Page 93 of Shattered Obsession

I’ve memorized her life like choreography.

Her walking routes, class schedule, where she buys groceries.

One day, she’ll understand my obsession, how I’m doing this out of love. To show her that she’s mine, that I own her. I’m the one who made her strong, not him.

I made it so she can’t forget me. The lighter, the posts, and the drive-bys are all child’s play to me. Just enough to make her sweat, enough to get him pacing the floor like a tense dog tethered to a leash. But me? I’ve barely scratched the surface. She’s rattled, and it’s evident in the tiny nuances of her daily life, in the way she closes the blinds in her apartment and twitches at the slightest disturbance, in how she grips that mangy dog’s leash with white knuckles as she walks, and in how her footsteps quicken as she approaches her door, as if the shadows themselves are chasing her. She thinks this is just paranoia, but it’s me, always me.

And the best part? She hasn’t told him everything. I can taste the secrecy between them, the hidden pieces, the cracks she worries will shatter her new reality. She’s scared of him losing his temper, and that’s where I gain the advantage. Wedges, cracks, silence—those are the key to breaking something that appears strong. But I’m not content with simply causing fractures anymore. I’m on a mission to shatter.

Every day, I plan, I wait, and I sharpen my strategies. They see me as a washed-up man, a pathetic figure clinging to the past, but they underestimate me. Beneath that façade, I’m smarter than the two of them combined. I know how to weave myself into the fabric of their lives, twisting and manipulating until the very essence of who they are becomes unrecognizable.

People say obsession is pathetic.

Those people lack imagination.

Obsession is power.

Obsession is clarity.

Everyone else walks around blind, distracted by careers and bills and grocery lists. But I know what I want.

Thalia.

She was the first person who made the world feel sharp again, not dull, not blurry.

With her, everything had edges.

Everything hurt.

And pain means you’re alive.

Xander thinks this is about jealousy. Cute. As if I care about him.

This is about reclaiming what was taken from me. What I made. She is the masterpiece carved by my hands, and if I cannot have what I made? Then I will destroy it.

Nothing burns as beautifully as hope.

Thalia thinks she’s safe with him, that she’s finally building something whole. That’s what makes this so sweet; there’s nothing more intoxicating than dismantling an illusion.

I’ll take everything she clings to—the apartment, the comfort, the false sense of security—and reduce it to ashes.

I want to break her again because he cannot comprehend that she rebuilt herself without him.

I’m not here for love this time; I’m here for possession.

I catch a glimpse in the side mirror of the cigarette in my mouth, its end flickering as it turns to ash. I daydream about how flames can spread like a wild contagion when you’re caught off guard. A curtain ignited, a couch ablaze, a rug catching fire; it doesn’t take long for everything to turn to chaos. She wouldn’t know what hit her until the smoke coiled above her head, well past the point of escape.

Or maybe I won’t need fire at all. Fear is a better collar than chains.

People lock doors. People install security systems. People carry pepper spray. But they cannot lock away their own minds.

Once terror sinks in, it doesn’t leave.

It stalks.

It festers.

It whispers.