“But you wouldn’t be having all this fun with Leo. And think about it, Tessa. When you look back on all of this, do you think you’re really going to have all these fond memories of sitting in the library or at the Haymarket, studying? Is that what you want to remember?”
“It might not be the most exciting thing in the world to remember, but I wouldn’t necessarily mind that.”
“Now when you think back, you’ll remember Leo. You’ll remember that crazy time you needed to get your grades up, and you actually took your professor—your fucking hot professor, might I add—up on his offer to sleep with him. And had the best sex of your fucking life.”
“What I’ll probably remember is the horrified look on my mother’s face when she walked in on me giving that professor a blowjob!” I cringed. “God, that was awful.”
Lindsey laughed. “But it’s funny! At least to me it is.”
I laughed too, because if I didn’t laugh, I was probably going to cry, and I had cried about this enough.
“So basically you have a choice now,” Lindsey said.
“I do? I don’t feel like I do.”
“You can curl up in a ball and be completely paralyzed by everything, or you can say you’re going to carry on, no matter how that looks. It might not look exactly how you envisioned it, say, at the start of the year, but so what? Things happen, plans change. You are not the sort of person to just give up on something because it’s hard, and I don’t think you’re going to do that now.”
She was right, I knew it. I just needed to focus on one day at a time, and not let myself get completely overwhelmed by the big picture.
“I can lend you some money for rent,” she said.
“You can?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s really my parents’ money, but they don’t keep track of my bank account; I just get an automatic transfer twice a month. They won’t know. And even if they do know, they’re not going to care, because they know you, and they know you’re a good person.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a wave of relief wash over me.
After I left the Haymarket, I went back to my apartment and was making some tea when I heard my phone go off. I went over and looked at the screen. It was Leo. “Hey,” he said when I picked up, and even though my whole day had been pretty stressful, just hearing his voice still gave me a fluttering feeling in my stomach. “How’s it going? I’ve been thinking about you.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I talked to my dad, who was about as happy as you’d imagine. But . . . I don’t want to talk about all that right now.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “When and if you do want to talk about it, we can.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I also wanted to put out there, that if you want to stop doing this, we can do that, too. This whole thing ended up being more than I had anticipated. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, but I didn’t want anything to happen that was going to fuck up your life. Or mine. Honestly, this isn’t the sort of thing that I’d normally do, and I’ve just felt so fucking bored with my life while I’ve been here at Benton. This whole thing with you has really made life more appealing than it’s been in a while.”
I smiled. “That actually makes me really happy to hear that.”
“So I’m not saying that I want to stop this, because I really don’t. Not at all. But if you do, I completely understand. If you think that might help things with your parents, then maybe it would be the best.”
“I don’t know if it would,” I said, “but I can’t keep living my life for my parents. I can’t keep doing things just because they want me to. And I think they’ve thought that because they were paying my rent and everything that they could call the shots, and maybe that’s how it should be. But I’m not going to take their money anymore, and if I’m not doing that, then I can do what I want, on my own terms. And one of the things that I want is to keep seeing you.”
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that. Mmm. I wish I was over there right now.”
“I do too,” I said. “But I’m probably just going to go to bed soon. I think I need a good night’s sleep.”
“I bet you do. Just know that I’m thinking about you. You want to come by tomorrow?”
“I’d love that,” I said. “I’ve got to do some studying and get some stuff written, but I’ll text you when I’m done.”
“Great,” he said. “Sweet dreams, then. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I got off the phone, and after I finished my tea, I went to go take a shower. I stood under the hot water and closed my eyes and tried to imagine washing the whole day off of me. I tried not to let the fear of what the future held in store overwhelm me.
I felt a little better the next day when I got up, mostly because I had to get ready for classes and I was able to focus on that and not dwell on everything else. And the world was continuing on just like it had always been, making me feel as though, regardless of what happened, things would just keep going on. There would still be a ton of traffic on Van Ness, that guy with the dreadlocks and the army jacket I saw every morning would still be panhandling on the corner of 24th and Mission, the student parking lot at Benton would always be full. I managed to find what appeared to be the last spot left and I got out and hurried toward campus.
“Hey, Tessa!”