Obsession

Secret: Chapter 9

"And he scores!" Josh Hart cheered as the bowling ball rolled down the aisle and knocked over every last bowling pin.

The four friends had gathered at the bowling alley on the outskirts of the city upon Josh's request on that fine Tuesday evening. Soccer practice was over almost forty-five minutes before, and he had pitched the spontaneous idea. The rest were up for it as Gabriel announced that he had something important he needed to show them.

Rebecca was concerned about her friend since he appeared spooked or troubled when he mentioned the nature of that something – a text message conversation between himself and the secret admirer whom he had saved to his contacts as 'S.A.'

From that point onward, they had officially codenamed the secret admirer by those initials.

Rebecca had also taken note of the light circles beneath Gabriel's eyes, and that he was more irritable than usual. She had confronted him about it during lunch, when he was at his most irritable yet – sleepy and hungry and agitated by the slightest bump of a shoulder in the lunch line – Gabriel had told her about the nightmare that struck him so suddenly. He told her how it, accompanied by the strange text message conversation had filled him with a type of paralyzing fear.

At 4:57 AM that morning, when he had finally managed to pull himself out of that state of fear-driven paralysis, he hadn't been able to fall back asleep. Training for soccer practice was just as strenuous, making him no better than an irritable old man bitter with the world for no apparent reason.

Gabriel had been left disturbed. First by the series of strange occurrences that started with a seemingly innocent confessional letter, the spontaneous return of the nightmares, and the disturbia had started to settle in following the text message conversation.

"Have you guys gotten a chance to investigate the other letters and the first text?" Gabriel asked. His attention was more or less focused on Chris Choi who seemed to be the most taken by it. It had been his request to have pictures taken as backup, and so, Gabriel had surmised that Chris might be delving into the curious case.

Chris shook his head. "I need time to study it a bit more. It really is interesting the way it's worded. There's definitely a difference but I'm not sure what it could mean."

"Let me know what you find?" said Gabriel, though as a question seeking his friend's affirmation.

Chris nodded and turned to look at his friend and fellow teammate as Josh returned to their table, snatching a few fries from his paper plate, and dipping it in ketchup.

"What was the conversation you wanted to show us?" the former asked.

Gabriel fished his mobile out and pulled up the chat between him and S.A. and slid the device toward his friends. "Last night, I decided to see if I could get S.A. to disclose their identity or anything that might point us in a direction."

"I'm guessing S.A. didn't give you anything," Josh surmised. "I mean, they've kept themselves anonymous for a reason, I guess."

Gabriel shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

He watched his friends' collective expressions – varying but similar to different degrees – as they read through the conversation. Chris made a humming sound and the gears in his mind were turning. Rebecca looked deeply troubled, and she was unsure what to think or do and part of her wanted to call off their entire plan to find out S.A.'s identity. The vibe she received reading that conversation alone was quite telling and just bordering on what she might describe as sinister. Josh shuddered, outrightly and violently, rubbing his hands up and down his arms as if to keep warm against a sudden chill.