Page 78 of His Obsession

After the incident at Alek’s house, he actually kicked me out and refused to let me come back—my guess was because he didn’t want me there until they took care of Jimmy. I was a liability and unstable.

There was nothing to do here but watch TV or clean, and I had been doing too much of both. I guess being stuck in a nasty house and tortured brought out my inner OCD. Bleach was my friend before, but now it was my BFF, seeing as how I cleaned everything with it, scrubbing all the surfaces of the house.

“Besides, I need a distraction,” I said.

Lucy shrugged. “What you need is time to process.”

“I have processed as much as I can right now, Lucy, I can’t sit here anymore… it’s not healthy.”

When Jake called Lucy from the hospital, she found out that there was a ton I had lied to her about. Her anger bloomed to frustration.

Lucy and I ended up having a long, heated discussion where I finally told her everything that had happened, and it felt so good to come clean with her. I felt the weight lifted off my shoulders because I didn’t have to hide anymore, and I had someone else to talk to about all of this. She was mad at first, and it took a couple of hours of her ignoring me, but Lucy couldn’t stay away forever. We were the only family we had.

She knew I had a hard time being alone every day. My only comfort was when she would wake up and get ready for work, or I would feel his arms wrap around me during the night. I would sleep the deepest after Alek was there, even though I knew he wouldn’t be there when I woke up.

Our communication was minimal. He would ask how I was feeling and what I was doing, but he was still hesitant to answer any of my questions, I thought for different reasons now—he didn’t want me to go off the deep end.

When I told him I knew about everything, the cameras, his extracurricular activities involving me, and his secret job, he didn’t deny the allegations, but he didn’t acknowledge them either.

I even searched for the cameras to have proof, but I came out empty-handed and more frustrated than when I started. I was thinking Jimmywasmaking it up for whatever reason he had.

If you had asked the pre-tortured me if I was okay with cameras in my home, I would have told you off and destroyed my house until I found them. Ask me now… and I’m glad they are there if they are, even though it feels like a false sense of security. Nasty shit still happened in my home, regardless.

I pulled a white button-up blouse off the hanger and a black pair of slacks with matching flats.

“What do you think of this?” I asked Lucy as I lay it on my bed.

“Very modest.”

Of course, she would say that. If it didn’t show tits or belly, it wasn’t her style. I didn’t want my healing scars to show. I was self-conscious enough with the raised pink spot on my cheek, the one I’ll always have to apply extra foundation to, to limit its visibility.

“I don’t want anything to show,” I said.

“Well, that shirt is doing the job, I’d say show those scars off. You are a bad-ass, and you should brag about it, Liz. Don’t you see that?”

I gave her a faint smile. “I don’t want to think about them, much less have people ask me questions I can’t give answers to.”

Jimmy had given me twenty burns that I would get to see for the rest of my life, and a scar on my cheek and lip—and those were just the visible ones. Not including the wounds on my soul that would never fade.

Alek inadvertently placed one on my heart by kicking me out. I felt abandoned, even though I understood his reasoning behind it. It wasn’t healthy for me to be there while whatever sort of revenge Alek was doing to Jimmy was being implemented.

Did I care that he had tortured Jimmy, hopefully to his death? I hated to say it, but no. Jimmy got what he deserved, for Alek’s sake and mine. Did I care that Alek killed a man in front of me… I should, but I don’t. Again, a justifiable killing in my eyes. I was more disturbed by him telling me to leave after everything that I had been through than seeing a tortured man and brains scattered everywhere or even learning about him stalking me.

“Fair enough.”

“How are you and Jake?” I changed the subject, trying to kick the mental images popping up.

“We’re good, he works a ton. I don’t get to bang him as often as I want. That’s not to say it’s not happening… because it is.” She gave me a sly wink and laughed.

“I don’t want to know the details of your relationship.” I pumped the brakes on this topic, feeling sorry I even asked. I wouldn’t look at Jake again if I knew the way they had sex. Lucy liked to make me blush, and she said the raunchiest stuff to get a reaction.

“You sure you don’t want to hear how I fucked him while he was gaming?”

Case in point.

I threw my hands to my ears and made a noise to drown her out. Her lips stopped moving as she laughed.

“Don’t you need to go back to bed or something?” I asked.