Obsessed

by Jenn Faulk

  I pause for a moment, sigh, and then just decide to ask.

  “Like, I, uh . . . I want to walk you to your door,” I explain. “Not because I think you can’t walk to the door by yourself or anything, and not because . . .”

  Well, maybe I don’t need to explain everything.

  “Well, just because it seems like it’s polite. You know? Like it’s the nice thing to do would be the only reason, not because I, uh . . . I mean, not because of anything else, or, uh . . .”

  She just looks at me and doesn’t say anything. She just told me that I should probably get clarification, but now that I’ve finally worked up the nerve to do just that I’m getting absolutely no useful feedback whatsoever.

  “I was going to,” I go on. “I already made up my mind that I was going to get out and walk you to the door, but then I started thinking about it again and now I’m not sure. So maybe, uh . . . maybe you need to clarify . . .”

  I don’t get to say anything else because as soon as the words are out of my mouth, Maggie is leaning across the console, closer and closer, until her lips are on my cheek. My right cheek. And after just a moment there, she pulls away, then comes closer again, kissing my left cheek this time.

  She sits back slightly and looks at me expectantly. I have absolutely no idea what to say or do.

  “Do they match?” she asks softly.

  “I, uh . . .” I feel myself swallow hard. “What?”

  “Does this,” she explains, reaching out and touching my right cheek softly, “feel the same as this?” She touches my left cheek exactly the same way.

  I feel myself smile as I realize what she means. Then I feel myself nod, even though the sensation where her lips touched my right cheek is definitely stronger than where they touched my left one.

  She’s smiling, too. “Is that a yes, then?”

  “Uh,” I stammer. “Um, yes,” because I’m not about to ask her to kiss the left one again.

  I think for a moment that she’s about to do it without being asked to because she’s leaning in again . . .

  But this time, her lips land right on mine.

  I cannot believe this is happening.

  As she softly kisses me, I concentrate on the feel of her lips, the warmth of her hands as they touch my face again, and the way her hair smells like some sort of flower. I forget all about the right, the left, and how one sensation might be greater than another because every sensation is nothing compared to this.

  Maggie. Here with me. Kissing me.

  This is a date. And this is a real kiss.

  I’m not overthinking things now. I’m kissing her back, my hands in her hair, my mouth on hers, and all of my attention focused on right here, right now.

  Maggie. That’s all I’m thinking about.

  After a few moments that aren’t nearly long enough, I feel her pull away from me. I open my eyes to see her open hers.

  We kissed.

  That just happened. That really just happened. A real date. A real kiss.

  Maggie.

  She smiles and begins to say something when her phone vibrates from her purse.

  “Of all times,” she mutters, still smiling, moving back to her side of the car and fumbling in her purse as it continues buzzing. “Probably just Tanner, making sure I’m okay.” She grins over at me again, putting it to her ear. “Hello?”

  She listens for a moment, and then the smile slowly slips from her face. After another long moment, she lowers her phone and looks at me.

  “It’s the police,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, tears welling up in her eyes. “Brandon’s dead.”

  ~Maggie~

  After Officer Meyer tells me all the details he thinks I need to know, I hang up my phone. I don’t have the words to give to Peter about what exactly I need, but he seems to understand anyway. He gets me out of the car, and with his arm around me, he gets me into the apartment, where I sit down on the couch with him, numb and in shock.

  Brandon is gone. Dead.

  Maggie Mae, my favorite barista. When are you going to let me take you out?

  I can see myself at nineteen, in jeans that were much too tight, knowing that the eyes of the older, hotter “regulars” at the coffee shop were following my every move.

  Mr. Keller, I can hear myself flirting back with him I don’t have time. I’m a busy girl, you know.

  I can feel the goosebumps that came when he said Brandon. It’s Brandon, and I’ll make it worth your time.

  Dead. He’s dead.

  Somehow, I’m inside my apartment, sitting on my couch, with my phone in my hand. Peter is sitting beside me, our knees touching, with concern on his face. Tanner is standing in front of me, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing at Peter.

  “What?” he asks. “What’s she talking about?”

  Peter begins to respond, but I cut him off. This is my news, right? I’m the one who wished him dead when Emma went missing, right? Seems I bear the guilt of at least some of this, right?

  “Brandon’s dead,” I say, right before my words turn to sobs, picturing him there in the coffee shop, putting my number into that phone that he was always carrying around . . .

  I look down at my phone. “They said,” I manage between sobs, “that he was murdered. Shot. And there was a woman . . . she . . .”

  Someone else died. Someone besides Brandon.

  “They said there was a woman there,” I finally get out. “At the house where they found Emma. She . . . she killed herself and then they found Brandon when—”

  It’s too much. I haven’t had time to process any of it and I certainly can’t bring myself to explain that Brandon’s body was found hidden in a freezer when they were processing the crime scene . . .

  “Killed herself? What woman?” Tanner asks. “What was Brandon doing there? And who would shoot him?”

  I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know.

  “I don’t know,” I choke out as I continue to cry.

