Secret obsession

CHAPTER 8

“STOP IT!” I shout pushing Jake and Henry away from each other. “What the hell is wrong with you two?” I look at each one of them. Henry’s body and breathing look so calm, but his eyes give off wrath and hate. Jake’s body, on the other hand, trembles realizing that he has lost his chance to hit the guy he hates so much lately.

“Beautiful Erin, why don’t you come behind me? I don’t want you to get hurt by him”. Henry still dares to provoke Jake without breaking eye contact with him.

“What did you say? Do you think I will be the one that hurts Erin?” Jake raises his voice. “You are the one that’s chasing her even to her house.”

“Oh, I see… does it bother you that I’m her friend?” Henry asks with such a tone that makes Jake’s reason to fight dumb.

“Well, I don’t think you just want to be her friend, except, of course, if by ‘friends’ you mean making out in her bedroom”, Jake says sarcastically, forgetting that a lot of people are watching and listening to the ‘story.’

“What?!” I shout “How did you know Jake? And why are you talking about that in front of all these people?” I get close to him, angry and confused trying to clarify the situation.

Jake does not look at me. Even after what he said, he is still shaking with anger towards Henry. They break eye contact because some student says that someone is coming, everyone runs, Jake holds my hand and drags me outside the classroom to cross the main hall to the gym, where nobody was. Once there, he tries to recover from the discussion by running both of his hands through his hair.

“Jake, why were you two fighting?” I ask, looking at how my friend walks from side to side in desperation.

“Stop Erin, just stop OK?” he looks me in the eyes. “I just can’t believe you two kissed!” he raises his voice while approaching me.

“What is so wrong about that?! I’m not a child Jake!” I raise my voice too.

Jake sighs heavily and walks passing me to the door, stops for a moment and then goes out of the gym. I stay in the gym alone for a moment, feeling frustration with all of this. I don’t know what is going on. Why is Jake so mad about this? I know he wants to protect me, but this is too much. He has never reacted this way, nor even for Kim, it just does not make sense.

I get late to art class and Mrs. Pertle doesn’t pay too much attention to that, she just lets me in and tells me to sit with Tyler to work together in a kind of collage that expresses a social situation around the world. I take my seat next to Tyler, and he immediately asks.

“So Erin, is that Henry guy your boyfriend?” he shows so much interest in my answer.

“No, why?” I ask annoyed.

“Curiosity… anyway, if he wants to date you, he should know that going through Jake is something nobody ever wanted to do right?” he adds, laughing and starts sharing me some magazines that were on his desk.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask him.

“Didn’t you know that?” he looks at my clueless expression “…every guy that showed interest in you in the past had to face Jake first, and obviously nobody wanted that, so we all kept a simple friendship with you.”

“We?” I ask and Taylor smiles awkwardly. “I didn’t know he was THAT overprotective”, I say surprised.

“I thought that after he started dating Kim everything would be different until Henry started to approach you…”

“Jake is more handsome than Henry anyway” Erika interrupts our conversation.

“What are you talking about? Jake is my friend” I say turning to her.

“Yes, but Henry is so mysterious and that makes him irresistible”, Janice also says, getting into the conversation that was supposed to be just between me and Taylor.

“Guys stop saying ridiculous things”, I claim. “Jake has been my best friend for years and Henry is just a new friend”, I add, trying to make things clear.

“Friends don’t kiss Erin”, Erica says looking at me with a mocking smile.

“We, we didn’t kiss… and besides, we should all start working and leave my personal life for me, OK? Thank you!” I say, annoyed, grabbing the magazines from Tyler’s desk, ignoring them.

The art class ended, and I just passed by the rest of the classes listening to a lot of gossip about me and the fake love triangle everyone created thanks to Jake and his stupid temper. On lunch break, I start walking looking for Kim when she comes from somewhere, taking me by surprise and dragging me to the restrooms.

“What is going on?” I ask confused.

