Unwelcomed Obsession (Lily Collins)

Chapter One

One of the reasons I picked the rural suburbs of Portland Oregon was because of the low crime. But I suppose sooner or later we are all left in the wake of danger. In this case, mine is some stalker that I have had for years, only now has he grown some balls and decided he wanted to show himself. Only now, is my life in danger. Only now, does every single fleeting moment matter.

One week prior.

I walk along the side walk with years of cracks in it. Weeds, grass and overgrown litter the cracks. This part of town has never been kept up and nice and clean.

Buildings are outdated and grimy. Half the bricks are missing, and the roofs have leaks, the grass is always dead and it is always silent. Of course today, today of all days would my car break down, in the middle of the dang ghetto in almost 90-degree weather. I stop and peel my shoes from the side walk.

Great, now my shoes are melting. Typical.

I roll my eyes and heave a heavy sigh before trudging along. Sweat rolls down my back and a wind from the east kicks up blowing against my back, causing my hair to be strewn in disarray. I tuck my long chestnut hair behind my ears. Everything is sticking to me.

No amount of deodorant can make up for this much sweat.

I am supposed to be at the art showing in less that fifteen minutes to meet Lyric and let her in. only people with memberships can come in, unless they buzz a friend in. I look at the old fashioned watch on my right wrist.

12:18

Of course. I am nearly twenty minutes from the art show. This was supposed to be a fun Friday; the first Friday I have had off in months. And now I am going to be late and we might not even get in. I pick up my pace and half way jog up the large hill.

Almost twenty minutes later I arrive at the old building that held the art show.

12:45

Okay, okay, I'm only fifteen minutes late.

I search the street for the old Nissan with the crappy parallel parking, possibly damaged cars nearby. And then I find it, the bright navy blue Nissan that's got a few years tucked under the belt. And a bright red car with a pushed in bumper. I find Lyric leaving a sticky note on the window. She crosses the street and smiles at me.

"Your smiling right now? You just damaged some poor guy's car, and your smiling about it?" I ask in disbelief.

"What? He's not going to know it was me." She says waiting for me to buzz us in. I pull the card out of my wallet and hold it to the sensor. Three green lights appear and it makes a buzzing sound before the door unlocks.

"Right. Because the navy blue Nissan that is completely smashed in the front and his car that has been dented and pushed nearly a foot out of his original parking spot, yeah your right. He'll never even know it was you." I say sarcastically holding the door open for her.

"Okay, so he will know it was my car, but he won't know that belong to the car." She says smiling at me.

I can't help but laugh "Wow, I thought that piece of crap belonged to you, I didn't realize it was your car wearing the pants in this relationship."

She scowls at me and I order two cups of coffee and say hi to Mason behind the counter. I lean with my back and elbows propped up against the counter. The room is painted a lime green and the floors are bright white, ceramic tile. The ceiling is white with bright light fixtures. The whole room was designed to look open, spacious, and full of light, all while giving off a green, economic vibe to it. I have to say it definitely looks green, and economic.

"I still can't believe you work here." Whispers Lyric in pure awe.

"Me either." I whisper back before smiling at Mason and taking the cups of coffee from him. We take a seat at a high table and wait for the people to start dwindling so we can actually see the art and not some bald dude's sweaty head.

After another fifteen minutes' people have come and gone and there is now actual breathing room in here. Our coffee is gone and we stand up leaving the cups on the table. We go through the show room observing one piece of art at the time. Numerous pieces of art from numerous time frames litter the tables. Some are bad and some are extremely good. We make our way slowly like crawling snails, out of the paintings, drawings, sculpting's and finally into the photography.

There are so many photographs, a lot of them are good. There is some macro, some Miniature style, black and white. Pretty much every kind of photography there is. Only one catches my eye though.

It stands alone in a picture frame on top the pedestal indicating that it won first place. It's a gorgeous picture of a beautiful tree with a tire swing hanging form one of the limbs. The sun shines through the tree at golden hour, causing shadows to stretch along the grass like fingers.

Lyric squints at it and furrows her eyebrows.

"Hey," she says taking it from my hands.

"What? What is it?" I ask observing her face.

She looks up at me with wide eyes "Isn't this the tree outside your house?"

Hearing her words causes my heart to skip a painful beat.

"What? No. I don't know. Maybe." I say stammering as my fingers fumble taking the picture from her hands.

"I mean maybe someone was just walking and found it and took the picture?" I suggest as the ringing in my ears grows louder.

"Yeah maybe. But almost ten miles away though?" she asks, her eyes search my face.

I turn the picture around and place it on the pedestal, I nearly drop it twice in my shaking hands.

"Forget it. Forget it. I just want to go home now." I say as a drop of sweat runs down my spine. Sweat sticks to my palms even though it is cold in here. I feel a sense of dread wash over me. And I feel like something Is reaching out trying to grip me like the fingers of the shadows under the tree.

Under my tree.