“Cole’s pretty shaken up over whatever it is.” Mum places plates in front of us, sitting down at the table with us. “Brandon doesn’t come around anymore, and when Cole does, he’s a moping mess,” she continues.
“Ryan is absolutely no help,” Dad says.
“Erin, you are our daughter, no matter what is going on. You can talk to us.”
I take a deep breath before I begin. “Ever since graduation, life has been messed up; Cole told me that he loves me, and Brandon went ape shit and demanded that I stop talking to Cole, drop all contact...”
“He didn’t,” Dad sounds astonished and pissed.
“Yeah, he did, and then Cole stopped all contact with me. I started my new job, and Brandon promised that he wouldn’t sleep with anyone that I work with. He broke that promise, and the girl he’s seeing is a total bitch to me about it. She thinks it’s some competition.”
“Damn it,” Dad mutters.
“I started seeing someone, and have moved out of Brandon’s and into a friend’s. Not the guy I’m seeing, a friend from college.”
“We heard you were seeing someone,” Mum says. “Brandon said that you went on a date. It’s going well then?”
“Very. He’s amazing.”
“We would love to meet him,” Dad announces.
“Yeah?” I ask, surprised.
Mum laughs “You’re our daughter, remember? And despite what our idiotic sons have done, we would very much like to meet him, and any other men in your life. Just for future reference.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Honey, why did you move out of Brandon’s?”
“I couldn’t handle it. He was getting to be too much, and then he started to see Beth. I can barely handle her at work. I can’t handle her at home, too.” Dad pats my shoulder, and we eat dinner and talk some more. I want to tell them everything, but I think that I’ve told them enough for one night.
Cole
“You spoke to Erin.” Brandon is standing on the other side of my desk.
I look up at him, standing so that my eyes are level with his. “Yes, I did and, Beth is a total bitch to her. What the hell do you see in her besides easy sex?” I shoot back.
“Maybe I like her.”
“You don’t like her. You’re only seeing her, because it’s hurting Erin, and because she hurt you. Toughen the fuck up.”
“I told you that you’re not allowed to speak to or see Erin, anymore. That includes sneaking behind my back to see her at school.”
“Once you started being a total asshole toward Erin, your choice for her to stop all contact became void,” I inform him.
“The hell it did.” Our hands turn into fists. Because of Brandon’s behaviour, we both lost Erin, and that makes me want to kick his ass more than normal.
“Boys,” Dad’s deep voice, full of authority, comes from the door. He’s standing in the doorway. Entering, he closes the door behind him. He sits down in one of the chairs that’s positioned opposite my desk. I can tell that he is in a bad mood. He’s silent and waits for us to sit. I lower myself into my chair behind my desk, averting my eyes from Brandon to dad. Brandon sits down in the other chair that is also opposite my desk; his eyes are still on me.
“What the fuck...” Dad starts, but my office door opens and Ryan walks in. Without saying a word, he stands back against the door. Dad continues as if nothing happened, “is wrong with you?” It’s a rhetorical question. He’s silent again. He does this to encase fear, and it works. “I don’t know where to start with you two. I never imagined that this would escalate to the levels that you have taken it.” He’s silent again, “Brandon, you have no right in telling Erin to stop...” Brandon opens his mouth to talk, but quickly shuts it. “Don’t,” Dad warns. “I’m not finished. You, Brandon, have no right to stop Erin from seeing Cole.”
“Or speaking to.” I shoot in, and Brandon shoots me evil eyes.
“Or speaking to.” Dad continues. “You... Cole, why would you stop contacting Erin just because Brandon told you too?”
“He kept her locked up and hidden away from me. I tried, but Erin told me to stop because Brandon was listening in on the conversation and he has been telling her bull shit stories that I would hurt her and that I only want her because Brandon says that I can’t have her, that I don’t really love her,” I defend.
“Don’t turn this around on me and make me out to be the bad guy!” Brandon is getting angry.
“You are the bad guy in this. If it wasn’t for you...”
