This Is Love

Chapter 4: He Gave Me A Present

"Okay, so I know the BA sentence structure but what about the usage of 那么?"

"Ugh, I don't know." I flip through the textbook to Lesson 13. "I think it's used to compare things? I don't know. You don't think that'll be in the midterm, do you?"

"Honestly, anything can be included. Do you remember that one quiz like two years ago? She showed us the characters for Obama's name one time and then she put it on the quiz! I didn't know what the fuck I was looking at."

"Yeah, I failed that." I look at my phone. It's almost 2 am. Only 6 hours until our Mandarin midterm, and I haven't studied as much as I know I should've.

After getting home from Jacob, I was feeling a little shaken up. His comments and opinions of my appearance weren't new, but he's never tried to actively change the way I dress. Jacob and I've been together for a year, but things have started changing in the last few weeks. Jacob was getting more demanding and wanted to spend more and more time with me. It's like he wants control over every aspect of my life. It's like he assumes I'm going to be here forever, so he's no longer worried about chasing me away. It has been a year after all. I have tried to break up with him a few times, but we never actually break up. I've always ended up feeling bad, or he convinced me not to leave him. He's gotten way too comfortable. Meanwhile, I've just gotten more and more uncomfortable.

"Suzie? Are you there?" Jess's voice rings from the phone, breaking me out of my trance.

"Uh yeah. I'm okay," I say.

"Hey, I never asked you what happened at Jacob's. How was it?"

"Oh... it was nice. He gave me a present."

"A present? What would Jacob give to you?" Jess asks suspiciously.

"He gave me some new clothes."

"Yeah? What clothes?"

"Just some crop tops and jean shorts," I reply hurriedly, hoping to speed up the conversation.

"Right. And you're totally comfortable wearing this?"

"Yeah. I'm going to wear it to school tomorrow. Jacob says that he would like me to dress up for him a little."

"WHAT!" I took my phone off speaker. No need to amplify that.

"No need to yell, Jess"

"Sorry Suzie. It's just that this is so messed up! He has no right to tell you how to dress!"

"Honestly I'm fine with it." No, I'm not. "Don't worry about me."

Jessica sighs. "Whatever Suzie. I've got to go now. I should get some sleep, midterms be damned. Love you.

"Love you, good night."

I continued to study on my own. Sleep isn't that important. A few minutes passed before I heard my phone buzz. I checked my text messages, expecting a long, ranting text from Rachel about how she was going to fail the Mandarin midterm, but instead saw that it was a text from Jacob.

Remember to wear the clothes tmrw

Can't wait to see u in them ;)

I picture Jacob saying that while smirking. I leave him on read and put on Do Not Disturb. There's just a certain way Jacob makes me feel. He makes me feel smothered, but also unwanted. Just uncomfortable. There weren't any other words to describe it. Whether I caught him looking at me in class or in the hallway, whether he's putting his arm around my shoulder or tilting my face up to meet his lips, I was just wildly uncomfortable.

Suddenly, I regret telling Jessica everything was fine. I shouldn't have let her hang up, I should have broken down into tears and said everything that was on my mind. Why was I acting like this? I used to tell Jessica everything, from what I ate for breakfast to the uneasy feeling I got when Jacob leered at me. Now I can't even manage to tell her how a stupid boy makes me feel. I want to call her again and let all the walls come crashing down. I want to spend hours on the phone with her, sobbing my heart out and telling her how awful I felt around Jacob, how utterly worthless he made me feel. I wanted to go over every single thing he's ever said to me, analyze every single interaction, and make an elaborate plan to dump Jacob and ensure that our paths never cross again.

But I can't. I don't even know why I can't, I just can't. I can't seem to say anything bad about Jacob recently. I can certainly think about him in a negative light. I just can't voice these opinions, these feelings. Something has changed.

I don't know how, or when, but Jacob has somehow taken hold of me. I never gave up control of my emotions, he just somehow took it.

Jacob has finally managed to take hold of me.

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I've been wondering, should I make the chapters longer? Right now they mostly span from around 800-1300 words, but I could make them longer. It would mean less frequent updates though. Let me know what you think!

Thoughts? Comments?

Thank you for reading <3