The Obsession

by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Now, beauty was wasted on me.

Sweet Jesus, if I could only punch myself in the face.

My eyes traveled over the same sentence for the seventh time. I still couldn’t tell you what it said.

My eyes crawled over the sentence in my textbook again. Something about stoichiometry, and why do I care about stoichiometry, literally what did stoichiometry have to do with my life?

Takes a lot out of you, murder.

I couldn’t believe that I’d finally done it, finally broken out of my frozen, terrified hamster state and killed the asshole.

I was fine. I was more than fine. I was fucking great.

This was proof that my love for her was real. I loved all of her, not just the soft, lovely side of her, but the hard, jagged one, too.

celebrate the fact that you survived. You deserve to live your best life, especially after everything you’ve been through.”

“Discount tickets!” she said. “My two favorite words.”

“God, there is nothing sexier than hearing the words fifty percent off.”

“I like him, sweetie. I think he’s a keeper.” Mom always did have the worst taste in guys.

It stung. I’d even brought bagels.

Anything is acceptable when you bring bagels 🥯

That was weak. You don’t ditch your best friend at lunch to sit with some guy.

I loved what an asshole Delilah could be.

Did he know that killing Brandon wasn’t my only secret? That I had another one, which was perhaps just as bad, if not worse than that? Did he know I was Draycott’s drug dealer?

Excuse me ... What???

How long could someone’s nightly beauty routine possibly take?

Way too long

I made sure to wiggle the lock shut behind me; I didn’t want some creep to get into Delilah’s house.

The rat was me. Or rather, it used to be me. But not anymore. I wasn’t going to let Logan corner me and swallow me whole like I was some helpless prey. Step Three: be the snake.

How did anyone know what was normal and what wasn’t?

Murder shouldn’t be easy. Not like this. It shouldn’t feel natural.

Because one thing I had learned about predators is that there can only be one around. Lisa, Brandon, and Logan were all predators, in their own ways. And, as it turned out, so was I. Maybe Lisa sensed that I was a bit of a natural when it came to killing predators. That I was the snake after all. And maybe, just maybe, I liked it a little.