Secret obsession

CHAPTER 18

“Henry my friend! How are you?!” Carl says, looking behind me while I froze nervous, then he looks at me again. “I’m joking! He is not here, but I see that I am right. You are avoiding Henry…”

We paid for our stuff and are going out of the store together. I haven’t really explained to him what happened between Henry and me. When we are outside, Carl looks at me like calculating something.

“Do you want to go get an ice cream with me?”

“Sure!” I give him a small laugh, giving up now that he knows something is going on.

We went to an ice cream shop nearby, ‘Cotton Candy’. They sell the best ice cream here. There, I ordered my favorite, bubble gum. Carl got chocolate pistachio. When I got mine, I smiled happily because I never thought about getting ice cream after my fight with Henry. I’m not the cliché type, plus I don’t have experience with love problems. Carl chuckles, looking at me getting the first taste of my ice cream.

“You sure look cute when you are happy” he says. I laugh a little bit, believing that I might look like a child. “I’m gonna let you enjoy it before I give you therapy.”

“You can ask me now; the ice cream is helping”, I say, looking down a little bit embarrassed. “I bet you already know everything.”

“Mmmm… not really. Henry is very possessive of his personal problems, he can be very stubborn when is getting help or at least suggestions.” He says, while sitting at one of the tables outside the store, I follow him.

“That explains a little bit why he is so weird.”

“That doesn’t explain everything…” he gets closer, getting serious. “There is something about Henry’s past that changed him completely”, his face turns sad. “It was something hard for all of us, but it hurt him the most… I thought he was gonna tell you about this but seems you two have problems and knowing how he is, I think it will be better if I tell you about what happened two years ago.”

I get really curious about what Carl has to say, not only because it involves Henry, but because he said that what happened was hard on him and Diego too.

“Three years ago, Henry, Diego and I went to the same school”, Carl starts the story. “The three of us have a friend named Laura. She was funny, pretty, and smart. Everyone at school loved her.” His eyes have a special sparkle while he remembers her. “Laura was always with us. Diego and I never saw her differently, but Henry fell in love with her… it was hard for him to attract her attention because he wasn’t the ‘Casanova’ he is now.” He does quotation with his fingers “… anyway, he tried really hard to get her until they started dating… everything was fine, the four of us were always together and their love grew so fast, they started to spend a lot of time together, but it only lasted less than a year…”

“What happened?”

“Laura started to get sick. We didn’t know what she had until one day she stopped going to school. We were worried, but Henry was more than worried. He was scared. She was the first love of his life, and they were deeply in love… one day, Laura’s Dad called Henry, and he told him the bad news” his eyes filled with tears. “Laura had leukemia.”

“Oh my God!” I say, getting Carl’s sadness and feeling bad for Henry.

“We all tried to be positive towards her, especially Henry. He spent all his afternoons with Laura and always went with her to the hospital when needed. We were making future plans with her to give her hope… but that was not enough” he pauses “…after almost a year of fighting, Laura died."

I feel a cold breeze running all over my body. I never thought that would be the end of the story. I am crying with the sad truth of Henry’s behavior. I never thought he suffer that.

“Henry got depressed, he stopped going to school. We were trying to be there for him, but we were sad too. After a couple of weeks back at school, he decided to be transferred to the one he is going with you, the rest is his present now.” Carl looks at me waiting to say something.

“I didn’t know, I wasn’t expecting that story” I say in shock.

“I think it will be better now that you know, since that happened, he has been pushing everyone out of his heart… even us” he says, standing up and grabbing his stuff. “Let’s go, I have a cake to bake, and you have things to do… now that you know the truth you will know how to handle better his weird moods… I must say, since you appeared in his life, he looks chipper, believe me.”

We both got our stuff and said goodbye, parting ways. While I walk home, I think about all the things that Henry suffered, and I understand better why he is like that… even so, he decided to play with me and many other girls at school. I get that he was hurt but none of us are responsible for what happened. I wonder if that is why he told me at the beginning to be careful with him. I guess he felt guilty playing with me at some point.

When I get home, I turn on the TV and start to watch a movie. I don’t pay too much attention because I am still thinking about Henry and his ex-girlfriend. Maybe I need someone else’s opinion to help me deal with the new information, but who? Kim is still mad at me, and obviously I cannot ask Jake about this. I’m not sure if, after knowing the truth, I should forgive Henry. Carl told me that he was getting better after he got to know me, and I always got the feeling that he was honest with me. He was not like what Wendy described, and he was trying to protect me from himself. It could be that he really cared about me. Although since he was scared too, he tried to push me away like he had been doing, according to Carl.

I am eating popcorn while the movie sounds the background. My phone buzzes and I see it's a call from Kim. I jump out of the sofa surprised and happy at the same time. I doubt a few seconds, and then I answer the call.

“Kim?” I ask.

“Hu… Hi Erin, how are you?... are you busy?” she sounds weird.

“Nope, for the first time in years we are not having the Friday tradition”, I chuckle.

“Well, it must be a sign… you see, I called you today because I thought you wouldn’t be able to answer, but it must be destiny…”

“Maybe… I’m glad you called” I say, turning off the TV to have a better chat with my friend. I missed her so much.

