on a familiar topic.
Great, I thought sarcastically. This was really what I needed right now. I stuffed the letter into my purse and squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my fingers up to my temples. Whoever the hell was sending this obviously had no idea about all the other shit that was happening in my life. And what would they do if I simply refused? If I didn’t do the assignment? They’d go to the dean with whatever proof they had; I’d probably be disciplined, maybe expelled. Leo would most certainly get fired. My parents would probably never speak to me again. So despite how tempting it sounded to just not do the assignment, I knew I had to. And it seemed like whoever was sending me these letters knew that, too. The only good part about it was this would be the last one. And then hopefully I would never get another letter from this person again.
I went over to Leo’s that evening, eager to see him, if for no other reason than I felt less stressed out just being around him. Sex with him was amazing, but I would’ve been happy just watching him do laundry or going to the grocery store or something. It wasn’t so much the activity that we were doing; rather, it was just getting to be near him. There was a part of me that I thought I should just stay in, but when he texted and asked what I was up to, I immediately replied that I wasn’t doing anything. Besides, I’d been working since I’d gotten back home. My eyes were starting to glaze over just looking at the laptop screen.
When I got there, he gave me a hug, and I inhaled, still able to smell the faint traces of whatever aftershave he had used that morning.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Better now,” I said. “Though things are still totally stressful.”
“Come sit down.”
I followed him into the living room and sat next to him on the couch. He put his hand on my leg and squeezed lightly.
“Have you heard anything from your parents?” he asked.
“Not since the other day. So they haven’t changed their minds about cutting me off.”
“I was wondering if it had come to that.”
“Yeah. That’s basically what my father had told me when he called. And then I got this today, on top of everything else.” I dug through my purse and handed him the letter, which he skimmed, his brow furrowing.
“This is such bullshit, Tessa,” he said. He crumpled the paper up and tossed it onto the floor. “You don’t need to be doing this. Fuck this person. I mean seriously. Whoever the fuck is sending this shit to you needs to fucking stop.”
“Well, I was already planning on writing an article of my own for it, so this shouldn’t be too much harder. Oh, except I actually need to go out and find a job.”
“A job? Right now?”
“Maybe not this very second, but soon. I’ve got bills I need to pay. Lindsey offered to lend me the money for rent,” I said. “I probably would take her up on that offer, except I have other expenses besides rent, and I’m not going to ask her for more money.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“That’s why I have to find a job. Maybe I’ll need to drop a couple classes. Next year, I’ll have to apply for financial aid and all that, and probably take out some loans. Start living in the dorms.” I could feel tears threatening to escape, but I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to cry about this anymore. So maybe my plans had changed a little, maybe I wasn’t going to graduate when I thought I was, maybe I’d have to start living in a dorm with a roommate and eating in the cafeteria—big deal. It would be an adjustment, but I could do it. What was my other choice? Just stop going to school completely? No. I wasn’t going to let myself fail just because my parents had suddenly stopped supporting me. I could do it without them. It might be harder, and it might take longer, but I could still do it, and I was determined not to let anything stop me.
“It’s not exactly how I thought things were going to work out, but that’s okay,” I said. I hated the quiver in my voice. But I just needed to keep saying the words until I could finally believe them. Maybe I’d never totally believe them, but that’s the way it was going to have to be, if I wanted to finish college. And I’d come too far to just give up on it now.
“I imagine it’s not,” Leo said. He brought his hand up and rubbed his chin, looking off into the distance. Then he focused on me. “I have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you come live with me.”
“I—what?” I asked, certain I had heard him wrong.
He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Not the most orthodox thing. But we’re already sleeping together, so why not? The semester will be over soon enough. And that way you won’t have to worry about paying rent or put college on hold or something ridiculous like that.”
He was kidding, wasn’t he? Living together? I had never lived with anyone before, except for my parents, and I had certainly never lived with another guy.
He smiled. “I know you’re probably thinking this is moving waaayyy too fast. And trust me—I’m not the sort of person who is just going around extending this sort of offer. But . . . I think we can both agree with is a special circumstance, right?”
“It’s definitely something,” I said, still trying to wrap my head around the idea of living with him, what the reality of that might be like.
“If you want, we can give it a try. That way you won’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay your bills and complete all of your schoolwork.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to pay all my bills.”
His smile turned a little coy. “I’ll bet we could work something out.”
“Isn’t that what got me into this mess in the first place?”
“It is. And I’m mostly joking about that last part. I’m offering because I want to help out, because I care about you as a person. Not because I want to get anything from you in exchange. It might have originally started out as that, but . . . it’s definitely changed. So, if I can help you out, I want to do that. And if you decide to move in and it doesn’t work out, then we tried, and we’ll figure some other arrangement out.”