Page 3 of The Obsession

“—not so hard once you get used to—” Aisha was saying.

Someone jostled me, and I missed the next few words. I wanted to strangle everybody around us. Luckily, once we were outside, I could make out more of what they were saying.

“—volleyball tryouts later—” the girl said, and her voice was like a finger flicking a light switch in my head, making everything suddenly, stunningly bright.

“Ah, I’m so excited!” Aisha said. “I’m so glad you’re here, Dee!”

I expected “Dee” to smile and tell Aisha how glad she was to be here too, but instead, an awkward silence followed.

“Um, sorry. I didn’t mean like—um. Obviously I’m not glad about what brought you here…” Aisha’s voice trailed off, and she fidgeted with her hands.

“No, it’s fine. I know what you mean. I missed you so much when you started boarding here. And yes, I know we kept in touch, but it’s just not the same.”

“Definitely not the same.” Aisha grinned at her. “Do you need a tour of the place?”

“No, I pretty much know where everything is.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you started working here over the summer instead of hanging out with me.”

Dee laughed.

“Oh man, I can’t believe we’re going to the same school again. After all this time. Delilah and Aisha, united again!”

Delilah.

I said it silently, letting my tongue caress each syllable, tasting it.

Delilah.

The name of my destiny.

I followed her until she disappeared into the next class, and then I stood there for a while, smiling my first real smile in a long time.

Do great things.

Ms. Taylor had no fucking clue how great this semester was going to be.

Chapter Two

Logan

When classes ended, I hurried back to my room. With each step, my mind outran my feet by a thousand paces. I couldn’t wait to see Delilah again. She had brought me back to life.

I locked the door, because the last thing I wanted was Josh popping his head in. I was a romantic, and romance was hard for some people to understand. I will never forget the way Mom reacted when she found my Sophie folder. And when she finally did speak to me, days later, she’d spat the words out like they left a foul taste in her mouth. “Don’t ever let me find anything like that on your computer again.” And that was that.

I put on my headphones to shut out the noise of people in the hallway. Then I opened a web browser and started my search. Unlike last year, when the Sophie fog had made even the simple act of typing an ordeal, my fingers flew across the keyboard.

And boy, did I learn a lot about my girl.

I found her Instagram easily enough, but Facebook told me her full name: Delilah Laura Wong. She had a Chinese name: Shu Ping. It meantpeaceful book, which suited her. She was an old soul, like me.

Goodreads told me her favorite books—upmarket suspense novels by someone named Tan Jing Xu. I bought all of the author’s books, picturing Delilah’s fingers, long and slim, caressing the pages, her index fingernail caught ever so lightly between her teeth (she was a nail-biter, I was sure) as her deep, brown eyes took in the words. I imagined her resting her head on my chest as she read. What would her hair smell of? Roses? Jasmine? Maybe frangipani. Definitely some sort of flower.

I wasn’t expecting Google to have much on Delilah, but a quick search rewarded me with a whole bunch of news articles. Her father was an oil rig engineer who’d died in an offshore explosion large enough to be caught on satellite, leaving her with a trust fund from his life insurance. Mom worked at some giant tech company in Silicon Valley, which meant she was out of the house more often than in. They lived ten miles away from school. Delilah did not board; the life insurance money was only enough to enroll her at Draycott as a day student.

My heart hurt at the thought of what Delilah had been through. I knew the sort of loss she’d had, the hole it gouged in your entire being, so big and gaping you didn’t think you could possibly continue, while everybody else kept on living and expecting you to limp along like you didn’t just have a part of you ripped out. But I got it. I was the only one who really got Delilah.

So, on to Instagram and Snapchat. Back in her old school, Delilah was an outgoing girl. There were hundreds of pictures of her laughing with friends, their skinny, tween-girl arms twined around one another’s necks. Aisha was in quite a few of them. Delilah looked so different from the pale, silent girl who turned up at Draycott that I sat there, staring at my computer for a long time, mourning the death of Happy Delilah.

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