  “Okay, okay,” Tanner says, clearly frustrated. “I don’t understand any of this. First things first. Why did the police call you?”

  “Emma,” Peter says softly.

  Yes. Call the mother of the most closely related blood relative of the deceased.

  Oh, Emma. Her father, gone . . .

  I can only deal with one thing at a time, so I try to put this out of my mind.

  “Yes, because of Emma,” I say. “And because it’s going to be on the news. The news, Tanner! And Meyer is a good guy who didn’t want me blindsided. And Emma . . .”

  “That makes sense,” Tanner murmurs, looking toward Emma’s room. “But there’s a whole lot that doesn’t. Maggie, call the police back right this minute, and—”

  “I don’t want to,” I say miserably, because I honestly don’t want to hear the grisly details. I want to know more, but there are some things I just can’t handle right now. Hearing more about Brandon’s body, how he was shot, where he was found —

  “Are you hearing yourself?” Tanner hisses, and I shoot a glare at him. “You’re Emma’s mother. And regardless of how either of us feels about Brandon, he was her father.”

  “I know that,” I hiss right back at him, the tears coming in fresh waves now. Regardless of how either of us feels about Brandon. I’ve felt a lot over the years, but it’s been nothing but disdain and anger recently. Knowing now that he was dead and I was hating him . . . well, it makes me hate myself just a little. All I can manage as I think on it is his name, which comes out as a broken sob. “Brandon . . . oh, Brandon . . . you’re gone . . .”

  I try to form the words to explain what I’m going through, but it’s no use. The more I think of him, the worse I feel . . .

  Then, Tanner speaks up again, no pity in his voice.

  “You need some answers,” he says. “Why are you so content to just be completely ignorant of—”

  “I’m not ignorant,” I correct him in a choked voice, knowing that he doesn’t really think
this, not in his heart, not on any real level. He’s just frustrated. Frustrated, angry, confused . . .

  “We’ve got to get some answers,” Tanner says again, more emphatically this time. “If you won’t call the police, I will, and—”

  “No,” I say, wiping at my eyes, noticing that Peter’s knee is no longer up against mine. I think back to that kiss in the car, that incredible, amazing kiss and all the future plans I was already making . . .

  But this. His knee scooting away from mine. That look in his eyes.

  “Yes,” Tanner argues. “This is ridiculous that Emma was with some woman who killed herself and you don’t even know anything about it! Was Emma there when it happened? Did she see anything?”

  “I don’t know!” I cry. “I already told you that—”

  “Yes,” I hear Peter say softly. Tanner and I both look at him. He hesitates for a long moment and then says, “She was in the house at least. She was there when it happened.”

  “You knew about this?” I whisper.

  “I, um,” he stammers. “Yeah, I, uh . . . I was there.”

  “You were there?” Tanner asks.

  “Well, uh, outside,” Peter says. “I, uh, I heard it . . .”

  “Who was she?” Tanner demands. “Why did she have Emma?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Peter tells him. “I just . . . she was just this lady and I saw Emma and I called the police, and . . .”

  He breaks off and just blinks at us.

  “And what, Peter?” I ask, and I can hear the venom in the words. Peter can, too, if his expression is any indication.

  He’s better at reading women than I thought he was.

  “Yeah, Peter,” Tanner says, and I hear sarcasm in his voice. “Seems like you’ve got all the answers.”

  I’m not sure if he does, but he had information he didn’t tell me. I thought it was to spare me, which it might have been. Maybe I was being naive, knowing that there was more to everything and not asking the right questions.

  I should have been more responsible. I should have asked the hard questions. Because my child saw someone kill herself, and her father’s body was there in the house the whole time, and—

  “Peter,” I say, wondering how we got from where we were in his car, not even fifteen minutes ago, to this. “Say something.”

  He takes a deep breath and looks at the floor, just like he looked at the table last night. He doesn’t look up as he speaks.

  “I don’t know who she was,” he begins. “All I know is that Brandon left her address on his phone so I went there to check it out. I knocked on the door, she started cussing at me, and then Emma came into the room crying. I recognized her from a picture on Brandon’s computer, and I called the police. They got there, they tried to negotiate with her, and then . . .”

  His voice trails off, and he’s quiet for a long moment before he looks up at me and gives his shoulders the slightest of shrugs. He obviously doesn’t know what else to say.

  My mind is still on Brandon’s computer, with Emma’s picture there. He was a good dad. He loved Emma. I know this.

  What was he doing, though? What was going on? Why would he have taken Emma to this house, where this awful thing happened—

  I close my eyes, trying to block out the mental images produced by all that he’s said. Emma, scared and crying. This woman, desperate enough that she killed herself . . .

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” I ask.

  I only get another shrug from him, but this one is a little bigger.

  All the patience I had for who he is and the weird way he relates to everyone is slowly disappearing.

  “Did you think I’d be upset?” I ask. “That it would upset me if you told me the details? Because it has. But right now, Peter, I think I’m more upset that you didn’t mention it earlier. That’s a huge omission.”