“What is going on?!” she raises her voice. “Oh, nothing really. I just found out that MY boyfriend is in a love triangle with my best friend and some other guy”, she says sarcastically and angry.

“I didn’t start that rumor.” I try to clean up myself. “Jake was fighting with Henry and everyone started making assumptions” I say calmly when then I remember something that Jake said. “And by the way… did you tell Jake that Henry and I kissed?”

“Of course!” she answers shamelessly. “He is my boyfriend. I always talk to him about everything.”

“Kim!” I exclaim and wait for her to understand the situation, but she seems to be sure that what she did was right. “Don’t you get that THAT was the problem?”

“Oh no Erin, YOU are the problem. Why don’t you do everyone a favor and stop seeing Henry or start dating him right away, just stop pretending you are innocent!” she is staring at me with so much anger that her breathing accelerated with every word she said. After a moment of silence, she sighs disappointed. “Sorry girl, you know I had a bad day yesterday and today with Jake’s fight nothing goes better” she apologizes covering her eyes with one hand.

“I’m sorry Kim, but I never thought my situation with Henry was causing trouble for you too” I get close to her and hug her.

“You know you are right… this is your life, so as your best friend I will support you. I know Jake is always overprotective, so just promise me once more that you will be careful with this Henry guy” she says while still hugging me.

“I promise… one more time”

------

The day finally ended, but I never got the chance to see Henry again. I say goodbye to my friends, and I see Kim getting in Jake’s car. I’m still mad at Jake, so I start walking home.

I am finally home and go through the usual for the afternoon. Then I had dinner without anything important to discuss and go upstairs to my room to listen to some music or just to do other stuff. While in my room, my phone starts ringing. I look at the screen and my heart goes crazy again of happiness, but also anger and sadness. A weird mix of feelings is frustrating my fingers in deciding if I should answer or not…

“Hello” I try to answer normally.

“Hi beautiful, I know you are not busy, but I will ask anyway, are you busy?” Henry asks. He sounds relaxed and happy, which makes me wonder if he has some kind of personality disorder or something.

“If you know I’m not busy, then why did you ask?” I put ice in my answer, so he might understand that I’m a little bit mad.

“Oh so are you mad at me now?... let me remind you princess that it was your friend Jake the one that started everything, just in case you didn’t know” he says sarcastically.

“I know, I know, it's just… you should not have encouraged his jealousy”.

“So you are admitting that you know he is attracted to you?” he asks.

“No!... Jake is overprotective, he is…” Taylor's words run through my mind. “He is not jealous.”

“Mmm…” he let go a small laugh. “Whatever you say babe, I’m outside, can I climb up?” he changes the subject so suddenly that takes me out of place. I want to see him, but I’m a little bit mad at him, plus I want to know what he meant when he told me to be careful with him. “Erin? Are you still there?” he asks after I mute.

“Am… don’t you wanna visit like a normal person and ring the bell?”

“I don’t like to be normal and visit the girl I like until her father wants to,” he says, so normal that it makes me blush, and he is not even close to me. Damn it! “So, can I climb up? I promise you nobody will see me” he sounds convincing.

“Mmm… ok” I try to fake that I was thinking about it, but agreed immediately.

Since I was in my short PJs, I run to the closet and grab my oversize hoodie, then run to the balcony doors and open them slowly to avoid any sound that could awake my parents’ curiosity of asking me if I’m fine. When I finally open the doors, Henry is already standing there waiting for me to appear. He has his lovely expression with his beautiful half-smile.

“Hi beautiful, did you miss me?” he asks while approaching me.

I don’t want to let him be so close, because he distracts me and there are some questions that need answers.

“Why don’t we stay here?” I say and close the doors without letting him go inside.

“Sure, if you don't mind the weather, because I'm pretty sure that it is going to rain, and I don’t think your outfit is the most adequate”, he says, pointing to my hoodie.

“It makes you feel nervous?” I ask toying with anticipation to his expression, hoping is the same as the last time he saw me with it.

