LOGINThere was a list of reasons why we were perfect for each other, and a veritable encyclopedia of reasons we weren't.That encyclopedia went from C for Crazy to S for Sick. Other reasons were sprinkled here or there: real reasons, logical reasons, things like "he's in love with your best friend" and "he deserves better than you" and "Cecily, you're fucking crazy."I tried to force reasons in, like shoving loose-leaf papers with handwritten excuses between the pages and trying to pass them off as fact. He liked sports, I thought they were stupid. I wanted a kitten; he was allergic to cats. His face was too chiselled, his jawline too strong. I liked softer men, less intimidating ones, ones who didn't look like they could be on the covers of magazines.They never stuck, though.Axel was an only child. I was an only child. More than once, we'd commiserated about the lonely life of growing up without a sibling, the strangeness of being "only" when everyone else was "family."When Axel ate di
Love left forgotten and unfelt will rot. It will mold and fester, turning rancid and toxic until there's no hint left that it used to be something beautiful. Once it's toxic, it starts to spread. It creeps along, black fingers sulking forward and sidling up into the darkest recesses of the mind. Then it feeds there, grows there, and if it's not caught in time, it takes over.It becomes an obsession.I knew it was happening, and that was probably the only reason I was able to keep it from completely ruining me. I felt it, as sickly warm as a humid breath on a cold neck and as encompassing as the air around me.I thought about him all the time: In the morning, during class, in the evening, while he was fucking Minah, while he wasn't fucking Minah, while I showered and shopped and fucked men who weren't him in the hopes that they'd make me forget.They never did.I was still lying to myself and insisting it was just a phase when the paranoia truly took root.It had always been there, rea
I denied wanting him.He spent hours that felt like days and days that felt like lifetimes at our apartment. Hours upon days upon months. Their love didn't develop over time, the seed wasn't planted and nurtured until it took root and sprouted and flourished. No, their love was dandelions: one moment there were none, and the next it was an infestation.And lucky me, I was the one who had breathed on the puff.Day after day, Axel was there in the morning when I woke and after every class when I returned. He was a better roommate than Minah, even though he didn't actually live with us and I would never have said anything negative about Minah. The constant presence of her yoga mat spread across the living room where the coffee table was supposed to go and the thick hair that clogged our shower drain were small prices to pay for her friendship.At first, I was logical about it. He was good-looking, I told myself. It was a physical attraction, nothing more. A school-girl's crush, a daydrea
I didn't want him when I met him.We shared two classes together: Screenwriting, and Studies in Literature and Film. I was a year ahead of him and we had different majors, so the crossing of our paths was unlikely to begin with, but I missed the universe's memo that it was a sign.It wasn't that I didn't notice him. I did; everyone did. Half the women in our classes swooned because he was brooding and quiet, the mysterious enigma, the handsome, haunted art student whose secrets were buried beneath the chiselled lines of his statuesque face. The other half swooned because he was an athlete. His body was as toned as his face was perfect.He seemingly had no interest in any of them. Some tried to seduce him with low-cut shirts and flirty hair-tosses. Others tried appealing to his mind, waxing poetically about art house films and the brilliance of pioneers like Dreyer. They were the embodiment of the woman who would come and go, talking of Michelangelo, like a patient etherized upon a tab
OBSESSION - New StoryAt what point does love stop being beautiful and become something sick?She was the closest thing to a goddess that existed on Earth. Everything about her was joy and peace and happiness. Wherever she went, she found beauty: to her, city lights were the same as sunrises; a bag drifting in the wind held the same majesty as leaves in the breeze. Everything she touched was made better for it; every person she met felt honoured to have even just briefly been in her presence. She was so sweet, they said, so kind, so beautiful and so genuine, as warm as her golden-brown eyes were in the basking light of sunset.His eyes were blue. Icy, cold, intense: a blue so dark it was almost a new colour. They were focused eyes, hard eyes that slashed at her softness. They absorbed everything, those eyes, picking out details that tried to scurry away and hide like beetles, only to be revealed by a hand plucking the stone away like it was nothing.Most of all, they absorbed her. The
His face once more splits into that wide smile, and I feel a softening inside of me, an opening of everything--my soul, my mind, my dreams of the future, the entire possibility of the world. I haven't felt this open in a long time, this ready for whatever comes next. It's the freest I've felt in a long time. "I'm going to take care of you," he says, leaning closer. "You and the baby. You'll have time to figure out what you want to do next. And whatever that is, we'll figure it out together." "I know," I murmur. "But Jason, it's important you know I'm not going to be reliant on you forever. I'm going to find a job, and I'm going to support myself. If I've learned anything from the Weekend Club, it's that I have to be free. There are going to be times when I want to travel on my own, when I want to spend time just by myself, when I want to go out dancing all night with friends, when I ask you to do the domestic work so that I can go be a little selfish for a while." Jason gives me an
Startled, I was dimly conscious of losing my balance, of needing the hand he was still clasping. Wrenching it free, I heard an ominousthunk as my fingers collided with something cool and smooth, Marco pulling away just in time for me to watch the wine glass bounce from the pristine cream table clot
Drew's eyebrows vaulted towards his blond hair, his mouth opening then closing uselessly, the shock of seeing me there apparently robbing him of the power of speech.And then he laughed. "No way," he said disbelievingly. "Really? You had the same idea? You figured I must've left it here too? Great
"No, of course not! I was just thinking that there was no point in us both sitting down here and that you could..." To my enormous relief, because I really didn't have any idea how I might have talked my way out of that one, the doorman beckoned towards us. "Ah, it's here already. That was quick."
"Here you are, bella. But I'm not sure it's much colder, I'm afraid."Shit, Marco was coming back! Bending down, I balled up the soft leather jacket and closed the door, only then realising I had no place to hide it. How the hell was I going to explain where I'd got it from? "Fuck," I muttered unde







