Obsessed

Chapter 9: Retreat

Autumn sat on her bed on Monday morning feeling like things were either coming together or completely falling apart. She had been mulling over her time with Stone the past Friday and the way he had handled meeting her mother.

No boy had ever shown more than a mild interest in her, and now here was Stone. He was everywhere she looked and when he saw her, he was all over her.

He was the first boy to ever touch her on purpose, she had managed to make it through life without doing much more than brushing shoulders with guys.

Autumn had been convinced she was sending off undate-able vibes. Now, she wasn't so sure. Was Stone trying to save her from her mother's wrath as a favor one might give a close friend, or did he really consider what they did as a date?

Autumn was all confused by the entire situation and the moral implications of lying to her mother. Sure it wasn't Autumn who lied directly, but she was an accessory to the crime.

Whilst wrestling herself into a suitable outfit for school she continued to contemplate her feelings for Stone.

"Ugh!" Autumn groaned out loud. She didn't know what to do or what to think about Stone.

She did however know what to think about the failed first date Stone had saved her from; it was completely awful, and she only had one person to blame for it.

"KERRY!" Autumn growled as soon as she marched through the school's doors, knowing the Kerry had a locker right by the entrance. 

"Fall!" Kerry smiled in return, "How was the date?"

Autumn dragged in a deep breath of air to keep from exploding, "It was a complete disaster."

"What?" Autumn's blue haired friend had the decency to look shocked.

"You set me up with some freak of nature that likes to flash grannies!"

Georgina arrived at the locker and gave Autumn a concerned look before turning to Kerry, "You set her up with that Parker guy?"

"Parker? A granny flasher? No way!" Kerry exclaimed, eyes going wide.

"Yes way!" Autumn rebutted.

"I saw it in the news yesterday! Kerry, how did you not hear about this?" Georgina chimed in while giving Autumn a comforting side hug.

Kerry twisted a blue strand of hair around her pointer finger and bit her lip, "I kind of lost my phone again this weekend."

Despite her previous anger, Autumn couldn't help but laugh. Kerry had lost her phone a total of seven times since Autumn had arrived at the school and it would usually turn up somewhere really weird.

"You deserve it for what you did to poor Fall!" Georgina chastised Kerry.

"What did Kerry do?" Thomas skipped to Georgina's side.

"I accidentally set Fall up with a pervert who like to harass old women." Kerry conceded with a little frown, "I'm really sorry Autumn! I swear I'll take you out to dinner sometime to make up for sending you out on such a horrible date."

Autumn couldn't help but crack in her resolve to make Kerry atone for her awful blind date. Now it was clear to her that Kerry hadn't known the ugly truth about the boy and she seemed genuinely apologetic about the whole incident.

"It's alright, Kerry. It wasn't that bad I guess. Since he's only after old ladies, I was probably never in any real danger." Autumn quickly forgave her friend.

The four of them continued to talk until the warning bell rang, indicating they had five minutes before classes began. 

"See you guys!" Autumn waved as they all broke off for their classes.

Autumn made it to her physics class and sat in her normal seat to wait for Stone. They had quickly become partners and would work on all the assignments together in class. 

The professor was glad that someone came into the class with a similar skill level to Stone, so he would have someone to work with him that wouldn't just copy his answers. Sometimes he would ask them to do a little side project, like decorating the room or going on errands for him, because they were so advanced.

"Hey," A girl sat down in Stone's seat, "I'm Cathy!"

Autumn frowned for a second, but tried to paste on a smile, "Hi, I'm Autumn."

"I know that silly!" Cathy laughed, shaking out her short curly hair.

"Oh." Autumn muttered, not knowing what to say.

"I've seen you around with Stone." Cathy smiled.

Autumn gave the girl a longer glance and realized that she had a red jacket tied around her waist.

"Are you in the student council?" Autumn asked.

"Yeah! I'm just the Junior class representative. I was also a class rep last year."

"So, you know Stone then." Autumn said, wondering why this girl would sit in Stone's seat if she knew him.

"Yeah, he actually asked to trade seat with me today." Cathy said, looking over her shoulder.

Autumn turned as well and saw that Stone was seated in the back of the room, almost as far from his original seat as he could get.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed he was talking to the tall black haired girl in a cheerleader outfit. Stone wasn't exactly smiling, but he looked like he was enjoying himself. Autumn tried to swallow around the pit of sadness that was crawling up her throat. 

Did he decide that he didn't like her anymore? Was their date last night really awful for him? Or was it never even a date?

"Are you okay?" Cathy asked, drawing Autumn's attention back to the present.

"Totally." Autumn bit, wanting to end the conversation before she cried.

Already Autumn felt her face heating up and her eyes filling with tears. She was relieved as the bell rang for class to start. At least she would have a distraction from the betrayal coursing through her veins.

She had known that Stone was way out of her league and that they were just friends, but that stupid sweet date (or whatever it was) that they went on made her feel everything she was trying to deny. And now, the first time they could have met after that he was off with another girl.

After a class mostly spent contemplating her thoughts on Stone and answering all of Cathy's questions, Autumn was drained.

Walking into her English class, Autumn noticed that Kerry was missing. Autumn waited and waited, but ten minutes into class and Kerry was still not there. 

Concerned, Autumn thought about texting Kerry, but remembered that Kerry had lost her phone over the weekend.

Sighing, Autumn decided to tune back into the teacher, Ms. B, lecturing the class on how to write formally in analyses.

About halfway through the class Ms. B seemed to see Kerry's empty seat and she furrowed her eyebrows, "Where's Kerry?"

"I saw her going home early," the boy with the spiky light hair, Autumn now knew as Gabe, piped in.

"Yeah, I heard that her parents came to pick her up. Something about a family emergency," Another boy piped in, seeming glad to be able to get in on the gossip.

Autumn felt her gut roll oddly, like it knew something that she didn't. What was going on today?

So, it's been a while (understatement), but I'm back I guess. Sorry I've made you guys wait so long, but I lost the passion to write for a while and then a bunch of other stuff happened. Either way I'm trying to get back into writing this story!

If you have the time, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me out by answering a couple questions!

Do you want the story to be more romance driven or kind of a mystery (or something else entirely)? Do you want this story to be a steamy dark romance or more PG? And if you do want it to be more explicit, how do you feel about mature scenes and maybe some kinkier content?

Thanks! I love you guys and I'm truly sorry for leaving you high and dry for so long!