Deadly Obsessions

Chapter 3: Secrets Revealed

Chapter 3: Secrets Revealed

Throwing my bag on the floor, I collapsed onto the lounge. I closed my eyes thinking about Nathan again. And again I fell asleep. My mum shook me gently and my eyes fluttered open.

"Get up. Dinner's ready," she said.

I rolled over to look at the clock. 5:30. Wow. I'd been asleep for two hours. I stretched and sat up on the lounge, smiling as I remembered what had happened that day. Then I realised Mum was still standing there.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked. I rolled my eyes. She was always butting into my life.

"Nothing," I sighed. Mum gave me a disbelieving look. I gave her a death stare. Then sighed again as I realised she wasn't going to give in.

"There's a new guy at school and his name's Nathan and he's really, really cute. And he likes me," I explained, a bit hurriedly.

Mum raised her eyebrows. "And you like him?"

"Yes. Definitely." I sighed for the thousandth time that day.

She laughed. "Well come eat your dinner before you starve."

I walked out to the kitchen, sniffing the air. "Yum, spaghetti bolognese," I marvelled as I sat down. As I started eating, Mum sat down in front of me.

"So what's this boy like?" Again, she was butting into my life.

I blushed. "He's... nice." But in my heart I knew he was much more than that. And somehow, my mum knew it too.

"Nice?"

"Okay really, really nice, and really cute too." I blurted out. I had to bite my lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. She laughed. I stared down at my food.

"So have you heard from Dad yet?" I asked her. My dad had just been offered a huge promotion halfway across the country and had had to move to Sydney temporarily.

"No I haven't," she replied, pushing her food around her plate with her fork. I tried calling him, but he didn't pick up."

We finished our food in silence. I guess that topic didn't go down to well with Mum. She gets really paranoid when Dad doesn't answer his phone when he's away, and thinks he's been captured or something. She watches way too many murder investigation shows.

As soon as I opened my eyes the next morning I felt happy. I was excited to get to school. So excited in fact, I actually got to school early. I said hi to Paige and Krystal.

"Do you know where Nathan is?" I asked, but neither of them had seen him. I sighed, hoping he was just late. Then the bell rang, making me realise that I wasn't that early myself. I trudged off to Maths class and sat at a desk between Paige and Krystal, scanning the classroom thoroughly as I did so.

"He's not here." Krystal interrupted my frantic searching.

I gave her a confused look. "How do you know?"

"Cos I just talked to Jimmy," she said. "He said that Nathan said something about not being at school for a couple of days. Instantly, my heart sank.

"Why?"

She just shrugged. I sank down in my seat. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. On Wednesday, I realised Emily wasn't at school. In fact, I hadn't seen her on Tuesday either. Emma and Kristy hadn't seen her either. No one had seen her since Monday. Krystal shrugged and said, "She's probably just wagging." So I put it out of my mind.