Page 7 of Shattered Obsession

His voice is lower than I expected. Smooth. Trained, almost, like he’s aware of exactly how he sounds in a girl’s ear and knows how to use it.

I’m pacing my room barefoot, phone pressed to my cheek, tracing the pattern in the cheap carpet with my toes. It’s just me, the dark, and the sound of his voice.

“What are you wearing right now?” he asks.

I laugh because I don’t know what else to do. “Sweatpants.”

“That’s hot.”

“It’s really not.”

“It is to me.”

He says it so easily, so casually, like the correct answer is to feel flattered, not unsettled. I force a smile he can’t see because I’ve spent years learning how to make the right noises to keep things smooth. It’s automatic.

He asks what I like. He tells me what he likes. He keeps looping back to what he’s going to do to me on Saturday like it’s not a maybe, not a negotiation, just a script.

“You’re gonna be good for me,” he says at one point, voice dropping. “Yeah?”

My mouth goes dry.

He calls me a good girl like a reward, and I laugh in this breathless way that I hate because it sounds like agreement.

It feels like he’s not waiting for answers so much as laying out expectations.

When I hang up, my hands are shaking.

I tell myself it’s nerves, normal first-date nerves. I tell myself it’s supposed to feel intense, that chemistry is supposed to feel like pressure, like heat, like adrenaline. I tell myself I’m lucky someone this confident wants me. I tell myself most girls would kill for this.

I don’t tell myself that part of me was scared to say no.

I don’t tell myself that part of me felt like I already wasn’t allowed to.

CHAPTER TWO

- Thalia -

After I hang up with Damian, I open Instagram and look up Xander. His profile is mostly pictures of him, his family, his truck and car, blurry concert photos, screenshots of stupid memes, and sunsets.

I scroll further back than I mean to. He looks the same in every photo, not staged like Damian, but rather like the person in the pictures matches the person in the messages. He looks real.

He contacts me on the dating app while I’m still on his Instagram profile.

Xander

You up?

Thalia

Yea, I can’t sleep.

Xander

Are you okay?

He always asks that. Simple. Direct. No pressure behind it, just space.

Thalia