Girl Obsessed: A Dark Romance

by Zee Shine Storm

  But now, after all these months of enduring the hate and harassment, I didn’t want to bother with any of it. I didn’t even want to live anymore.

  “One more story,” I told myself every day when I woke up wanting to end my pathetic existence. “One more story and then you can leave this world knowing you did something right. That you fought back using the only weapon you had. Your words.”

  Wynnie once told me that death was a freedom and not cowardice. I wanted to be free now.

  Brent came by every day and tried his best to make me laugh, tried to get me to step out of the cottage and accompany him and his family at the main house for meals or just go out where nobody would recognise me. But my story had become my end all and be all and I refused his offer every time. My friend’s response was to give me an encouraging smile and leave me to my madness. But I had to hand it to him. He never gave up on me. Maybe if he hadn’t been there, I would have said to hell with this wretchedness and claimed my freedom a long time ago.

  It took me six more weeks but I accomplished what I had set out to do and when I finally managed to get my last book out there through a vanity press with Brent and Phillipa’s help, I breathed easy for the first time in months and went to sleep that night with a bittersweet smile on my face and a fierce pride in myself. Pride I hadn’t actually felt in ages. Pride I was never going to feel again because tomorrow…tomorrow was going to be the last this world ever saw of J. R. Knight.

  Chapter 33

  Wynter

  I jumped slightly when Karen, the bookstore owner and my current employer, dumped a heavy box on the counter in front of me with a stern expression.

  “These need to be catalogued, sorted and shelved today,” she ordered me in her usual stringent manner before stalking off towards her office at the back.

  It was a wonder I hadn’t murdered her by now with the way she spoke to me. Or maybe not. Because according to official records, her store was the only store in Oklahoma that refused to take Jude’s books off the shelves no matter how much controversy surrounded his name. I respected her for that. She said that whatever mistakes he had or hadn’t made didn’t have shit to do with how good his novels were and she wasn’t about to let anyone make her feel bad for reading them. Her customers bought those books too without any guilt or shame because of Karen’s no-nonsense attitude and I always smiled whenever I packed any book of his which someone proudly bought from here.

  Those were the only customers to whom I said, “Thank you for purchasing.” It was a heartfelt ‘thank you’ rather than a polite, professional one.

  That was also the reason I had walked into this shop months ago and asked for a job; discovering that this was a bookstore where his art was respected and given a place like it deserved. Of course I had altered my appearance again and was sporting a new identity so nobody recognized me. I’d lost some weight too because after leaving Jude, I hadn’t been eating well at all.

  It hurt so much. Living my life without him. Watching him suffer at the hands of the cruel media and public for months. I thought the storm would die out by now. That it would all wash over and become old news so Jude could go back to living a normal life, away from my terrible influence. But they were relentless. I wanted to burn them all for continuing to attack him this way and prayed he was strong enough to come out of this intact.

  His anxiety and fear were things I constantly worried about. It kept me up at night until I wanted to reach out to him again. But I controlled those urges. It had only brought him pain and humiliation. So much disgrace and so many problems. I had turned his entire life upside down. My reappearance was only going to make things worse. His messages had stopped a month ago and I assumed it was because he had decided to give up on me.

  It broke my heart a thousand times over.

  When news of him disappearing reached me about six weeks ago, I contacted Phillipa from an unknown number, the only person I knew Jude could trust. She was very formal with me but did tell me Jude was safe and with a friend. The only friend who had sprung to mind at that time was Brent so I had gotten in touch with him.

  To my surprise, Brent had sounded relieved to hear from me and asked me if I was going to come back. But I had begged him not to let Jude know and said that I had simply wanted to know how he was doing.

  “He’s…I don’t know, Riley…er…I mean, Wynter.” Brent had paused and let out a heavy sigh over the phone. “All he does is write. Hole up in that cottage and write his book all day and night.”

  That made me smile and I might have laughed a little as well. “Brent, that is a good thing,” I told him. “It’s when he doesn’t write when you should worry. Just take care of him okay.”

  He had started to say something else but I had hung up, gone to my run-down apartment which I shared with two other girls, locked myself in the bathroom and cried for an hour. Shelly, one of my flat mates who had been home at the time, had asked me if I was okay but then gone away when I hadn’t answered.

  “Jude,” I had sobbed and clamped a hand over my mouth with another over my stomach, trying to block out the bawling and the anguish.

  I was going to read that book he was writing. His words were all I had lived for once and I was going to do it again no matter how difficult life became in future. As long as he wrote, I was going to be falling in love with him through his words over and over again.

  Taking a deep breath to control my rampant emotions, I reminded myself that I was in the middle of work and needed to focus. If I let my mind wander towards him, I would retreat to a very dark place from which even Karen’s bossiness wouldn’t be able to drag me out of.

  So I stood up determinedly and tore off the duct tape and labels from the huge box before shifting it aside to make space for the books I was going to be placing on the counter. I held each of them reverently, the touch and smell of new books making me feel lighter as I unpacked.

