Obsession: Loving An Alpha Male (5 page)

Friday night I sat in front of my television not really looking at the baseball game. Actually, it was watching me. I was sipping on my third shot of tequila, trying to relax my nerves. Today was rough for me all around. I had a nightmare in the middle of the day, something that never happens to me, when I took a nap before my shift at Finn’s. Therefore, when I got to work, I was on edge. It seemed every time I turned around, I felt unsafe. I was so paranoid and nervous that Milo sent me packing early.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been sitting here trying to understand what’s going on with me, and I’ve come to one conclusion: Josh. I threw my head back, accepting the brown liquid, and letting the burn hit my esophagus and poured more. It seemed that lying to myself had become a thing. I sought to convince myself that I was bad news for Josh.

I knew for a fact I couldn’t forget about him though, and there lies my problem. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but there was something about him that brought my thoughts to him every second of every day. It was weird, and maybe I needed my head examined, but I wanted to find out what was drawing me to him… if only I could bury the fear.

Ever since our breakfast date on Saturday I’ve seen him. He stopped by Sara’s to get coffee after his run, and I even sat with him for a little while and talked to him. Every time I saw his face I couldn’t help but light up, and that was freaking me out.

I was so messed up
. My
life was in disarray and unstable. I was constantly freaking out, wondering if this will be the day my past catches up with me. My life wasn’t safe, and I had no right bringing anyone into my messed up world. I shouldn’t have gotten close to the people I’d met already, I know, but I couldn’t help it… with Josh though, I can.

I heard a knock on my front door, and I stretched from my couch to see outside my window. I’m located on the first floor of my building, and my living room window faced the front. One great security feature about this building was you had to get through two doors in order to enter into the building before you could even get to my apartment door. The windows are high up from the ground floor, which is another added security feature. You really have to be tall in order to get into my windows. My apartment building was a three story structure with six total units; two on each level. They are about the same size with hardwood floors throughout the apartments.

I smiled at the sight of Joy and sauntered, or stumbled, to the front of the building to let her in.

“Hey you… Missing this place already?” I asked her.

She just recently moved into another building and was no longer my cross–the–hall neighbor.

Joy kissed my cheek and walked past me.

“Did you get a new neighbor yet?”

I shook my head as I locked the doors behind her.

“Nope not yet… What are you doing here, by the way?”

Joy walked into my apartment and went straight to my kitchen and grabbed herself a glass and a bag of Tostitos Restaurant Style chips and a jar of salsa from my cabinet.

“Well, I’m coming to check on you. Milo said he sent you home tonight…”

I grunted and plopped down on my couch. “Really? He called you on your day off so you could come all this way to check on me?”

Joy poured some Tequila in her glass and sat next to me.

“Well, it seems he made the right decision. You only drink Tequila when something is bothering you. So yes, he called me because he’s worried. So chica, what’s up?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, I’m fine…”

It was Joy’s turn to grunt. “Yeah, save that for someone else. I know you girl, so spill…”

I took a deep breath, took my glass to the head and I finally told her about Josh, how we met, what he looks like, which I spent a lot of time on, and the fact that he asked me out and I’m beginning to have second thoughts. Joy remained quiet while I talked. She just double dipped in the salsa and drank her tequila. Even when I was done and I looked at her expectantly and she didn’t say a word, she just stared at me…

“Are you going to say something?” I asked her, feeling really uneasy under her scrutiny.

“First, I’m pissed at you that you held that from me for this long. And…” her voice grew softer, “you’re still having those awful nightmares.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say I was having nightmares.”

She looked at me incredulously. “Come on, Summer, I was your neighbor, remember? I know once you wake up from one of your nightmares, you can’t go back to sleep. And I bet when you went running, it was right after the sun kissed the sky.”

I didn’t reply, and she honestly didn’t need me to.

Joy has witnessed my frights of night terrors on multiple occasions. There were times she would hear me scream through the walls I was so loud and wouldn’t stop banging on my door until I opened it. She would barge in my apartment with her nine millimeter in hand checking my apartment. She did it every single time she would hear me for fear if one day she didn’t that would be the day… I even gave her a key to my apartment because I feared the same thing.

“Summer, I think it’s great you are getting out there,” she told me.

I shook my head. “That’s just it, I don’t think I can. My world is crazy right now, and I don’t think it’s fair for me to bring Josh into this. Don’t you think?”

She watched me closely for a minute and then reached for more chips.

She said to me, “I want to hold off on my opinion for a minute. If you don’t want to see him again or he isn’t what you want, why don’t you tell him?”

“I can’t. I’m too afraid to,” I said to her.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why are you scared of him? Did he do something to you; threaten you?”

I shook my head, “Oh no… nothing like that, Joy, seriously. I don’t mean he scares me like that. It’s…” I wracked my brain trying to figure out the best way to explain it without sounding like a complete idiot. I was okay with sounding like a semi–idiot but a total and complete one was crossing the line.

“There is just something about him, Joy that makes me feel things that I’ve never felt before in my life. I feel like… he…” I sighed and slouched. I said softly, “He melts me.”

“He melts you?”

She looked at me like I’d crossed that line, and hell, maybe I had…

I nodded. “Yeah, he melts me. That’s the only way I can describe what he does to me. He seems to love to frown, but the moment when he looks at me the frown disappears. He smiles, and his dimples make his face extraordinarily handsome. When he talks or laughs, it makes my day.” I took another breath. “I don’t know Joy, I don’t know anything about this man, but I have this overwhelming feeling about him, and it’s good. I want to talk to him and hang out with him, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of so many things I can’t begin to tell you.”

