Tessa

It feels weird sneaking out this morning, but it’s early and just because I happen to have a staff meeting on a Saturday at this ungodly hour, doesn’t mean Lane should have to suffer the consequences.

I’m moving surprisingly fast considering the time of day, and even I can’t deny it’s because I’m eager to get this done and over with so I can come back here. To carry on with whatever craziness we started last night. Another reason it feels wrong to take off without saying anything. But, I left a note and I stuck it right there on my pillow, so he’ll see it as soon as he wakes up. He’ll know I didn’t bolt or change my mind or take off for any other reason than Burt’s a maniac who doesn’t value early Saturday mornings the way he ought to.

Nevertheless, I’m practically skipping from the stairs to my car when a voice I haven’t heard in ten years, stops me dead in my tracks.

“My, my. Aren’t we looking fancy?”

Frozen in place, I blink several times, instantly struggling to thwart the onslaught of emotions attempting to run me over and take me out. Time seems to stand still all around me as I begin the treacherous task of turning around to face my past.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Don’t recognize your own mother?” she hisses. She always did thrive in parenting whenever she used guilt to sway and manipulate us.

“What are you doing here?” As soon as I hear my own broken voice, I push both heels into the ground as hard as I can. My words may be shaky, but my stance will not be. She can’t get to me. Not now. Not anymore.

“Does a mother need a reason to want to check in on her oldest daughter?” If there wasn’t such a cold, empty stare in her eyes, I’d probably laugh at that question. As it is, I’m frightened. I know why she’s here. Her haggard grey skin, the hollowed sockets around her eyes, the chapped lips and the way her clothes are practically falling off her emaciated body leave little to the imagination. She hasn’t just fallen off the wagon, she took a nosedive out of it and then got dragged along behind it. Provided of course, there was ever a time she was actually on it.

Might as well cut to the chase. “I don’t have any money.”

She smiles at me, but it’s wicked and greed flashes in her eyes as they travel up behind me, seeking out my condo. “But you can get it.” When her gaze drops down again, it comes right for me, boring into me, taking me hostage just like it did when I was little and all she had to do was capture me in that cold, black stare to scare me into doing her bidding. “I know Edith left you that condo. And I also know, it’s worth a hell of a lot more than you deserve to hang on to all for yourself. She wasn’t even your aunt. She was mine. And now look at you. Living here in these fancy apartments, driving a nice car and pretending to be something you’re not. Think getting that college degree will make you more like them and less like me? It won’t.”

“I don’t need a college degree to be less like you,” I snap, grateful she decided to push the one button I smashed a decade ago. “Not being a selfish fucking addict who treats everyone like shit does that for me.”

Standing up to her does little to make her cower or back away. If anything, she just ramps up harder, comes back stronger. What spurs her on is nothing I can counter. Addiction takes away all sense of reason. Makes nothing impossible. She’s got a one-track mind on a one-track mission and I’m the last obstacle between her and what she wants. It’s just a matter of time before she takes me out. We both know that. The question is, how hard do I fight before I go down. And the answer to that is simple. I give it all I’ve got. I go down swinging. She may never have to face herself or the things she’s done because the drugs erase all sense of guilt and responsibility for her, but I don’t have that luxury. And I’ll be damned if she takes from me the one thing I have going for me. My innate ability to do the right thing. Always. No matter the cost.

“I see. You think you’re the victim here?” she snarls, coming in closer, circling like a vulture. I haven’t been at the center of her dance in over a decade, but I still recognize the steps. “What about me? Huh? Think it was easy being saddled with six children? All on my own. No one to help me. No one to take the burden from me. You’re the selfish little shits who took it all. My freedom. My money. My youth!” She creeps in a little more until we’re inches from each other. “Look at me. You did this to me. You. Your brothers. All of you. And then...you just left me. With nothing.”

I swallow down the bile rising repeatedly in my throat. “We all got left, Mom. Every single one of us. Some were just better at staying the course despite the wreckage, than others.” My lips press together in a firm line and my nose twitches in disgust as I fully take in this moment. “Number one rule of being a Harrison, Mom. Don’t fall, cause no one’s gonna catch you and they sure as hell aren’t coming back to pick your ass up. You taught us that. Maybe it’s time you remember that.”

I shove my shoulder into hers, pushing past her. For one glorious moment, today’s the day I swing and win. Then ~

“Maybe it’s time you remember your place in this world. You can bet your skinny little ass it ain’t sleeping next to that professor of yours.”

Inch by inch, the blood drains down, leaving me cold and numb from head to toe. She knew all along she had me. All she was doing was tiring me out, letting me swing at the air, exhausting my efforts so the final blow wouldn’t just take me down, it would destroy me.

