Chapter 6: How Does That Make You Feel?

Tessa sat on her bed and eyed the spiral-bound notebook in her lap. She should open it to a clean page and make her daily entry in her thought journal, she thought, now that Scott had left her to herself again. God knows, she had enough thoughts whirling through her head to fill a page or two.

She should write about Scott, probably. Too many entries lately had been about Eric. Always Eric. Even when she set out to write about something else, it always revolved back to Eric in the end.

"You tell me, Tessa," Dr. Regan had asked her earlier. "Why do you think you've fixated on him?"

Maybe because she spent 12 hours a day on twitter, chatting with his fans and stalking his every move?

No, She didn't want to write more about Eric. This feeling she had that she knew him - that she understood him - it was all just an illusion. She'd never met Eric Thorn and probably never would. He would live his entire life without ever knowing that Tessa Hart existed. She needed to spend her time and energy on something more than make believe. Something real.

Tessa flipped her notebook open and began to write:

August 12, 2013 10:07 AM

Scott just left. He only stayed for 20 minutes. How does that make me feel? Relieved. Honestly, that's how I felt when he left. What's wrong with me? He mostly annoys me lately. Every little thing he does sets me off. Like the way he's always chewing gum and making disgusting noises with it. And then I can't help but flinch a little if he tries to touch me. I know he's noticed it too. I try to tell him it's not because of him. It's part of the recovery. I'm not sure if he believes me. He used to stay here and hang out with me for hours when I first came back from college, but nowadays he always has somewhere else to be.

I know I'm not being fair. I should be thankful he's still in my life at all. I can't imagine how isolated I would feel without him. It's not like Mom is ever here. She's working all the time, and when she is here she makes me feel guilty for dropping out. She doesn't get it. At least Scott doesn't guilt-trip me.

Why does he annoy me? I almost yelled at him when he came in my room before. He snuck up on me. He knows how it rattles me when I feel like someone is watching me from behind. He should understand that by now, right? How hard is that to understand?

Tessa paused and took a deep breath. She tried to imagine Dr. Regan reading it back and the questions her therapist would ask. "I hear you saying that you find Scott insensitive, Tessa. What does that say about your own state of mind?"

She started to write some more:

It's not just that he snuck up on me. There's something else. I was listening to Eric's song, and Scott almost caught me. He almost saw the expression on my face when I didn't realize anyone was watching. It made feel exposed. And guilty. Guilty. I'm annoyed at Scott because he makes me feel guilty about the way I obsess over Eric.

"That's good, Tessa," she whispered, channeling her inner therapist's voice. "How does that make you feel?"

I don't know why I feel guilty. Dr. Regan said it was good that I spend time on twitter. Therapeutic. "Any kind of social interaction can hold therapeutic value." That's what she said. So if it's all just therapeutic, then why do I feel the need to hide it from my boyfriend?

It's not like I'm cheating on him. Not even close. Everyone I talk to on twitter is female. Just because we tweet all day long about a guy? Lots of people have fan accounts. Celebrity crushes. It's not like Scott even cares what I do on twitter anyway. If he cared, he could have followed me himself.

Well, that wasn't completely true, Tessa admitted to herself. Scott didn't exactly know her username. But he'd known it when she first set up the account back in high school. She'd used it as a personal account back then with her real name for a username: @TessaHart. She'd only switched it to a fan account after she left college and moved back home. Scott had known she was on twitter for two whole years before she'd changed it. Two years when he could've set up his own account and followed her, if he had the slightest interest. He didn't care about twitter. He'd made it perfectly clear.

Tessa stared down at the half-filled page of writing, chewing gently at the end of her pen. She knew she was rationalizing. Guilty. She'd taken her own feelings of guilt and transformed them into anger toward Scott. There was probably a psychobabble term for that. Dr. Regan would know. Keep going, she told herself, once again repeating her therapist's favorite catchphrase: "How does that make you feel?"

I'm hiding twitter from Scott because I'm afraid how he might react. He used to get all bent out of shape when other guys talked to me at school. I'm afraid he might be jealous of Eric Thorn. That's so dumb, but I think that's really what it is. I'm scared. I'm afraid he'll see my twitter account and my fanfics and my camera roll full of Eric Thorn pics, and he'll get mad and dump me.

I can't afford to lose him. I have a grand total of three real people in my life: A therapist who only talks to me because she's getting paid to do it, a mother who barely tolerates me and wishes I'd get out of her hair, and Scott. Scott, who loves me. He does love me, right?

