Sweet Obsession

Back then, I was young and green as a sapling, back in those final days between high school and college when pussy was new and plentiful for a guy who had his whole life ahead of him and a prosperous one at that. Natalie had been the girl of my dreams back then. She was the sweet, quiet virgin that everyone loved and adored.

I’d damn near worshiped her, had celebrated her differences back then, and the fact that she was so completely removed from the other girls her age. She was sweet and unassuming, with a beauty that made people stop and take notice, men and women alike.

My growing fascination had only grown stronger when our families started throwing us together at every opportunity in our last year of high school. She’d transferred the year before, but I hadn’t really known her because we didn’t move in the same circles. I was into impromptu afternoon classes in the middle of the school day; while she was part of the yearbook committee, you get the drift.

When our parents grew close because of some business deal between her dad and mine and people started throwing around the idea of how good we would look together, it just seemed like the easiest thing to just adopt their ideals and go with the flow. Did I mention she was drop-dead gorgeous? Yeah, Nat was a real knockout.

I was slightly younger than Nat at sixteen to her eighteen. Yes, I was graduating early because of all the AP classes my mother had insisted on me taking once she saw the potential. By the age of sixteen, I already had enough credits for an associate degree, go figure, with all my wild and wasted days.

It didn’t bother me that I was younger by two years, to be exact, because I towered over Nat in every other way. She was petite and delicate, whereas I was about a good foot or more, taller, and had always had a fascination with lifting weights and working out.

Back then, I was sure we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I’d even given up my wild ways and settled down to make myself worthy of her, but that was before she made one horrible mistake that derailed our lives, well, hers way more so than mine. All I stood to lose was a potential wife, but she’d lost so much more.

It wasn't her fault, and I never blamed her. She’d gone to a going-away party the weekend before we were set to go away to college. It was one of the only times her conservative parents had let her out of the house without her older sister there to chaperone, and things had gotten out of hand.

She’d had too much to drink, and well, some guys who’d always found her to be stuck up had run a train on her. The news spread before morning, and of course, I was one of the first to know. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement; there was no way I could marry her now, not with my own conservative mother to contend with, but Nat and I remained friends.

So it was that when she found out, she was pregnant three months later and with no idea who the father was since it could’ve been any one of the five guys from that night and none of them were willing to do a DNA test without a court order which she was vehemently against for some reason I was the one she called.

I’d gone on with my life in those months, barely ever giving her a thought, which was odd considering I was all set to marry her before all this came to pass. But when she called, I still remembered that I was her friend, and that’s how I came to be the one there when she needed help.

Her family and friends had already turned their backs on her, and with a baby on the way, she’d had to give up going to college right then and find a job to support her and the child. I’d sent her money every month to help them out and had even met the child when she was born.

I stayed in their lives, or the perimeters anyway, throughout the years. And then Nat passed when Madeline was just twelve years old. By then, at twenty-eight almost twenty-nine, I’d been pretty well established in my career, bringing in more than the interest from my trust fund a year which on its own could’ve housed and fed six families who lived the high life and still had some leftover.

I took her in without question; what else was I to do? I’m the only one she knew since her mom had never married and never had a real relationship, as far as I know. Plus, I felt guilty for all the times Nat looked at me with regret and longing.