Secret obsession

CHAPTER 11

We arrived at my house. None of us talked while getting here. I can’t believe Jake’s reaction, and I can’t believe Kim blames me for what happened. I’m fighting with my thoughts, trying to arrange everything that has been going on lately when the warm touch of Henry’s hand in mine takes me out of trance. I look at him, staring at me with a sympathy smile. There’s still some blood on the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry for what you saw today”, he looks down for a moment. “I couldn’t take it anymore, your friend needs to realize you’re not his, and he needs to start to let you go.” He is talking very seriously.

“I know Jake is overprotective, we are like brother and sister” I say in a low voice, feeling ashamed of what happened, believing that it was indeed my fault. “I’m sorry for what Jake did to you” I caress his lips, trying to clean the blood gently, but he turns his face slowly stopping me from doing it. Now he looks at me sad, holding my hand close to his mouth.

“You should go inside, we can talk about this some other day” he kisses my hand “I had fun with you today” he chuckles. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry, and don’t apologize” he adds a wink to the last part.

It's 11:30pm and I can see that my parents are still awake because I can see the light from the TV in the living room. We get out of Henry’s car and start walking towards the front door, a guilty silence from both parts fills the small space between us. When we are at the door facing each other, Henry grabs both of my hands.

“You shouldn’t be sad Erin, actually you changed my mind about dancing, I will love to go out with you some other day…” he pauses to think about something “perhaps just the two of us the next time, like a date” and he chuckles playfully and contagious.

I walk inside my house after seeing Henry’s car disappear. There was a short goodbye kiss that makes me feel anxious because my time with him ended badly. Once inside home, my parents call me to go to the living room with them. They are watching the end of the movie ‘The Happening’ when I stand there next to the couch where they are.

“How was your night pumpkin?” my dad asks me first, putting the movie on pause.

“It was fun”. I try to sound normal and excited.

“Did something happen sweety?” my mom asks, looking at me worried.

“No… I’m just tired, that’s all” I answer rubbing my neck, faking a body ache.

“Well, your mom and I are watching ‘The Happening’”, my dad adds, “It's almost over, but you can sit and watch it with us, plus your sister Lisa isn’t home yet, and we will wait for her a little bit more.”

“It’s OK dad, I just want to go to my room and sleep”, I sigh.

“Was Henry nice to you?” my mom keeps asking questions.

“Yes mom”, I start to get annoyed.

“I guess things will start to change now, right pumpkin?” my dad says, exhaling with some melancholy in his eyes. “Our Friday tradition will start to change now that you two have boyfriends.”

“Oh my God! I will be in my bedroom, good night both” I say a little bit angry that my dad might want to start lecturing me about boyfriends and dating and all of that.

I enter my room kicking my sister's shoes far away. I had enough of them. I take my cellphone out of the mini-purse and a message beeps at the same time.

‘Forgetting about the last part of the night, I had fun today. You looked beautiful, and I miss you – The Most Handsome’

Me: ‘I had fun too, regardless of the end and I miss you too’

‘Sweet dreams babe, I’ll see you tomorrow – The Most Handsome’

See you tomorrow? I guess he’ll come tomorrow. I feel excited already, and I jump to bed feeling so happy… but then again, the memory of my friends being angry at me returns to my mind. I lay in bed thinking about what happened. Jake looked so angry at me, and Kim was blaming me for that. I thought she said that she was going to support me. Maybe the situation got out of control more than what it really was. Actually, if what Taylor told me is true, the overprotective side of Jake is getting sicker than I thought.

I start to change into my Pjs and clean my face all in automatic mode while thinking about what I should do with Kim and Jake? “I think the best thing to do is to apologize to them tomorrow. After all, they are my best friends, and I’m pretty sure they just want to protect me”, I say to myself, snuggling in my bed tired, and I decide that I should let my dreams and pillow handle everything running in my mind.

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It's Saturday morning, and it is very late. Normally, I don’t sleep too much, but I guess my body needs it. It looks like it's a really nice day today. I can hear birds singing, dogs barking at a distance with kids laughing. Their happiness annoys me since the first thing I think about is the fight between Jake and Henry last night. I moan and stretch my arms, trying to wake up completely while I think that maybe I should apologize to my friends. I’m thinking about that when my phone beeps.

‘I think WE need to talk – Jake’

I take a deep breath and decide that if I want to fix everything with them, the sooner, the better.

Me: ‘Sure, do you want to come home or do you want to go somewhere?’

‘I’m with Kim, I will call you in 5 minutes – Jake’

I notice the distance Jake is putting between us and I hate it. I really hope we can fix this. I don’t want to be fighting with my friends, they are very important to me. I am sitting in my bed waiting for Jake’s call when my cellphone finally starts to ring in my hand.

“Hello”, I answer, feeling awkward already.

“Hi Erin, is me Kim…” she pauses for a moment. “We wanted to talk to you about what happened last night…”

“Hi Kim, I feel really bad for what happened”, I start before letting Kim finish. “I’m really sorry guys, I never thought you hated Henry that much…”

“Erin! No…” Kim stops me before I can continue with my apology. “Actually, it was our fault. We should be more supportive of your feelings. If you really like Henry, we should accept that. It is just… we know what kind of person he is. We are worried about you. Jake is also very sorry”, she says, trying to convince me that Jake is not angry with me anymore.

“Is he there with you right now?”