  Almost five whole minutes passed like that before I saw it.

  Before I saw the book. His book. It was a thick, matte black hard cover with glistening white font, spelling out a title which rendered me even more shocked than seeing his name.

  Ride Or Die.

  With hands that began to tremble, I ran my fingers over the raised lettering before turning it over to read the synopsis, my heart skipping beats inside my chest and my skin feeling unusually heated. It was the same story. The story he had thrown in the garbage. Jude had gone ahead and published it.

  The release was a surprise because there had been no news of this in the media, no hint of it at all in the reader grapevines or publishing circles. Even when Brent had told me Jude was writing, I hadn’t imagined it to be this story. I hadn’t believed for a second that he would be brave enough to defy the odds and do this anyway after all the outrage and censure it would result in. This book was going to perpetuate the rumor even more, add fuel to fire and destroy his credibility even further.

  I didn’t understand why he would do this as I flipped through the pages and caught glimpses of passages which I recognized from reading it months ago. The sex scenes were still there, in explicit detail. He hadn’t changed the storyline at all. Why, why would he do this to himself after I left him so he could live in peace and restore his broken reputation?

  It wasn’t until I flipped to the front of the book and read the dedication that I understood. My limbs grew slack and my heart turned to metal inside my chest at the words I encountered on that page.

  Wynnie.

  I’m standing at the edge of the cliff now.

  Come save me.

  “No,” I cried out sharply and pressed the book to my chest, fear taking over every other instinct. No, Jude. He couldn’t mean it. He wouldn’t do that. But my tears fell uncontrollably because deep down, I knew he wasn’t joking about it. I had seen his anxiety up close and I knew he had lost the fight against this vindictive world.

  I put the book down and fumbled in my pocket for my phone, my hands shaking when I dialled h
is number after so long. He didn’t answer and after trying three times and getting the same result, I dashed away at the wretched tears before dialing Brent.

  No answer.

  “Shit,” I cursed and then went to my Twitter to type out a message to him.

  Jude. Please don’t do anything stupid. Please. I love you.

  But how could I get to him on time? If I was too late, he might…

  He lived so far away.

  “Girl, what in the world is wrong with you?” Karen’s voice interrupted my meltdown as she appeared at the counter and scowled at me.

  I was a wreck and I didn’t care if she saw me. I didn’t care about anything except getting to Jude right now and…saving him. Like he had saved me.

  I lifted the book and ran my hand over it again, my heart squeezing painfully in response. After opening the dedication page, I turned it around so that she could see.

  “This is me,” I cried softly as I looked up at her. “I am Wynter Cassidy. He wrote this book…for me. For us.”

  Karen’s stunned stare lasted so long, I thought she might yell at me to get the hell out of her store or call the police but all she did was take the book from me and peer at the page again, unblinkingly, before hurriedly checking out the title and synopsis.

  “My god,” she said as though in awe and moved her gaze back to me. “I ordered this book weeks ago when it was still untitled from his website because I just wanted a copy. I thought it wouldn’t be published, that he had gone AWOL and there wasn’t going to be a delivery since there was no news of him but…I didn’t realize…” She shook her head at me then. “What does it mean? Come save me?”

  I held my arms across my middle and cried even harder as the truth struck my soul like lightning over and over again. That he had made this grand gesture to show me, to show the whole fucking world that he was not ashamed of his relationship with me. In the end, Jude had chosen me. He just didn’t believe I would choose him back as well. He would rather die than live in this world without me.

  Chapter 34

  Three months later…

  Best-selling author J.R. Knight has sold 6 million copies of his book ‘Ride Or Die’ which fans believe is a semi-autobiography about his affair with Wynter Cassidy, the eighteen year old fugitive. The two seemed to have eloped together and authorities have been unsuccessful in tracing them for months despite the pair’s influential online presence. The author continues to write books and remains one of the best writers of this generation, gaining over four million new followers on his social media overnight. ‘Ride or die’ has been reinvented as a popular catch phrase amongst fans of his work now which may not necessarily be a good thing as many feel that it romanticizes such toxic, law-breaking relationships.

  Jude

  I skimmed through the article as I breathed in the cold, morning air and sipped my coffee before tossing it carelessly and watching as it fluttered for a while only to be snatched away by the harsh, mountain winds. Alaska. That was where I had finally ended up. Living in isolation at a cabin in the woods. Acres of greenery and silver streams below were my view every day as I literally stood at the edge of my cliff and…smiled.

  I smiled because I felt no inclination to jump anymore. I smiled because I was living my best life, doing what I loved to do most and I didn’t give a flying fuck who wrote or said what about me anymore because I had never been richer or more successful in my life. I couldn’t believe my book had become so popular. I had lost many fans but I had also gained new ones who more than made up for that loss and were already dying for me to release another novel. Ride Or Die had made history and even the critics had no choice but to praise it for its literary value no matter that they felt that the author was a shunned member of society now. Fuck their society.