“What are you going to do?” I croak, the conflict of breathing and speaking coming to a head inside my throat where a lump of feelings is making it impossible to do either.

“That, my love, depends on you,” she sneers, her bony hand reaching up to touch my cheek in a gesture that chills me to my core. “But, I am thinking about checking out this college you’ve been going to. I think it’s high time I became more invested in your education. And, as your mother, I can’t deny that it concerns me to know a teacher is taking advantage of you. I wonder...who would I talk to about that?”

“How much?” I just need to know the number. It’ll change of course, over time. In the end, what she wants is always the same. Everything.

“You tell me. What’s a fair amount when you compare your high society life to the way your sister and I have been barely scraping by, living in squalor?”

My mind races, stumbling over the screaming inside my head, desperate for a way to quiet the terror and numb the fear running rampant within. My eyes darting all around, searching for something to grasp onto, they finally catch on my car.

“I can get you five grand this week.” I take a breath in to squelch the sob breaking in my chest. “I’ll need longer to get you more.”

Her expression turns to stone. The game is over. She won. “Seven. And I want it by Friday.” She turns and starts to walk away, pausing a few steps in to turn back. “Don’t think that will be the end of it. I’m gonna get what’s mine, Tessa. One way or another.”

Dead to it all, I shift into autopilot and somehow, make it to my staff meeting. Two hours later, I’m standing outside the Basement, wondering how long I’ve been standing there and what in the hell was talked about at the meeting. It’s all a blur. A surreal out of body experience of faces flashing past me, a slur of words that don’t make sense, because nothing does anymore.

“Tessa?” A hand on my shoulder forces me to come back and touchdown in my physical body.

It’s Cara.

“What’s up?”

She narrows her eyes, head tilting sideways. “You tell me.”

I can’t.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just tired,” I say, flicking my wrist in a dismissive wave to emphasize just how meaningless my little episode of walking dead Tessa is.

“Liar.” But her suspicion fades just the same. She’s not going to press the issue, just accepts that there is one. “Anything I can do to help?”

I shrug, listlessly. “Wanna buy my car for seven grand?”

“I’m pretty set with my little Fiat, but I’ll put the word out.” She smiles, and even though it’s meant to encourage me, I think we’re both a little sadder for it.

“Thanks.” I turn back out toward the parking lot. I don’t remember where I left my car. I don’t remember much of anything beyond watching my mother cut through some shrubs and disappear in the woods leading out to the main road behind our complex.

As if Cara senses my need for direction, she takes me hand and together we start walking. “You’re scaring me a little,” she says under her breath as we get farther away from the building. “But you’re the toughest chick I know, so if you’re telling me you’ve got this, whatever this is that’s fucking with you, I’ll believe you and let you handle it. But if at any point, you decide it’s too much, or you just want a goddamn break, you tell me. And I’ll be there, okay?” She squeezes my hand tight, drawing my attention back to her. “Tessa?”

I nod. “Okay.” We’ve reached my Honda. Next step will be figuring out where to go from here.

Cara watches me a second longer, then reaches both arms around me in a hug that’s bigger and stronger than one might imagine from someone so tiny. She squeezes so hard, all of the shit I’ve been shoving down all morning nearly spills out of me.

“I love you,” she reminds me. “You’ve got this.” Then she releases me, and I feel oddly lighter, if even for a second.

Having been sucked back into my present by Cara, the drive home is vivid and loud, almost offending my senses after having been disconnected from them. When I get out of the car and face my building, reality just keeps pounding away at me. Decisions must be made. Changes must be set in motion. Ties must be cut.

Dragging my feet up the stairs one at a time, I repeat the same speech to myself over and over. You can do this. Keep your eyes up. Push forward. No matter what. You don’t go down. If you go down, you take him with you. Going down is not an option. 

Halfway to the top, I feel the shift. I’m not scraping my way through this, I’m facing it head on. Maybe my mother can force me to give it all up, but she can’t make me crumble. Can’t make me meek. Not when I’ve been fighting her all my life. All those battles didn’t make me smaller. They made me strong.

Stomping my foot down hard on the landing, I face off with both doors. One leading home. The other leading onward.

My heart pulls left, but my head is making all of my decisions now. And it goes right.

Offering Drea and the same limited courtesy she usually show me, I burst into her living room, preparing to face off with Scott’s naked ass if need be. After my mother, nothing scares me anymore.

“What the hell happened to you last night?” Drea demands as soon as she sees me. She’s fully clothed and sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of soggy looking cereal. Clearly Scott is working today.

“Last night?” I can’t remember that far back. What was last night? Oh, right. Barf. “Bart went all asshole on me when he figured out I wasn’t a legit date and more of a friend fill-in date. But, I don’t have time to rehash all of that right now. I have bigger problems,” I announce, dropping down in the chair beside her.