“Yes, he is right here next to me, we have you on speaker, so he is listening to you.”

“Hi Erin”, Jake says, calling me by my name with a weird tone that I translate as disappointment.

“Hi Jake, how are you?” I try to sound better, but I guess my sadness is evident.

“I’m fine…” he sighs annoyingly, and I hear Kim murmuring to him something I don’t understand. “I want to apologize for what happened yesterday… I acted like a jerk.”

“It’s OK… I guess I should apologize to you too. I shouldn’t have gone with Henry yesterday.”

“I said I’m sorry for the scene I made yesterday, and I’m sorry for getting mad at you that badly, but that doesn’t mean I will accept the idea of you two dating!” Jake says, letting his bad temper out.

“Easy baby!” Kim tries to calm him. "We will try to support Erin in her decisions. She already knows what we think about Henry and what we know about him too… it’s her decision now.”

“I said I was going to apologize, but I will not accept that son of a b***h!” Jake shouts at Kim and I can hear him go far from her. Kim sighs disappointed.

“I’m sorry girl, he is still a little bit mad. That’s why we didn’t want to go to your house. We didn’t want to make a scene in front of your parents and Jake is out of control now.” My friend sounds really worried about Jake and I know she is trying to be there for me too.

“Don’t worry Kim, once he calms down he will be fine. Thanks for calling, I guess I will see you guys on Monday” I say, trying to finish the call because I’m getting a headache with all this.

“Sure thing, I’ll talk to you later girl… bye”

The call ended, and I feel awful. I don’t want to go out of bed, I don’t even feel hungry. I look at the time. It is 11:45am. I feel worse than when I was sick. I lay down again and cover myself with the blankets. “I will not go out of this bed today”, I say out loud like having a tantrum, then my phone beeps once, and then beeps again. I still have it in my hand, so I just check the two messages.

‘Busy? – The Most Handsome’

‘I’ll be there in 10 – The Most Handsome’

I stand out of bed with a jump and read the last text again “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” I repeatedly say while going to the bathroom. I wash my face, brush my teeth, fix my hair, and get dress, everything at the same time. I can’t believe he is coming right now; I remember he told me that he would come today, but I thought he was supposed to let me know with time. I put on black jeans and a white shirt with white sneakers trying to look casual on a regular Saturday morning. I am finishing getting ready when I hear voices outside my house. I run downstairs to prevent my parents from opening the door first, but nobody was downstairs. I go to the kitchen and on the refrigerator’s door there is a note from my mom:

‘Sweety we went to see your grandma today; we didn’t want to wake you up. Your sister is out with Paul. I left your breakfast on the table; we will be back to have dinner. We love you’

Mom

I finish reading the note when the doorbell rings. Before opening, I hear voices and laughs on the other side. I stop a moment before opening the door to listen a little bit. The only voice I recognize is Henri’s. When I open the door, I found him sitting on the front porch steps with two other guys standing up with him. He smiles automatically when he sees me, and I don’t know if it is just me, but I sense a sparkle in his eyes.

“Hello beautiful!” he says, standing up and turning to face me.

“H- Hi!” I say a little bit shy, while the other two guys look at me friendly.

I walk towards Henry and I wait for him to introduce me to his friends.

“These are my two best friends. This is Carl”, he points at the tall blond guy standing to his right “and this is Diego” he points at the Latino guy that is sitting to my left.

Both guys say hi to me, they look very friendly and polite. Henry pulls me from my hand to sit with him and puts his arm around my shoulder. It seems to me like he is claiming that I’m not available or something. I find it childish, but at the same time, it makes me feel warm and happy.

“So, we finally met you, Erin. Henry only talks about you”, Carl says, with a smile that soon turns into a painful gesture for the kick that Henry gives to him.

“That’s true, it is so nice to finally meet the girl that stole our friend’s heart”, Diego says while laughing and getting away from Henry’s punch.

“You know guys, I shouldn’t have brought you”, Henry says, looking at both of them with an intimidating look, but I know he is just joking.

“You can count on us, Erin, whenever you want, we can tell you secrets of Henry or anything you want to know”, Carl says sitting one step down from where I am sitting.

“Oh, c’mon Carl!” Henry shouts. “I knew this would be a mistake” he says while massaging his forehead. I just laugh with them, enjoying the situation.

We’ve been talking for some time now. I get to know Henry’s best friends better, and I cannot stop laughing at everything they say. They are so funny and at some point it feels like I have known them for a long time. Henry puts his arm down to hold my hand, tangling his fingers with mine. The movement is so normal to me that I love it, so I decide to sit between his legs one step down from where he is sitting. He hugs me and kisses my hair while his friends are telling us something funny that happened at their school yesterday.

While Diego is standing in front of us excited about his explanation of a Mexican movie, I look at the street where Henry’s car is, when suddenly Jake’s car appears, and parks in front of Henry’s. Diego stops talking, looking at us getting serious and I feel Henry’s body getting tense when Jake gets out of his car.

“What the hell are you doing here!” Jake shouts, walking towards us angry.

Henry stands up carefully, trying not to hit me or something and walks towards Jake with a calm step. His friends are just looking at everyone, trying to know what is going on.

“I came here to see my girlfriend”, Henry says, chuckling with a daring tone getting closer to Jake.

I see how Jake’s eyes get wide and dark after listening to what Henry says and once he is closer to him, he raises his leg and with a hard quick move, he kicks Henry in the stomach, making him fall on his back.