HIS OBSESSION

WILLIAM

The room still smelled of her. Her perfume clung to the sheets, light and sweet.

I moved slowly toward the bed, with my fingers brushing over the rumpled duvet where she had lain only minutes ago. Already, my body ached with the absence of hers and my chest felt too tight with my head ringing too loudly.

I bent forward and pressed my lips to the pillow she had used, kissing the ghost of her. Everything about her was making me crazy. The way she trembled, the way she wouldn’t look at me when she lied about why she was here.

It was all a night that started with her mistaking me for her fiancé. They were the couple everyone wanted.

While I had always watched her from afar for a year, it wasn't until last month that she got closer to me. She and her team hated me so much because we were also enemies on the field.

That night when she had taken me to be Levi there was no way I would have made the decision not to sleep with her.

It was like a nightmare to her but a pure blessing to me, I thought it was just lust I had all this while watching her from afar. I thought just one night would kill my lust but no, the more I spend the night with her, the more intoxicated I get more intoxicating with her body.

I straightened up and walked to my drawer, pulling it open. Inside was my pack of cigarettes. My hands shook slightly as I took one out, biting it between my teeth before pulling out my lighter.

I flicked it once, twice, and the flame caught. I inhaled deeply, letting the smoke fill my lungs, trying to get my mind under control.

But it didn’t work, it doesn't work anymore.

Now, I couldn’t breathe without her beside me. I felt a raging anger every time she walked out the door, like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

It had started with a loss but now, even when I won, I felt empty.

I flicked the ash into a tray, staring at nothing. I had been with countless women before her. I had been called a Playboy, a heartbreaker, a sex freak.

I took another drag and exhaled slowly, watching the grey cloud curl upward.

No matter how many nights I had her, it still felt like I had never really touched her.

There was always a line she wouldn’t let me cross. She belonged to someone else and the boundaries she built only made me want to tear them down.

I was going crazy slowly, and I knew it. I wasn’t obsessed with beating him anymore. I wasn’t even obsessed with the game.

I wanted her, not because of love, but because she had gotten under my skin, down to the bone.

Five more nights, that is what she told herself she would be free. But I didn’t see myself letting her go.

My phone rang, snapping me out of my thoughts. The name on the screen was my coach. I picked up, pressing the phone to my ear.

“William, where have you been?” he asked. “We are celebrating. Why aren’t you with us?”

In the background, I heard the laughter of my teammates.

“He must have gone out with her again,” one of them joked. “Sex freak.”

More laughter echoed, normally I would have thrown a crude joke back, but tonight their voices made me sick.

Hearing them talk about my girl that way, even if she wasn’t mine didn’t feel like a joke anymore.

“I will join you tomorrow at the training center,” I said flatly. “I am tired.”

“Don’t break her leg,” my best friend teased before the line cut out.

I hung up without answering and popped another cigarette out of the pack.

On the screen of my phone, a picture stared back at me, the one I had taken secretly when she had fallen asleep against my chest.

Her hair spread across my arm, her lips parted slightly. She looked so vulnerable like that. If she ever found out I had this picture, she would hate me, but I didn’t care.

I just wanted her around me, I leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling.

I don't even know if to say I was blessed or cursed the night she stumbled into me drunk, mistaking me for her fiancé.

Even now, after so many nights, I couldn’t stop imagining her with him, wearing his ring, standing next to him. It made me sick and furious.

“Damn it, Levi,” I muttered under my breath, his name tasting like irritation. “Couldn’t you have someone else? Anyone else?”

I wanted her to be mine and I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t stop.

I picked up my phone again and opened my private folder.

The screen filled with video moments I had captured when we were together. The glow of the screen reflected in my eyes, and I felt the ache in my chest deepen.

I knew she would hate me for this. I knew she would never forgive me but I didn’t care.

She wasn’t just another girl. She was the kind of girl you don’t get twice. And there was no way I was going to lose her once.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the cigarettes burned down to ash and the videos blurred in my vision. Exhaustion tugged at me. I dropped the phone onto the nightstand, turned off the screen, and let my head fall back against the pillow she’d left behind.

The scent of her hair was still there. I closed my eyes. Even in my sleep, she haunted me. And when I dreamed, she was still there, beneath me, in my arms, in a place where I didn’t have to let her go.