are here, and even when we had a tough and revealing conversation, he is my friend and I care about him.

“Just a little”, he gives me a short cold answer.

“The doctor said it is normal. He hit his head after all” Mr. Thompson adds.

“I think we need to talk” Kim takes me from my hand and pulls me away from Jake and his parents. We walk away from the emergency room to the other door where we catch up with my mom and show her where she can find Jake. Once alone, Kim starts explaining to me what happened.

“We went to my cousin’s birthday party, and actually I wasn’t expecting to see Henry there, I think he got there with some other friend that knows my cousin because I know my cousin didn’t invite him… it was early and Jake and I went outside to the porch to have a private moment when we saw Henry there texting… Jake didn’t control himself, and actually before that I noticed that he was upset he was hurt already, his face had a dark circle on his cheek that he told me he got at basketball, which I don’t think is true because he was upset when he went to pick me up” she says breathing heavy from time to time to continue with her story, I just listen quietly “so Jake approach to Henry that didn’t see him at first and pushed him which almost made Henry fall… so Henry punched Jake in the face and the punch made Jake stepped back a little bit but the stairs where there so he fell, and he fainted because he hit his head…” she covers her face and starts to cry “Henry helped me to pick him up, but I was so mad at him that I shouted him to go away… he ignored me and helped me put Jake in a chair and called for help… once other people were there to help me, Henry disappeared” she sobs with the last part of her story letting the tears out completely.

“I can’t believe this keeps happening, Kim” I say, frustrated.

“How do you think I feel? I don’t know if I will be able to handle more of this phase of him.”

“I know, I understand” I add, and suddenly I remember the conversation with Jake at my house. He has been lying to my friend and being in love with me in secret. I don’t think that’s fair to her, I do care about her too. I know Jake is hurt now, but at the same time, I know it was his fault.

“I love him so much Erin, but honestly, I don’t know him anymore”, she starts to cry again. I hug her and console her while I think about what to do. Now that I know Jake is in love with me and has been in love with me for many years, I can’t see him the same way, plus I don’t know if I should tell Kim everything. She is so in love with him, she gave him everything. Jake was her first in everything and still, he was not honest with her. He told me he loves her, but I don’t know if that is true. His recent actions say the opposite and I get the feeling that he has been toying with her the whole time.

“Everything will be fine” is the only thing I manage to say to her to try to make her stop crying. “What happened with Henry?” I ask suddenly while I hug her. She fixes herself and tries to stop the tears.

“I don’t know… like I said, he disappeared… I know it wasn’t his fault, Erin, I bet he didn’t know we were there. Jake just pushed him by surprise”, she says, while cleaning her tears with a handkerchief she took out of her pocket. “I was angry and told him to go away, but I remember he was scared as well.”

We stay outside the hospital waiting for Kim to be calm and to fix her make-up, so Jake’s parents don’t question her about what happened. When she was ready to go inside again, I asked her to leave me behind for a couple of minutes. She knew what I was going to do, so she agreed and got inside. While Kim is walking inside the hospital, I take my cellphone out of my pocket and dial Henry’s number…

“Erin?” he asks a little bit nervous.

“Henry, Hi… I am… I’m in the hospital, Kim called me” I say waiting for him to fill in the rest.

“Ok… how is he?” he really sounds curious.

“He is fine, the doctors said there is nothing wrong with him, he just fainted because he fell and hit his head and…”

“Yes Erin! I know what happened I was there…” he interrupts me in an angry tone. “I just don’t know if all of this is worth it,” he sighs.

“What do you mean?”

“I never thought it could go this far Erin. Your friend is insane, and he even ended up hurting himself… I know it was me the one who punched him, but what was I supposed to do? He pushed me first, and I am not going to tolerate more of his bullshit!” he says, getting angry. I stay quiet thinking about what to say to him. Honestly, I don’t blame him, Jake’s attitude is getting all of us tired already.

“I just hope this doesn’t affect us” I say, feeling embarrassed of my friend, but before he answers, I see my mom coming with Jake’s parents. “I have to go, so maybe we can talk later?”

“Maybe” he says and hangs up abruptly.

I walk to my mom and I heard Jake’s parents chatting with her about going to get something to eat at home with Jake. When I get in front of them, my mom tells me that it’s OK to stay with Jake a little bit more. After all, Kim already offered to take me home.

“OK mom, thanks, I’ll go home later” I hug her and go inside the hospital thinking that maybe it is a bad idea to stay, after all Henry is already upset, and I don’t know if it is because he knows I’m here, or if he is indeed too tired of Jake’s attitude. When I get to the emergency room, Jake is alone. I don’t know where Kim is, so I approach him slowly, like making time for Kim to appear. I don’t want to be alone with Jake. He sees me and turns another way to avoid my presence, but I bet I feel more uncomfortable than him.

“So… where is Kim?” I ask to fill in the awkward silence between us.

“She went to bring me something to drink; I am very thirsty.”

“OK” I say, playing with my hands. I don’t know what else to say.

“I know you are tired of me saying ‘sorry,’ and honestly, I am not going to apologize again nor going to try to say it is not my fault… I’m pretty sure ‘that jerk’ and Kim has already told you what happened…” he says while I see in his expression the anger he still has “I just want you to do me a favor… please don’t tell Kim I fought with that son of a b***h at your house today ok?” he looks at me serious and furious, is almost like he doesn’t feel bad for how he has been acting.

“Did you fight with Henry at Erin’s house?” Kim says before I answer, appearing behind a curtain with a soda and looking surprised and angry at the same time. Jake closes his eyes painfully.