“Oh no beautiful,” he laughs. “Last time you caught me off guard, but I decided to get used to your innocent sensuality.” He comes close to me again slowly, almost stalking me.

“OK then, let’s sit”. I avoid his approach, failing to hide my nervousness and, sitting on the edge of the balcony, I hear Henry chuckle, and then he sits next to me.

The weather is actually getting chilly. I’m glad I put on my hoodie. We sat in silence for a moment. I know I want to ask him what he meant when he told me to be careful with him, but at the same time, I feel nervous about having this conversation right now.

“Do you want to listen to some music?” he asks, getting out his cellphone.

“Why did you fight with Jake?” I ask, starting at him. He closes his eyes and sighs.

“Your friend Jake is in love with you, Erin”, he starts looking at me. “For what I know, it's been years… but he also has a relationship with your best friend, so he started to fight with me because your friend Kim told him we kissed, and he feels jealous and frustrated that he cannot fight with nobody to claim you as his girlfriend” he finishes, smiling like if he did some hard assignment.

“You're wrong, Jake is just overprotective” I say, lowering my voice and eyes.

“That’s what you want to believe, baby, and it's fine… I think I will never want to compromise a good friend like that, but just answer this…” he holds my chin with his hand, raising it to make me look at him. “Do you like him?” he asks seriously looking at me so deep that makes me blush.

“No, he is just my best friend”, I answer honestly, gulping hard.

“Good answer” he smiles and kisses me the same as yesterday: sweet, warm and soft.

I think me and Henry are more comfortable with each other than before. We talk about a lot of things while listening to music and, from time to time, we kiss. Although we always finish the kiss with a laugh, the time I spend with Henry has become my favorite. We are now talking about his dogs when it starts raining.

“I think we should go inside” he says, pointing to my room with his head.

“I don’t want to go inside; I love the rain. We should stay here a little bit more” I smile looking at the sky and enjoying the smell of wet soil.

“Baby, I don’t want you to get sick”

“Oh c’mon!” I claim sweetly. “We are not even getting wet” I stretch my hand to show him how far we are from the rain.

“In that case…” he grabs my naked legs and puts them on top of his lap to cover them with his hands and starts rubbing them to warm them up.

I look at him smiling while he is concentrating on my legs. I can’t stop feeling butterflies in my stomach. This is it, I’m in love with Henry.

He noticed I’m looking at him and turns his head to me, he tilts it a little, raises both eyebrows and asks:

“Are you enjoying this?” I shrug. “How about this?” and he starts going down to my ankles and starts to press them with both hands. I laugh a little. “And this?” he moves his hands to my feet and starts tickling me. Since I’m wearing socks, the sensation is harder, and I try to stop him and squeal at the same time, trying to do it at a lower volume because of my parents. Henry keeps tickling my feet and then starts tickling my belly fighting with my hands, so I can’t stop him. With all the playing, I ended up laying on the floor with Henry on top of me holding my hands on each side of my head. We are staring at each other with our bodies getting hot and trying to catch our breath. I feel Henry’s body pressing against mine very relaxed that starts to accelerate my breathing. His breathing accelerates too, and we start kissing again, but this time the kiss is getting hotter. I feel Henry’s hands releasing mine. I put them around his neck, and he starts touching my leg going up to my hip and going a little bit under my hoodie. We are getting more excited as the kiss goes on. When my phone buzzes under me, I jump so alarmed that, sadly, the moment ends.

Henry moves away from me, trying to recover his breath and coughing a little bit. I sit down, grabbing my phone and touching the screen to see who sent me the text, my face changes disappointed.

“Hi angel, can we talk? – Jake”

I keep looking at the screen and decide to turn it off.

“I think it is time for me to go”, Henry says, standing up. “The rain stopped a little bit, so I think this is the perfect time”, he adds while helping me stand up, I sense a bit of disappointment in him.

“Are you sure? You can stay a lit… achoo!” I sneeze before ending my sentence.

“You see? It is better if I go now, or you will end with a cold.” Henry gets close to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow babe” and gives me a short kiss.