Tessa closed her eyes with a sigh, recalling the way her boyfriend had brought their visit to an abrupt halt just now. She'd been talking to him about the classes he planned to take this semester and, before she knew it, he'd given her a quick kiss on the top of the head and told her he had to go. Meeting friends for brunch.

"You wanna come?" he'd asked with a wink as he made his way toward the door.

"Very funny," she'd responded. "Ha ha."

But no, she thought now. No, it really wasn't very funny at all. Insensitive, maybe. But not funny. Not the way you should treat someone you care about. Someone you love. How long had it been since he'd said the words "I love you?" She couldn't even remember. She could only think of someone else who'd said it, just that morning.

"Follow spree complete. Don't be upset if I missed you. I love each and every one of you more than you could ever know."

Maybe that's why she spent all her time daydreaming about Eric instead of Scott. Maybe Eric was just a better guy.

With a sigh, Tessa shut her thought journal and reached out for her phone. She couldn't resist glancing at the screen to see what she had missed. Her eyes landed on a new twitter notification:

@EricLove333, @MrsEricThorn98, and 173 others just retweeted a photo

Tessa's stomach did a flip flop. A hundred and seventy-five retweets? That must be something new. Normally only a tweet from Eric himself would spread so quickly among the users she followed. But it couldn't have come from him. She had her account set up to notify her instantly every time he tweeted. What then? What could it be?

She swiped with an eager flick of her finger. Not another message from Eric, but from his biggest fan:

Naomi.

Of course it would be Naomi - otherwise known as @EricTFan, whose follower count stood just north of 50K. The girl never slept and always seemed to find out every tidbit of Eric-Thorn-related news five minutes before the rest of the pack. Naomi had started following Eric way back in his lowly Youtuber days, and she'd maintained her status as queen bee of the fandom ever since.

And now she'd done it again, apparently - scooped everyone with a new photo.

"Oh my God," Tessa whispered to her phone as her eyes took in the image. "Where did she get that?"

She skimmed across the text Naomi had tweeted:

Naomi @EricTFan

WHYYY IS THIS SO HOT???? #EricThornObsessed

And then that picture. . . . Tessa knew she'd never seen it before. She wouldn't have forgotten an image like that.

She hit retweet as a matter of course, and then tapped onto her timeline to read what all the other fans had to say. Everyone seemed to be online right now and buzzing - and no wonder. It was turning out to be quite an eventful morning. First the follow spree. Then the second tweet. And now this picture surfacing out of the blue like a gift from above?

But where had it come from? Tessa couldn't contain the burst of curiosity. Everyone seemed too busy making new #EricThornObsessed tweets to ask a lot of questions. Was it from a new interview? A gossip blog? Were there more where this one came from?

Tessa flicked onto Naomi's account again, her lips curving into a smile at the header:

Naomi @EricTFan FOLLOWS YOU

She still felt a glow of pride at the sight. It had been five days now since Naomi had followed her, and Tessa's own follower count had skyrocketed as a result. Everyone knew that Naomi only followed the accounts that really mattered.

But a follow from Naomi meant more than just a vote of confidence. It also gave her access to the coveted little button below Naomi's name - the one that allowed her to send a private direct message.

Tessa tapped out a DM now and let out a small gasp of pleasure when Naomi replied within seconds.

Tessa: Where did that pic come from??

Naomi: Some new account. It was weird

Tessa crinkled her forehead in puzzlement. Another twitter account? Why hadn't Naomi retweeted it, if it came from another fan's account? She sent back a quick reply.

Tessa: Who? Can you tell me?

Naomi: Just an egg making trouble. Nice try troll! LOL

Tessa: What username?

Naomi: @EricThornSucks

An egg?

Tessa searched for the account and brought it up on her screen: an egg account as Naomi had said, with the anonymous silhouette of an eggshell that Twitter provided as the default profile picture. Whoever owned this account hadn't bothered with a bio either. Just the first name, Taylor, and that one lonely tweet:

Taylor @EricThornSucks

What a narcissistic pretty-boy douchenozzle. Get over yourself @EricThorn #EricThornSucks

pic.twitter.com/UWCha5Ka9n

The link brought up the picture once again. Naomi must have poached it and composed her own tweet, with an ever-so-slightly revised caption. Tessa saved the photo now to her phone's camera roll. She wanted this one preserved, somewhere she could find it and obsess over it to her heart's content any time she felt the urge.

A fresh blush of heat crept up her neck as her eyes drank in the image:

Eric Thorn, shirtless, with a white towel around his waist . . . making out with his own reflection in a steamed-up bathroom mirror.

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{Banner Image thanks to eric_and_tessa}