“Honestly, I am glad I called too,” she laughs. "I guess I should apologize to you for being a bad friend. You have been suffering enough, and I wasn’t there for you.”

“It was something painful and new, but I am not mad at you”, I try to convince her.

“You should be girl, I acted like the worst friend. I only focused on my own problems and I forgot that this was all new to you. I should have been there to support you”. She sounds so sincere that I feel relieved for a moment.

“I guess we both failed each other, because I know how much you have been suffering with Jake, and I wasn’t there to support you either.”

“Don’t worry about that, it is not the first time Jake and I have problems and I guess it won’t be the last one”, she sighs. A short silence falls between us.

“So, how are things going on between you and Jake?”

“No Erin, I want to know about you… my problems with Jake can wait. I want to be a good friend and know what is going on with you”. Her words are so warm to me that I cannot avoid crying.

“I don’t know Kim, this is all new to me. I never knew love could be so painful… I thought he liked me for real, I thought everything he told me was true…”

“Oh! Erin… I’m so sorry girl. To be honest, I thought he liked you for real. I know what happened and the only thing I can tell you for sure is that Wendy was really mad at him, that she was looking for a way to make him pay… I guess you were her only option, and Jake didn’t help too much with the situation.”

“I know… but the Henry Wendy described to me was different from the one I knew. I got the opportunity to get to meet his best friends, and he even introduced me to them as his girlfriend. I was happy about it, or maybe I was too dumb to fall for that”, I say, sobbing and feeling sad but glad that my friend is here for me.

“Maybe he is the type that gets scared when he notices he is getting serious, I know a lot of guys do that, they want everything, but they get freaked out when they notice how good they feel about it.” She sounds like an expert.

“You know, now that you mentioned it,” I start to say, wiping my tears, “there is something I just found out about his past… did you know that Henry was in another school before he came to this one?”

“Now that you ask, I remember Jake telling me about some new guy that was admitted to the basketball team… but you know that was a year ago”, she says sure about her information.

“Yes, and did you know why he got enrolled in our school?”

“Well, I am not so sure about that, but the cheerleaders always said that he was some kind of troublemaker at her other school and, knowing how messy he is with the girls, I guess they were telling the truth.”

“Actually, I talked today with one of his best friends and discovered that a few years ago Henry had a girlfriend named Laura who had died of leukemia.” I say getting serious with Kim. “Apparently, he hadn’t recovered completely from his loss and has been acting like a bad boy since then.”

“Mmm, her name was Laura, you said?” she asks, like remembering something important.

“Yes, did you know about her?” I ask curious, Kim knows a lot of people in different schools. She is very popular.

“Well, I’m not sure if it is the same Laura you are talking about, but I remember my cousin telling me that she had to go to the funeral of one of her classmates at her school… she told me that the girl’s name was Laura and that she died because she had leukemia… I also remember that she told me that the ceremony was very sad since the boyfriend couldn’t stop crying the whole time” she says getting sad too “poor Henry, I guess he has been having a rough time since then.”

“That’s what I’m thinking… I know it was years ago, but still, I cannot help myself to feel bad for him.”

“So that’s why he has been acting like a jerk with all the girls at school? But then…” she stops to think about something. “Erin, maybe that is why he has been pushing you, maybe he is too afraid to be involved with someone again… maybe you are right, and he was different with you because his feelings for you are real” she starts to get excited.

“That’s what I was thinking about… but he still played with me, and he hurt me.”

“It's true, but maybe he said all those horrible things just to push you away, he is just scared… he might try to contact you again, if that is the case.”

“Actually, he is… he has been texting me saying that he misses me…”

“You see?!” she interrupts me excited.

“But now I’m the one who is scared Kim, he broke my heart! I’m not sure if I want to suffer again like that.”

“I know girl, but now you know why, it wouldn’t be bad if you give him another chance, and you know I care about you, so I will never suggest you to do something that hurts you more” her words have a tone of love that repairs my sadness somehow.

“I miss you a lot. You have no idea how much I needed this kind of talk with you.” I get nostalgic.

“I know, I missed you too… I’m sorry for not being there… we should promise that we’ll never stop talking because of some guy” Her apology makes me laugh, but I make the promise as well.

We chatted a lot on the phone. I hear my parents getting home from their date, as well as Lisa and Paul. Also, Kim told me that Jake would pick her up in a few minutes to go somewhere.

“I guess I will see you on Monday at school”, I say with a new energy, thanks to my friend.

“Sure! Like I said, I will not leave you alone anymore, I promised.”

We end the conversation and I feel better now. I have recovered one of my best friends and I don’t feel like disappearing now. I’m glad that she called me. She opened my eyes to a lot of things that I was ignoring about my situation with Henry.

I go downstairs, and I see my family chatting about their dates. Everyone looks surprised to see me there sitting with them, but nobody asks questions, they just let me in the conversation.

“Today was a good day after all”, I think to myself when my phone buzzes again, a new text.

“I’m happy that you and Kim are friends again. See you on Monday Luciferin”—Jake.