Page 1 of Unapologetic Obsession
Chapter
One
ROSE
Karens ignore trigger warnings, only to complain about said warnings. Don't be a Karen. This book is intended for readers exploring their fantasies in fiction while exercising sound judgment in real life. This isn’t a fairy tale romance. It contains nonconsensual sexual scenes and mental health issues. Please don’t read if that triggers you.
I wason the verge of death—I was certain of it. My stomach growled loudly, a hunger so consuming that it was painful. I didn’t know when I last ate; in fact, I didn’t know much at all.
A few days ago, I woke up behind a dumpster with no recollection of how I ended up there orwhoI was. I remembered my name—Rose—and other tidbits such as the year, the capital of France, and the president of the United States. Yet my last name and family members remained a mystery. The street sign suggested I was on Maple Avenue, and another sign suggested this was New York City.
I knew how to read. Why could I read but not remember my last name?
Since then, random memories had been popping up, such as a dark-haired girl visiting me at a hospital and being chased by a faceless man. The scattered recollections haunted me.
Who was I running from? Had he put me in the hospital and chased me to the streets?
If only I could piece the images together. The information was somewhere on the outskirts of my mind, I just couldn’t reach it.
When I’d first gained consciousness, I was scared out of my mind, searching for a familiar face or a flicker of recognition. A family, perhaps? It ultimately dawned on me that I was lost and in the wrong part of town.
The nearby buildings were boarded up and covered in graffiti. Disheveled people wandered the streets aimlessly, like brain-dead zombies, seeming as lost as I was. Their clothes were tattered, and their gaunt bodies matched their hollow eyes. Discarded needles littered my path, and I instinctively knew to keep my distance.
Luckily, no one wandered into my alleyway, courtesy of the rancid dumpster smell. The putrid stench kept me safe, though I had to cover my nose to fall asleep. Many slept on the sidewalks of the adjacent streets or lived out of their cars. Some of them even had children. I was horrified to see a little girl reading a book in the back seat of an abandoned car. I asked her if she was all right and was chased away by her mother. I couldn’t fault her for viewing me as a threat. But it baffled me that she couldn’t give up the syringes and take her daughter away from this hellhole.
Did I end up here by indulging in the same nasty habit? Perhaps I went overboard, resulting in my memory loss.
The thought made me recoil. If that were the case, I vowed never to do it again.
After waking up behind the dumpster, I roamed, searching for a hospital. I had no money or phone and had hoped to run into the police. Instead, I ran into a group of men huddled over a dumpster fire. Desperate to keep my hands warm, I joined them and asked for the nearest hospital or police station. One of them looked me up and down; the stench coming from him was fouler than the dumpster. His leering eyes made my skin crawl, especially when they lingered on my bare thighs. My heart rate accelerated, and even in my disoriented state, I knew he meant trouble. I ran when he gave chase and returned to my dumpster to hide behind it.
The next day, I heard a boat horn and deduced I was familiar with boats if I recognized the sound. We were near a pier. Security guards generally patrolled the pier. Maybe they could help.
I went to the docks with renewed optimism to find a boat owner or security guard. To my dismay, the boats had been winterized, which meant none of the owners would return until spring.
There wasn’t a soul in sight, though one of the boats was unlocked. I hopped on board, thinking I had won the lottery, when I found a pouch of baby wipes and a granola bar. Wiping my body with the wipes was the cleanest I had felt since waking up. That was when two guards patrolling the docks blew their whistles.
At first, I was relieved to see the authorities—until they hauled me out of the boat and restrained me. I tried pleading my case: I wasn’t a criminal. I’d just lost my memories and needed help.
They didn’t believe me.
One of them insisted I waszonked out on crack like the rest of themand accused me of robbing the boat to buy more drugs. He ended the rant by suggesting they drag me to their shed andtake turns with me. They’d get away with it, too, becauseno one would believe a crack whore.
Though I didn’t understand the phrase,taking turns with the crack whore,they wore a similar lecherous look as the man from the prior night. Bile rose at the back of my throat, and I ripped away from them and ran. Once more, I didn’t stop until I reached my dumpster.
Since then, I had been certain of two things—men were bad news, and nothing was worse than hunger. I was in an evil world where both the bad and the good guys were out to get me. It justified my recurring nightmare of a man chasing me. I was on the run, and I shouldn’t trust anyone.
Hiding from external threats came with mind-numbing hunger pangs. Soon, my motivation to dig up my identity and get out of here went up in flames. I only had two goals in mind: food and medical attention. I was a mess.
My stomach gnawed at me, and I didn’t know how long I could hold out. Last night, I resorted to dumpster diving in a moment of desperation. Swallowing the spoiled food wasn’t an easy task, what was worse was keeping it down. I became violently ill from the soured scraps and vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach.
Hopelessness washed over me, but I refused to give in and accept my fate. Shivering, I hugged myself to ward off the cold as I emerged from the safety of my alley. With my arms wrapped tightly around myself, I walked on wobbly legs in search of food.
The daylight was dimming, and the chatter of people was growing quiet. There wasn’t anything nearby—no restaurants or fast-food places—and I had no choice but to return to the unattended boats. Hopefully, another owner forgot to pull up the boarding ramp. If today were my lucky day, I could avoid those guards and find something to eat.
I walked past the first boat and looked through the large window. The lights inside were turned off, so all I saw was my reflection with hollowed cheeks and baggy eyes. My caramel-colored skin was muted, and my dark hair was brittle and dirty. The white-and-blue hospital gown I had woken up in was in scraps from sleeping on the hard ground. The torn-up coat I dug out of the dumpster was three sizes too big. My feet were wrapped in raggy socks someone had thrown out.
I stopped dissecting the horrifying reflection upon sniffing something delicious in the air. Craning my neck, I found an abandoned brown bag on a bench in the middle of the floating dock.
