Obsession

Secret: Chapter 10

"Whoa," Rebecca exclaimed, trying to calm her brother down. Julian was slowly flying into a rage as his breathing became heavier and his fists clenched. His shoulders were tensed as he walked around his car and surveyed the damage done to each tyre.

"What the actual hell! Somebody is looking to die! All my four tyres!" Julian was becoming irate, and Rebecca swiftly sought to diffuse the situation before he threw a tantrum in the parking lot and got them all banned.

"I'll call my tow truck service," Duncan suggested to help diffuse the situation. While he and Rebecca tried their best to calm Julian down, taking him a few feet away so that he wouldn't keep looking at his damaged ride and getting worked up, the other three boys surveyed the damaged and theorized on how it could have happened.

"Shouldn't we be able to find something on the CCTV cameras?" Josh asked, reaching out a hand to poke his finger into the slash of one of the back tyres.

"You think someone would be crazy enough to do something like this without protecting their identity?" Chris wondered out loud.

Josh shrugged. "Not unless they don't care or maybe they want themselves to be caught." He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense though, and it's weird. Of all the things you can do, why slash the tyres?"

"To get Julian's attention, maybe?" Gabriel theorized, scratching at his chin as he walked around the car once more to survey the damage. He lingered at each tyre a few seconds long enough to jab his index finger into the slashes. "Well, whoever did this, had to use a knife or something."

Josh suddenly stood up from where he was crouched at the back tyre, still theorizing and puzzling over the strange thing to have happened. His eyes were wide, and he tossed a glance over to where the Stroup siblings and Duncan Boyer were standing around. Duncan was on the phone with a tow truck service, giving the details of the incident and prattling off their current location. Rebecca was on the phone with her parents, informing them of what had happened while keeping a firm grip on her brother's hand to ensure he didn't wander off and throw a tantrum.

"Psst," Josh called, capturing Chris' and Gabriel's attention. He leaned against the car and gestured for them to come closer. "Do you guys think it could be that Heather girl?" he asked, keeping his voice down. Julian was already in a bad mood. The last thing anyone wanted to do was point fingers without evidence but all they could do, was speculate.

"Why would she slash his tyres?" Gabriel argued, tilting his head in confusion. "Aren't they friends?"

Chris and Josh exchanged knowing glances, and the latter scoffed. "Friends, my ass. You stole her man, Gabe."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, turning to stare at Josh in shock with eyes wide. "Excuse me?"

Chris laughed and tapped Josh upside the head. "What he's trying to say is that Heather has a thing for Julian."

Josh nodded to confirm this, and he sought to further explain as Gabriel still looked as confused as he did two seconds ago – unable to make the connection between this bit of information and the possibility behind Heather slashing the tyres.

To Gabriel, it made no sense. Whether they were friends, or she had a thing for Julian, slashing the tyres seemed to venture on being weird – if not a little extreme. He imagined crazy exes would be the sort of people to do such a thing.

"Yeah," Josh began. "I don't know if you noticed it or not, but she wasn't too happy with how much attention Julian was giving you."

Gabriel shook his head in denial. Not only did he have a difficult time believing that Julian had willingly ignored a pretty girl like Heather – when her interest was plainly obvious – in favour of spending time with him, but he was close to panicking. Shaw was a semi-religious town and he'd done well to keep his sexuality a secret lest he be scrutinized and crucified for who he loved or who he was attracted to. His friends, and his reputation as the town's high school soccer superstar would be in vain as those things had come to him as a blessing in disguise that was all part of his healing process.