“If you weren’t a man whore...” I stand up, and so does Brandon. Ryan moves closer, as does Dad. I want so badly to knock Brandon on his ass, but with Ryan in the room, he and Dad will stop anything before it begins.
“If you just let Erin make her own decisions,” I grate out.
“So you can destroy her?” Brandon shoots in. My anger flares to the surface, and before I could make a move toward Brandon with my fist, he’s gone and I hit air. Brandon laughs and I move toward him.
Ryan speaks next, and what he says makes me sink to my knees. “Before you bastards knock each other out, go knock on Erin’s door. I assure you that she won’t answer. Erin moved out. She’s distancing herself from us. Her phone’s turned off. You two fucked up.”
“No she didn’t. I would have known if she had,” Brandon announces, full of confidence that he knows everything that Erin does.
It’s silent. My guess is that Ryan is giving him a stare. “I dare you to go and see for yourself.”
I get up from the floor and run at Brandon, pushing him against the wall. “This is all your fault,” I grate out before Ryan pulls me off him, and Dad holds Brandon at bay. I shrug out of Ryan’s hold and leave the office.
***
When I see her, she is talking to her class. I don’t care what time it is. I just need to talk to her. I knock on the door, the class turns, and Erin looks stumped to see me in the doorway.
“Hey, can I speak to you? It will only take a moment,” I speak into the room.
“I’ll be right back. Keep reading to yourselves,” she tells the class and walks to me.
We step outside the room, and I speak before Erin has a chance to. “Is it true? Please tell me it’s not true, and that Ryan was just saying shit.”
She takes a large breath, “Dad spoke to you.”
“Fuck, Erin. Where are you staying?” I ask, flinging my hands up in the air so they land on my head.
“With a friend.”
“Jake?” I ask, not liking the thought one bit, and not keeping the bitterness out of my voice.
“No. Another friend.”
“Who?”
“Jules.” Jules is a girl. That’s good, though she parties a lot, so that may not be so good.
“Stay with me. I have the room.” I’m desperate to get her back in my life.
“I’m fine where I am. I need to get back to class.” She starts to turn away from me.
“You’ll be more than fine with me.”
“Don’t, Cole. I get shit from Beth because I lived with Brandon, and I certainly don’t need any shit coming from Anita about living with you.”
“Who?”
She looks at me, disbelieving, “Seriously Cole!”
“Yes, seriously. Who’s Anita? I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She places a hand on her forehead and turns around and then back, “The girl you’re going out with this weekend.”
Frowning, I search for any plans of the upcoming weekend. Then it hits me. I raise my eyebrows, “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” She turns back around.
“That wasn’t me. Well, it obviously was, but I’m not going. I just wanted to get her to shut up. Her voice is like,” I make a yapping motion with my hand, “and Beth wouldn’t stop going on about how much of a good idea it was. Of course she would think so. It was her idea to begin with, but I won’t be there,” I admit, not proud of my action.
“That�
��s cruel.”
I close my eyes. “I told you I have a lot of explaining to do, and you still haven’t turned your phone back on.”
“I honestly don’t know if I am.”
“Baby, you have to.” I step toward her, wanting, needing to touch her.
“Erin.” A male voice sounds to our left. We both look at the angry man who is staring at me, his jaw tensed. I know who he is instantly and look back at Erin. She isn’t looking at me anymore. “Is everything ok?” he asks her, eyes still on me.
Erin takes a step toward her class room, and away from me, “Yeah, Jake. Everything is fine.” This is not good for me. They work together and see each other every day. Erin looks back at me. “Bye,” she says, and then she walks back into her classroom, leaving Jake and me.
“Erin’s going through a lot. Leave her alone.”
I don’t like his tone, or the way he looks at me. I return the look. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise.
Erin
Ever since Cole arrived unannounced at school, Jake’s been acting weird, avoiding me even. I knew that seeing Cole there would piss him off. I could tell just by the look in his eyes when he stepped out of his classroom. I still haven’t turned my phone on, and I’m not sure if I should call Jake. I can’t bear the idea of him not answering.