“Do they involve trying to make your sexy professor commit to more than just a booty call? Because I’m working on that already.” She takes a bite of cereal, then makes a face. It’s no extra crunchy bagel.

“My mom showed up,” I say flatly.

Drea freezes. “What?”

“She found out about the condo and she wants her cut, or she’s going to report Lane.” My voice is steely and unwavering, I hardly even recognize it.

“What are you going to do?” Drea’s eyes are wide and filled with the early onset of full on panic. I get it. I was there earlier. I’ve moved on.

“I bought some time, but I need to sell my car ASAP and I need to get more than it’s worth. That’s the pre-plan. The give her what she wants in the moment plan.”

“What happens after that?”

what she wants and surrender the condo to her and my mother gets nothing.” It’s simple, and tidy and the only one who has to suffer my mother’s wrath, is me. In a shit world, with shit options, it’s the perfect plan.

I sense by Drea’s slow moving reaction, she’s going to need convincing. “I don’t like this plan. Fine, your mother gets nothing. But you get nothing too. Worse, you have to give up everything.”

“She’s my mother. If anyone has to sacrifice on her account, it’s going to be me. And I’m okay with that.” I’m not okay with the alternatives.

“Lane will never go for it,” she announces, arms crossed firmly over her chest.

“You don’t even know him.”

Her eyes narrow and her lips purse. “If you honestly think he’ll just let you walk out, take on your mother’s wrath alone to protect him, all at the expense of losing your home and everything you care about – including him, maybe I know him better than you do.”

My chest cinches and the pain I’m trying so hard to kill before it can touch me, creeps in ever so slightly. “Drea,” I breathe, “I need you to be on board with this.”

One solitary tear defeats me, breaking free and running blatantly down my cheek. It’s enough to convince her.

“I’m not on board with the plan, but I’m always on board with you,” she whispers, her hand moving over to cup mine. A small gesture with great meaning. She’ll shield me as best she can. No matter what.

––––––––

LANE

I’ve tried calling Tessa twice already. It’s not usually my style to be so clingy, but it’s after two in the afternoon, and even if she’s attending the longest staff meeting in history, they would have to break for lunch at some point. The fact I haven’t heard from her since I found the note she left for me this morning, is leaving a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Tempted to go bang on Drea’s door, the only thing holding me back is knowing we’ll have to rehash the Bart situation from last night, and I’ll struggle finding the patience to be kind about it. Alienating Tessa’s best friend more than I already have, isn’t going to do me any favors.

I’m contemplating my next move when it’s made for me, and Drea comes barreling in, toting two big bins and a box of trash bags.

“Sorry, I would have announced myself, but I knew you were here alone, so I didn’t see the point,” she explains, walking straight past me toward Tessa’s room.

“What are you doing? Where’s Tess?” Then I remember. She knew I was alone. That can only mean one thing. “Never mind.” I’m spinning on my heel and headed for her place across the landing. I’m getting my answers straight from the source.

“What the hell is going on,” I demand as I go crashing into the apartment next to ours.

Tessa doesn’t seem surprised, on the contrary, she was waiting for me.

“I’m moving out,” she states matter of fact, as if this answers everything.

“I picked up on that when I saw Drea with the bins. That’s not what I’m asking.”

She moves toward the kitchen, an evasive move to put more distance between us. “Remember when we started this, and you said you were counting on me to keep you out.”

“Of your heart?” Fuck me and my stupid fucked up self.

“After last night, I think we can both agree, your expectations have changed where I’m concerned and unfortunately, mine haven’t.” There’s a brazen flash in her green eyes as she holds her unwavering stare, no searching the room, no careful timid approach to meeting mine.

“I think the only thing we can both agree on, is that you’re full of shit. Something else is going on. What aren’t you telling me?”

“That’s the whole point, Lane. It’s not what I’m not saying now. It’s what I haven’t been saying this whole time,” she scoffs, morphing into someone I hardly even recognize. “What we had was fun, but it’s getting too serious. It’s complicating my life, people finding out about us, having to worry about someone reporting you, what that could mean for me, and frankly, it’s not worth it. You’re not worth it to me.”

Every word slices through me like a knife through my chest. “Every man for himself, right?”

There’s a flicker in her eyes, for the briefest of moments, I think I see her, then the cold glaze steals away the warmth of her emerald irises yet again. “I tried to tell you.”

It’s surreal, standing here, staring at her and seeing a total stranger in her place. The same woman who’s had me coming completely undone in all the best ways for months, now becomes my complete undoing. It’s poetic. And tragic. And maybe just what I needed to drive home the lesson I’ve been struggling to learn. No one is who they seem to be.