  I had a whole world with me. My world.

  Wynter.

  I looked over my shoulder at her where she sat on the porch a few meters away reading a book while huddled inside a thick coat and looking small and adorable. She’d come to me three months ago and ironically, had threatened to kill me herself if I ever even thought about suicide.

  She’d brought me back to life with her love and determination despite the fact that she faced backlash and criticism on social media every day while promoting my work on any platform she could find and defending me like a devoted soldier. No one could trace her IP address thanks to the help of those black market friends she had whom she wouldn’t even tell me about. Brent had seen to it as well that we remained protected and undiscovered. He and Phillipa were my only connection to the outside world even if they both denied it whenever they were questioned about it. I even had a secret printing press now and Phillipa oversaw everything with Wynnie organizing things online for marketing and distribution.

  As long as you write, Jude, she told me with conviction, people are going to read your books. It doesn’t matter how they get their hands on it. You better believe that we have way more supporters than haters in this world.

  It was true. She had released a statement herself online exposing everything about her past, her experiences with Noah and Joshua Andrews. She’d come out and broken her silence regarding the abuse she had endured and why she had taken up the path that she had, why she didn’t believe that she needed to justify herself in a courtroom and let someone else decide whether she was innocent or guilty.

  The number of people who had responded with, “You should have killed those pricks when you had the chance’ had been surprising but it made my heart glad to see that Wynnie had shared her story and put it out there.

  Sometimes, I did online interviews; written ones on popular blog sites. No videos. Twice, I even let them have my picture, taken very professionally by Wynne.

  We had become notorious celebrities now. Legends.

  Some still crucified us on the daily. But many held us up as the modern day example of epic love. They called us the Bonnie and Clyde of this generation.

  “This is so cool,” Wynnie had gushed when we had first seen what they had dubbed us online. “We’re what other lovers aspire to be now.”

  “Bonnie and Clyde killed people,” I told her dryly, not liking the comparison.

  Wynnie had rolled her eyes at me. “They don’t mean we’re murderers, Jude. It’s the notoriety and the fact that we share that as lovers which gets them to root for us. Most famous writers wouldn’t follow their law-breaking teenage lover into the wilderness to live an isolated life, choosing them above all others.”

  I hadn’t let her see me smirking at that. You’d be surprised what most famous writers crave sometimes, Wyn. What that clawing need to escape this reality would lead us to do. That is why we make writing our biggest love affair.

  I didn’t tell her that though. She would scratch me if I mentioned having a love affair with anyone and anything other than her.

  “It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” Wynter observed dreamily as she came up to me and stood beside me with a smile on her face. So much peace. There was so much peace here. No one was ever going to judge us in this place because there was nobody to judge us. We didn’t have to wake up every morning and feel uncertain as to what we might find on our doorstep. And if we ever did crave to be around people, there was no country in this world I couldn’t get us to with the kind of money and power I possessed now.

  I placed an arm around her shoulders and drew her to my side, warmed by her body as I kissed her hair, her natural blond hair. “I love you, Wynnie,” I told her and I could have wept at the powerful emotions running through me in that moment.

  This life, this beauty, the place we had ended up, the passion and bond between us… It felt as though I had been reaching for this all my life and simply hadn’t known. That everything was fucked up and meaningless except what we had right here. She had given me this gift and I couldn’t be more grateful to this girl.

  “Tomorrow, we are going to learn hunting,” my girlfriend declared heroically. “I know Brent said he would res
tock everything but I still think we should learn to survive without his help if worst comes to worst.”

  I visibly cringed at the idea of hunting animals and Wynnie stiffened in my arms.

  “Oh my god, Jude, baby, I’m so sorry,” she said and gave me a wide-eyed stare. “I didn’t mean… It’s okay. We can just grow vegetables or something. We’ll start a garden.”

  My smile was indulgent as I bent to rub my nose against hers affectionately. “If my girl wants to hunt, she’s going to hunt,” I told her, placing a kiss on her forehead. “You’ve always been more vicious than me. I don’t want you to suppress that instinct just because I’m a softie.”

  Wynnie hugged me back as the cold wind hit us but we both stood tall and proud against it, at the edge of our mountain, and surveyed the beauty beyond. Our life. Our world.

  “I’m excited,” she told me, her lips tracing my collarbone and her breath warm against my chilled skin. “And I’m happy. I’m happy to be living with you here.”

  So was I. Very happy. I woke up every morning looking forward to the day, wondering what new direction we were going to explore in. There was one thing that worried me though and it was her safety. But when I voiced my concern to her, Wynter raised her head and pinned me with that steely grey gaze of hers.

  “Whoever decides to come for me or my lover is not leaving this place again,” she informed me in a cold voice. “I’m just going to need you to look the other way while I kill them.”