“Well, please try. Because honestly, sweetie, I feel like we’re losing pieces of you day by day with those nightmares of yours.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall against the couch.

“What do you want to know?” I relented.

“What are you afraid of? Honestly, what do you have to lose giving this guy a chance?”

“I don’t know how to, and that’s the problem. Joy, I’ve been programmed from an early age to accept that I’m just not meant for happiness. Meeting that guy and falling in love, having a loving and caring family, things like that aren’t in the cards for me. I swear, my track record for happiness is horrible, and it starts with the spawn that created me.”

I sat up and turned to face her as I went on. “Let me ask you this; a father is supposed to be the person that a girl looks up to, right? A girl’s father is supposed to protect them, nurture them, and because of his love, a woman usually finds a mate that is just like their father right?”

“Sometimes,” Joy added.

“Well, for most of my life I longed for my father to be that for me. To nurture, to love me, to protect me, but I wasn’t blessed with one of those fathers. No, my father resented the very day I was born.”

Joy shook her head. “Summer–”

“Every day of my life, Joy, I did everything I could to gain his love. Grades came easy for me, so I tried to excel in everything else. I joined every scholastic afterschool club and organization in order to impress that man. I was on the debate team, the scholastic triathlon, honors club; name it, I was on it. And you know my father surprisingly came to everything I was in.” I smiled and shook my head. “You can imagine how much excitement was coursing through me. Seeing my father standing there watching me, me desperately wanting to believe pride was bubbling inside him. But I was so wrong. If I didn’t answer a question right away or I let someone else from my team answer a question, man, I would have issues afterwards. His stoic look changed to disappointment and regret every single time he came to my events. You would think I wouldn’t get my hopes up thinking that things would change, but like an idiot, I did and was broken hearted every time.

He would say stuff like, ‘You let that Asian girl show you up,’ or ‘how could you embarrass the family with your incompetence.’ I mean, Joy, I was one of the top scholastic achievers in the state, and that wasn’t good enough. My science projects were amateurish in his eyes, so he would always make me do them over until it was to his liking, and if I didn’t win the science fairs or competitions I signed up for, I was chastised or made a fool of in front of the whole school.”

I took a deep breath trying to fight back the tears I felt welling in my eyes.

“I have worked hard at trying to please him all my life, to be someone he could be proud of, to love. I just wanted something, you know, God, something from that man, but I never got it.” I shook my head and fell back against the couch. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I never learned how to please my father. Looking back at the other men in my life, I couldn’t please them either. You remember I told you about Wayne and Noah. Things with them were just horrible too. I really doubt I’m missing out if I don’t go forward with meeting Josh. I’m doomed to repeat my past, Joy.”

Joy leaned into me and touched my hands and squeezed. I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking until that moment. The soft look she gave me calmed me. She smiled.

“I can’t tell you that I can relate to what you’ve been through because I can’t. So what I’m about to say comes from the heart okay?” I nodded, and she continued, “Girl, fuck your father, and whoever this Wayne person is, and, with everything in me, fuck your ex, Noah!” I couldn’t help but laugh. Her smile broadened. “Summer, when shit like that happens in our lives, we have one of two choices, we let it consume us or we learn from it and move on. Sweetheart, there is nothing wrong with you first and foremost. Yeah, I know that’s what you’re thinking. As kids most of us are crying out for the attention and love from our parents. But you know what, if they didn’t give it to you, then that’s their loss. They missed out loving on a hellava good person.” I smiled and shook my head. Joy smiled back and squeezed my hand again. “And shit girl, we’ve all had our fair share of fucked up men that we’ve wasted time and energy on. I don’t know about Wayne, but I remember you said you guys grew up together, right? Well, if he didn’t see what kind of woman you were then that’s his fucking loss. And please don’t get me started on Noah. That, to me, is a fucking coward of the worse kind. He shouldn’t actually count. ”

Joy moved closer to me. “But, Summer, if you consistently live your life in fear, it will become the air you breathe. You can’t be afraid to trust your instincts. They’ve gotten you very far in five years, haven’t they? So my advice to you is to use what you’ve learned and follow your heart. If this Josh guy is worth anything, he will see the woman before him and know instantly what he has. You are going into this with no expectations and with a new and fresh start. Let him get to know the true you, and if he’s smart, he’d make sure to never let you go. If he does, then fuck him too.”

I laughed again to stop myself from balling my eyes out.

I pulled Joy into a fierce hug. “I love you.”

“I know you do!” She replied simply and held me close to her.

We stayed like that for a while. Joy just rocking me and caressing my hair, and me holding on to the strength she was feeding me with just her presence.

Finally, I pulled back and as she wiped my face and said, “So when is this date of yours?”

I sniffed. “This Sunday, less than two days.”

She went to pour both of us more Tequila.

“And you guys are going to a baseball game with some of his co–workers, right?” Joy leaned back from me and smiled, holding up my glass to me. I nodded my head and she continued, “Okay, so it sounds to me that this Josh guy is smart. He’s trying to make you as comfortable with him as he can.”

My eyebrows rose. “Really, you think so?”

She nodded. “Yes. Think about it. He first asked you out to dinner, and you turned him down, but breakfast in a familiar place was okay for you. He’s been to visit you in said familiar space as well, so to me, yeah, he wants you to be comfortable around him. He’s taking his time with you, a little too much if you ask me, but whatever.”

I laughed. “I never thought about it that way.”

Joy said to me, “Listen, from what you’ve told me about how you two met, which was funny by the way, and I’m pissed I missed it. Him showing up at Sara’s like that right after he helped you at the track says that you two were meant for this.”