A Scarred Past: Fated to the Enemy

With a sudden jolt, I awoke, my breath catching as the cool air brushed over my damp skin.

 Sweat traced down my forehead, and my body trembled from the intensity of a pleasure so fierce it felt like fire coursing through my veins, leaving me breathless and unsteady.

Those eyes again!

Endless, piercing blue, haunting me through the dream I had just escaped. They had pursued me there, relentless until I could no longer outrun their grip. When they finally caught me, I was lost. Their gaze stripped everything away, pulling me into a place where I surrendered to every hidden longing I’d tried to bury.

Even now, awake, I could still feel them, an overwhelming force both terrifying and beautiful, a hunger that refused to let me go.

As the fog of sleep lifted, I realized my hand was still between my legs, fingers slick with the evidence of my own unraveling. My n*ppl*s were painfully erect, sensitive to the slightest movement of my breath. I lay beneath the sheets, frozen in the quiet dark, waiting for the waves of my orgasm to ebb and leave me back in the reality I was trying to forget.

This obsession was becoming dangerous.

Over the past six months, these visions had grown more intense, blurring the line between dreams and a second reality. There was no fighting it, the mere memory of his gaze pushed me to the brink of madness, compelling me to touch myself with a desperation that both unnerved and thrilled me.

With a shaky sigh, I finally forced myself out of bed.

The world outside was calling.

College awaited, along with Selima, my only confidante, probably already downstairs, enduring my mother’s small talk while waiting for me to emerge from my secret blue sanctuary.

The shrill ring of the school bell sliced through the classroom silence, making me start involuntarily. My heart pounded in my chest like a trapped bird as the teacher closed her book. Desperate to escape for my usual daydreaming session, I hurried to gather my things, hands trembling as I shoved books into my bag. I was halfway to the door when Selima stepped in front of me, blocking my way with a look that told me I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Mehanda, Valentine’s Day is next week,” she whispered.

Her eyes searched mine with sharp understanding. “Are you finally going to tell Uriel? You’ve been crushing on him like forever. Now’s the perfect moment, before some socialite beats you to it.”

I froze, knuckles whitening as I clutched my bag strap.

Just the thought of stepping out of the shadows and showing him, him, the one everyone around here admired, how I felt made me shiver. A cold wave of self-consciousness washed over me. Selima was the only one who knew the truth: I wasn’t just interested, I was utterly captivated by this divine presence.

He had been my secret obsession for two years.

His sky-blue eyes haunted my most intimate thoughts, gazing at me in the dark of my nights with an intensity I’d never seen in daylight.

Lately, the fantasies had become so vivid that I’d find myself flushed during class, the memory of his touch making my stomach tighten. It was a secret that burned like a brand, making it almost impossible to meet his gaze without feeling exposed.             

“You know I can’t, Selima,” I whispered, glancing around at the thinning crowd. “He’s never noticed me. To him, I’m just part of the background. Look at the girls he hangs out with, daughters of the elite, with perfect hair and designer clothes. My parents are just workers. I’m meant to stay hidden, not in the spotlight.”

Selima let out a frustrated sigh, shaking her head.

“Have you ever noticed how he treats them? He’s like stone, Mehanda. That status doesn’t mean anything to him. He’s after something real. Why not you? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The worst he can do is say no, and then you’ll know.”

As I thought her words through, searching for a spark of courage beneath my fear, we headed toward the exit. The hallway was chaos, slamming lockers, teenage chatter, but as we crossed the threshold, a sudden, icy shiver ran down my spine. It was sharp and familiar, making my breath hitch. I turned instinctively.

There, leaning against the cold metal lockers, stood the man who had been the architect of my dreams.

Uriel!

And for once, he was looking directly at me.

For a moment, everything else seemed to stop. His gaze was unreadable, impossibly blue, like falling into the depths of an ocean. My skin tingled as if I’d touched a live wire.

Then, with a graceful, steady movement, he pushed off the wall and began walking away in the opposite direction, leaving behind a vacuum in the air.

“What was he doing here?” I asked, fighting to swallow the surge of nerves.

“Ask him yourself,” Selima replied, nudging me. “He’s polite to everyone, but you’re the only girl here who acts like he’s invisible. What are you waiting for? This could be the Valentine’s Day that changes everything.”

Her enthusiasm was contagious, but a shadow of doubt lingered.

If he wanted to know me, wouldn’t he have done something a long time ago? That’s how stories went, heroes always pursued the ones they wanted. I tried to hide my disappointment, wondering how I’d become so small.

My best friend groaned, rolling her eyes.

“Coward! If you want him, you have to go for it. This isn’t the Middle Ages, we don’t wait for favors to fall from the sky, girl. Maybe he’s just as scared of your silence as you are of his looks. Just say hello!”

The small flame of hope she’d sparked flickered in my chest. She was right. I didn’t need to leap off a cliff, I just needed to take a step. A simple “hello” wouldn’t kill me, even if it felt like it might.

“How do I even start?” I asked, feeling clueless. “I can’t just walk up and talk about the weather. I’d look like an idiot.”

Selima grinned slyly, the kind that meant she’d already planned my future.

“Remember Michael? His best friend? He’s my neighbor. We’ll ‘accidentally’ run into them after school by the park. But we start at the canteen. I’ll handle Michael. You just focus on not passing out when Uriel looks at you.”

She sounded so confident, ready to play matchmaker for the stars. My mind raced, imagining a dozen ways I could trip over my own feet or forget how to speak.

“Okay,” I whispered, trying to steady my pulse. “I’ll try. I’ve spent two years staring at the floor. It’s time I looked up.”

Selima smiled and linked her arm with mine, pulling me toward the canteen.

The smell of cheap pizza and floor wax filled the air, but all I could focus on was the blue-eyed presence somewhere in the crowd, and the pounding rhythm of my heart in my chest.

The double doors to the canteen swung open, and the usual midday roar of voices hit me like a solid wall. Selima did not let go of my arm, she steered me through the crowd with a mission-driven focus.

“Look, he’s over there,” she hissed, nodding toward the center of the room.

“I see him, Selima. It’s hard to miss the sun when it’s shining,” I replied, my voice trembling as I watched Uriel sitting at a central table.

He was surrounded by the ‘elites’, the athletes and the socialites whose parents owned half the city. “He’s alone at the end of the bench,” Selima observed, her eyes narrowing as she calculated our path. “Michael is just a few feet away. This is perfect. We’re going in.”

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, trying to anchor my sneakers to the linoleum floor. “Look at Chloe and her group. If I walk over there, they’ll laugh me out of the building. Did you see the way she looked at my hair yesterday? Like I was something she found on the bottom of