Page 26 of To Obsess

No judgement. Okay, some judgement, but the guy really is a prick. She stood on that porch, bleeding heart on display, just for him to sweet talk his way around her need for reassurance and right into her pants. Again. For fuck’s sake.

I tried to walk away when I realized where the night was going, but I stood completely transfixed, trying to get a hold on my rage before I ruined everything.

I’d been working on letting her go, or at least the first steps to letting her go. She’d made it obvious on the podcast that what I’ve been doing has started to make her uncomfortable, and that was never what I wanted.

The sounds coming through her open back door nearly made me sick. Knowing she was with some manipulative piece of shit excuse for a man lit a fire in my soul. It took several minutes for me to unglue myself from the tree I’d been leaning against during their conversation, but once I came to, I jogged back to my car as quick as I could in the dark.

Which brings us back to my current situation. Staring out the window of my apartment, I can’t help but wonder how the night ended up. Did she circle back to the conversation once they were finished? Did he get to avoid commitment all together? Were they officially dating now after coming to some bizarre agreement brought on by post nut clarity? That last one seems a bit unlikely to me, but you never know what nonsense men will agree to in order to hang on to a woman they kind of like.

I’m not sure if I’ve been staring out the same window for five minutes or five hours, but I do know I can’t sit here forever doing nothing. Something’s got to give in this situation.

I’m just not sure if it’s going to be me, or her.

I made it three weeks this time. Okay, more like eighteen days, but that’s pretty close.

I avoided her house like the plague, determined to break this bullshit spell she seems to have cast over me all those years ago. For the first time in recent memory, I even brought a woman home to try to placate my desires.

Morgan was a leggy blonde, curvy in all the right places. She had been at the bar two nights ago when I walked in. I’d planned to have a couple beers, get a good buzz going to hopefully help me not wonder what Violet was doing, then find my way home in the late-night hours. Instead, I found myself lost in a painfully dull conversation with Morgan, who was all but throwing herself into my lap to keep my attention.

She rattled on and on about the classes she was attending at the community college, all her future plans, and even the cat she’d adopted after her grandmother passed away. Those stories turned to how much she hated men and what a jerk her ex had been. Then, once she’d put two more drinks on my tab, it turned to how she wasn’t even entirely sure if she was straight anymore.

Most of the rest of the night had been a blur, including the ride home in the Uber. I don’t remember much until we made it to my apartment door.

I’ll admit, the low-cut top with the push up bra was a nice touch, but it left a lot to be desired once it found its way to my floor a few hours later. I’ve never been one for skipping foreplay, and that just might have been the most enjoyable part of hooking up with Morgan. It was the only time she stopped talking all night.

When we finished, I collapsed on the bed, disgusted with myself for thinking that might distract me from my thoughts of Violet for a while. The only thing I accomplished was adding a little more self-hatred to my list of faults.

“Wow,” Morgan had said with a drunk smile filling her face. Ya know, she isn’t even that pretty in all reality, I’d thought as I rolled my head over to look at her. “Definitely still straight. Which is a shame really,” she said with a giggle. Groaning with the effort, she rolled off the bed and made her way to the bathroom to clean up.

Eight minutes. It had taken eight long minutes for her to leave once she was cleaned up and clothed again. She hinted several times for me to take her number, each of which I politely declined. On the fifth or sixth attempt, I snapped at her. “I don’t want your fucking number, Megan. Mable. Fucking Morgan. Whatever the fuck your name is. I’m not interested,” I’d said, ushering her to the front door.

It was wild to watch the emotions ricochet from hurt to anger to embarrassment before making a lap through all those feelings again, each displayed vividly across her face. Of course, I knew her name all along, but I wanted her to get the point. She was nothing to me, and she never would be. Utterly forgettable at best. The look on her face as I shut the door would haunt my nightmares for weeks to come, I was sure.

That night, I’d laid in bed, sulking at my stupid decisions. How could I possibly feel so angry and betrayed by what Violet had done if I was willing to take a random girl to my bed? Granted, I’d only done that in a thinly veiled attempt to get back at her for sleeping with Mason, but that was a demon to fight another day.

With that nasty feeling brewing inside my chest, I’d sat at the kitchen table, quickly folding a sheet of paper to make another card. I had promised myself I wouldn’t do it, but there wasn’t anything quite as soothing as creating something, and for as long as I can remember, my favorite thing to create had always been her cards.

As I stand in the woods now, looking down at the flimsy paper, I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing the right thing this time. I may have been nervous about leaving the new cards recently, but this was something altogether different. This card is gnawing at my deepest insecurities. This is the only card that has ever given her an out, whether she’ll recognize it for what it is or not. It gives her a chance to tell me she doesn’t want me, that she doesn’t want this, whatever this even is. With a sound not far from a growl, I crumble the card between my hands and bring my hands to my forehead.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I tell myself, slowly lowering my hands and releasing it. I do my best to straighten out the paper, making it slightly better, but it’s still damaged. “If she doesn’t want it, she’ll say so on the next episode. In that case, this will be the last one, and I can let it go,” I reason. I roll my eyes at the stupidity of talking out loud to myself in the middle of the woods, but I can’t deny that I feel slightly better.

I want her to have the choice of how things continue for us.

With that in mind, I make my way silently to her back porch. I already turned off the camera pointed to the backyard, but I silence all notifications for the system just in case. I can see a light on upstairs, and I know Mason is here since I watched his car pull in the driveway two hours ago. Still, I take the risk and place the card on the chair beside the back door, along with a sunflower with petals so deep red they appear black I found at the farmer’s market earlier this afternoon.

“It’s all up to you now, Vi.” I turn and trudge back to the woods, not bothering to look back this time.

Chapter 25

Violet

My night with Mason has been incredible, as always. Lazing around my house with him has quickly become one of my favorite ways to spend my downtime. Something feels a little off tonight, though.

We had that not-so-smooth talk about where our future might take us, resulting in sex but no solid answers, and things have been fine since then. We’ve seen each other just as much, still text regularly, and the intimacy has been unmatched. Still, he’s been dodgy about putting a label on our relationship, and that has me feeling less than comfortable.

Abby suggested maybe the disappointment from that conversation has colored my view of the budding relationship, and at first, I had disagreed with her, claiming I was still every bit as happy with him and our situation as I had been prior. Maybe I was wrong, though. Maybe somewhere a little deeper, the disappointment has taken root and there’s a tiny bud of resentment growing. Maybe the rose-colored glasses were removed, letting me see this for what it really is—casual fun with an expiration date.

“It’s getting late,” I say as the credits begin to play on the movie he and I spent the last three hours ignoring. Instead, we’d opted to use it as background noise while we had a wine-fueled night of fun—the kind where the lack of clothing is non-negotiable.