The following few days are torture. Jake doesn’t turn up to work. Rumour is that he was sick. I call him and he doesn’t answer, just like I feared. By Saturday, I can’t muster up the energy to get out of bed. Jules comes by to check on me, and I tell her that I’m not feeling well. Maybe Cole said something to Jake, or Brandon even. I feel so lost. All I want to do is run away and hide somewhere; start anew, fresh.
Sunday I drag my ass out of bed and go for a run, my thoughts being that I could outrun them. While I run, I run away from the loss of the most important people in my life. I run from the broken promises. I run from love lost. I run away from my life. I lose track of time and distance. My thighs ache and my feet sting. When I register the soreness, I turn around and run home. I don’t stop until I’m in my bedroom, and then I collapse to the floor. My entire body feels like jelly, and my breathing is heavy. I can’t move.
“Erin!” Jake’s panicked voice makes me open my eyes, and then he is beside me, kneeling down over me. I’m so exhausted that I can’t say anything.
“Shit, shit, shit.” He mutters, picking me up from the ground and carrying me into the shower. Standing under it with me in his arms, he turns the water on, and it pours over the both of us. “Baby, what were you thinking? You could have killed yourself from exhaustion.”
Jake just stands under the water spray, with me in his arms, fully dressed. He sits down on the bottom of the shower and starts to remove my clothing.
When he gets to my shoes, he curses and quickly finishes undressing me. Turning the water off and wrapping a towel around me, he places me on the bathroom vanity unit. I have to lean on Jake for support. I can’t hold myself up. Jake is inspecting my feet, and starts to wipe the bottoms of them with cotton wool. I can’t see my feet, but I see the blood and the concern in his face. Jake carefully lifts me up and carries me to the bed, placing me down with pillows behind my back so that I’m sitting up.
“I’ll be right back.” Jake rushes out of the bedroom. I hear murmuring, but I’m too tired to really hear anything being said. When Jake returns, Jules is with him.
“Shit, Erin,” she exclaims, her red hair falling over her face as she rushes over to me. “Do you think she needs to go to the hospital?” she asks Jake.
“No,” he replies and says something else, but my head falls to the side and my body follows, exhaustion really setting in. Hands are on my shoulders, and a body sits next to me, holding me up.
“Open your eyes,” Jules instructs. I peel them open. They look worried.
‘Baby, look at me.’ I follow Jake with my eyes. He’s sitting on the bed with my feet in his lap.
Jules runs out of the room quickly, and returns with an ice block. “Eat this. You’re dehydrated.”
I suck on the ice block while Jake cleans the bottoms of my feet. When he is finished cleaning them, he wraps bandages around them. Jules hands over another ice block before she disappears again. Jake comes to sit beside me, where Jules just was, and wraps his arms around me. I lean my body against his, enjoying his warmth.
He kisses the top of my head before he speaks. “What were you thinking?” he whispers, clearly concerned.
“You were gone,” I manage to say.
He tightens his hold around me, “I’m sorry.”
“Where did you go?”
“We’ll talk when your better. You’re worn out. You need to rest.”
“Talk about what?” I try to pull back to look at him, but Jake won’t let me.
He holds me to him before he takes a deep breath, saying, “I want you to move in with me.”
“What?” I try to pull back again, and fail. We haven’t been going out long enough to even consider this.
“In New York,” he finishes. I looked up at him. New York; another state as far away from Seattle as it can be. “That’s where I’ve been, organising it. I have friends there, and we’ve got jobs if we do this. Teaching jobs, all we have to do is let them know.”
“We haven’t been going out that long. Are we ...... ready for that?”
“I am. Will you please consider it? Sleep on it.”
I continue to stare at him. He’s offering me a new start. “Are you serious about this?”
“Very. Baby, I love you, and I want to take your pain away, and this place is what’s giving you that pain.” I nestle into Jake and fall asleep, seriously considering what he is proposing. A fresh start. New people. Me and Jake.