  “Yeah,” Tanner adds. And I can’t tell if he’s agreeing with me that this is a really big omission or if it was a bad idea to withhold information on the off chance that it wouldn’t upset me.

  Tanner knows women. He’s getting married to one, obviously, and he grew up with me, so . . .

  Peter just looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

  “Peter, are you going to answer me?” I ask, trying hard to keep my voice level.

  He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he finally lifts his eyes from the floor and holds my gaze.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says. He looks from me, to Tanner, and then back to me again. When neither of us answer him, he adds, “I have to go now.”

  What? He has to go? What’s wrong with him?

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  But I don’t need to ask because it’s clear from the way he stands up that he is, indeed, going to leave. Right this minute. Without answering any more questions or even caring that I’m freaking out here . . .

  “Fine,” I manage, standing up as well, shooting Tanner a warning look as I know he must feel like me, ready to tell Peter just exactly what he thinks. “Let me walk you out, at least.”

  He pauses for a second, then nods.

  I stand up, and together we walk to the front door and head out onto the porch. I close the door as Peter heads to his car.

  “Peter, wait.”

  He turns around and does just that. I walk toward him until we’re standing next to each other, just outside his car.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I guess I should have told you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  This time he looks me right in the eye.

  “I told you I screw up everything that I do,” he reminds me.

  “Peter . . .”

  He looks at me for a long moment before finally saying, “I really do have to go.”

  Then he turns around, gets in his car, and drives away.

  ~Peter~

  I sort of lied to Maggie. Or maybe it was another omission. Certainly not a HUGE omission like apparently I made when I didn’t tell her about skinny track lady, but an omission just the same.

  When I put my hands back and forth in front of the air vent so that they feel the same or when I step on a rock and then try to step on something to match that feeling with my other foot, that really is about the sensation. But when I go to the high school to run with Andrew or something, I do the same thing with the paint marks that are all over the track. I can’t feel those through my shoes though, so clearly it doesn’t have anything to do with a sensation in my feet. It has everything to do with what’s going on in my head.

  If Andrew and I are talking and our conversation is what’s on my mind, lines on the track aren’t an issue. But if I start thinking about the lines—even for a second—then I can’t stop thinking about them. Andrew thinks it’s funny. He’s been known to bring it up just so he can watch me bounce around on the track. The start/finish area is a particular landmine.

  Sometimes it’s stones or painted lines I can’t stop obsessing over. Sometimes it’s decisions. If my mind is busy enough, I’m fine. But if I question myself—even for a second—I’m usually stuck in an endless loop of, “But what if?”

  When I was filling Maggie in at the Waffle House on how I found Emma, I thought about skinny track lady, and I thought about telling Maggie. But Emma had been right there, all covered in syrup . . .

  What if a child her age can understand more than we realize . . . what if my words slip into her subconscious mind? But how can Maggie help her child if she doesn’t even know that Emma may have witnessed a suicide? But how is Maggie going to react if she finds out that her daughter was being cared for by a drug addict? Even if Emma doesn’t hear or comprehend or retain one word of what I say, she’s still old enough to understand when Mommy’s upset . . . But Maggie asked you to tell her what happened. But what if . . .

  An endless loop, like I said.

  It wasn’t so much that I made a decision not to tell Maggie, it’s just that I did nothing. Which means that I didn
’t tell her. Which has the same outcome as making a decision not to tell her. Which—based on what just happened—was obviously the wrong decision.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve felt the wrath of not being able to act and it likely won’t be the last. It’s better than what happens when you act without thinking, though. It’s better than what happens when you call the police and then you get to hear the sound of a bullet blowing someone’s brains out.

  It’s much better than that.

  ~Maggie~

  I watch him drive away, wondering at the abruptness of his departure and his reasons for it.

  Is it any big mystery, though? Tanner and I were a little rude to him. Okay, so Tanner was very rude to him.

  It was warranted, because that information? That Emma had witnessed a suicide, that this whole mess Brandon was wrapped into involved a woman who killed herself, that there was something very wrong going on? That was all big, big information.

  I screw up everything that I do.

  Well, Peter, you just might be right about that this time.

  I don’t really think that. Not honestly. He’s just . . . strange. Awkward. And while I’m irritated and maybe even a little hurt that he kept this from me, I know there must be a good reason.

  “What in the world, Maggie?”

  This is what greets me when I come back into the apartment, where Tanner is standing, watching me with his arms crossed over his chest and little sympathy in his eyes.

  He’s been like this before. It wasn’t when he found out about Emma, though. No, he was all grace and love and kindness then. Maggie made some bad choices. Maggie is pregnant with a married man’s child. Maggie is still, even still, someone Jesus died for and loves.

  That’s what he was like then.

  The judgment came when I refused to make things right with Mom and Seth. Their first reaction wasn’t as loving as Tanner’s had been. Things had been rocky between us all for a few years anyway because I was seventeen, then eighteen, then nineteen, and I was so much wiser than they were. When my wisdom found me in the family way, my own family couldn’t handle it.