Cole
“I’m going to break up with Beth. You were right. I am only seeing her to piss Erin off. I never expected that Erin would,” he stops, gesturing to the empty room, “do this,” he finishes.
We look around the vacant room that Erin once occupied. “Do you know where Jules lives?” I ask, hopeful. I have met Jules, but not enough times to know where she lives.
“No.” He fisted his hands. “This is not right, Cole. It wasn’t meant to go like this,” Brandon whispers. He is holding something in his hand. I can’t make out what it is.
“You were too protective of her, and pushed her away.” I hate Brandon for what he did, but he is my brother none the less.
“This is on both of us. We need to get her back,” he finishes, his words laced with determination, and then I see what he is holding. It’s the necklace that he gave Erin for graduation. She left it behind. She was leaving Brandon behind.
Erin
Jake stays with me after he makes a trip home to get some dry clothes. He doesn’t let me leave the bed unless I have to, and even then he carries me to where I need to go. My feet hurt. They’re tender and sore. By Monday morning, I can stand on them, not for long, but it’s progress. We both call in sick to work for the next few days. Jake doesn’t leave me once. We don’t speak about moving again until Tuesday.
“I looked it up. We need to give the school two week’s notice before we leave. Just so you know, if you decide to move,” he trails off.
“Why the big move, Jake?”
“I want to be with you in a place that doesn’t hold bad memories and pain.”
I love Jake for wanting to take the pain away. “So what? We give them the two weeks and leave? Where will we live? What about your friends and your life here? There’s a lot to consider in this.”
“If we do this, we find somewhere to live over the next two weeks. My friends over there will go and have a look at the places we choose, and we can get the keys before we move. My life is anywhere you are, and I will still have friends here when we move.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“In depth. I want this, Erin.”
I can tell by the look in his eyes just how much he wants this. “Mum and Dad
will want to meet you before we leave.” The smile Jake awards me with is all I need. “We’re moving to New York.” Saying it out loud makes it seem real, good, and right. Jake kisses me in a way that I feel his love. We write up our resignation letters, and I feel the happiest that I have been since graduation. Tomorrow is the start of our new life.
***
“I haven’t told them about New York.” We are in the car on the way to Mum and Dad’s for dinner.
“You haven’t told them yet?” Jake asks, taking his eyes off of the road briefly to look over at me. He has insisted on driving, since I’m a nervous wreck.
“Not yet. I will. I just need them to like you before I tell them that you’re taking me away.”
“Ok,” he says, reaching over to give my hand a squeeze. It’s his way of reassuring me that tonight is going to be fine.
As per the recent behaviour, the front door opens before we have even put our feet on the ground. “You ready for this?” Jake asks over the top of the car.
“I should be asking you if you’re ready.”
“Let’s go.” He smiles, coming around to meet me, and grabbing my hand. We walk up to Mum and Dad who are standing at the bottom of the front steps.
“Mum.” I hug her and then go to dad, hugging him as well. I step back so that I’m beside Jake.
“Mr Riley, Mrs Riley,” he offers his hand, “I’m Jake. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Dad takes his hand, “Jake, it’s nice to meet you, too.”
Mum hugs him gently around the shoulders, “We’ve heard all about you.” She pulls back, continuing, “Dinner’s ready. Let’s go inside.”
We follow them into the house, and Jake looks around, admiring it. “You have a lovely home,” he exclaims.
“Thank you. Why don’t you go and sit down, and I’ll bring dinner out,” Mum offers.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask Jake.
“I’ll get them. You two go and sit down,” Dad says, turning to leave the room.
“Dad, I can...” I start to protest, but he leaves the room before I can finish my sentence. “Let’s have a seat, then,” I direct to Jake, sitting down myself.
Jake sits down in the chair next to me. “Breathe,” he whispers into my ear. I knot my hands together and nod. Jake kisses my cheek. Dad re-enters the room carrying the drinks, and Mum follows with the food. They place everything on the table and dinner begins.
Love Obsessed Page 7
