Covet (7 page)

“What the fuck are you doing?” screamed Brittany. “Sean, you lousy, rotten prick! Get your goddamned hands off of that bitch!”

Sean immediately released Tessa, who continued to fight off the urge to vomit. She braced one hand against the door jamb, afraid that her trembling legs would give out from under her.

Sean shook his head. “You got it all wrong, baby,” he assured Brittany in a soothing tone. “She came on to me, even though I kept telling her that I wasn’t interested, that the only girl for me was my Brit.”

Tessa gasped. “That is
not
true! Not even close to the truth. He attacked me, said the most revolting things, and I - “

Brittany gave her a vicious shove, hard enough that Tessa banged her head against one of the kitchen cabinets. “Shut up, you stupid whore!” she hissed. “And leave my man alone, do you hear me? Otherwise, I’ll make you regret it. I knew you’d be trouble the first day we moved in here, but if you know what’s good for you you’ll keep the hell away from Sean.”

Tessa was almost quivering in fear by now, hot tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, as she looked from a furious Brittany to a smug Sean. She longed to smack Brittany across her pudgy face and give Sean a vicious kick to his balls, but all she did was to shake her head and murmur, “You’re welcome to him. And he’s lying to your face, Brittany. I have never once come on to him. Sean is the one who started this, not me.”

Brittany scowled, clearly unwilling to believe that her boyfriend might have made a pass at another girl. “I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to cause trouble between us, maybe break us up. Why don’t you get your own boyfriend and leave mine alone? Don’t you have any morals, you stupid slut?”

Sean gave Tessa a very self-satisfied smirk as he wrapped an arm around Brittany’s shoulders, hugging her close against him. “Brittany is all the woman I need, aren’t you baby?” he cooed, nuzzling the side of her thick neck. “How could you ever think I’d want anyone else? Tessa here is only trying to make trouble, just like you called it.”

Debbie walked inside the kitchen next, carrying a wailing baby in one arm while tugging a squalling Cooper along with her free hand. Kimmie followed behind her a ways, seemingly engrossed in sending a text on her phone. “Jesus, what the hell is the matter
now
?” Debbie asked wearily. “Sean, take your son, would you, for Christ’s sake? And Brittany, Mia’s diaper needs changing. I’m not the goddamned nanny, you know.” She glanced then at her daughter’s sullen expression and then at Tessa’s tearful face, and rolled her eyes in disgust. “Someone want to fill me in on the latest drama here?”

“I walked in on this bitch trying to put the moves on Sean,” Brittany burst out. “She denied it, but I know Sean better than that. No way would he even look at another girl, much less try to make out with one. And I’ve got a feeling this isn’t the first time this has happened. Tessa’s trying to cause trouble between us, to break us up so she can have Sean for herself.”

Tessa stared at her dumbfounded. “You have got to be kidding,” she muttered in disbelief. “He’s probably the last guy on earth I’d be interested in.”

Sean glared at her, his masculine ego undoubtedly bruised by this outright rejection. “Brittany’s telling it right, Debbie,” he confirmed. “Tessa’s been making the moves on me for weeks now, ever since we moved in, and I keep telling her to knock it off.”

Debbie handed Mia to Brittany and released Cooper’s hand as he ran out of the room screaming about something. “Is that right, Tessa?” she asked menacingly.

Tessa shook her head emphatically. “No, not even a little. Sean’s been the one saying suggestive things to me, and I do whatever I have to do to stay out of his way. I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

Debbie’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “So you’re calling my daughter and her boyfriend both liars? That
they’re
the ones trying to cause trouble, and not you?”

Tessa’s chin quivered at the threatening tone of Debbie’s voice. “They aren’t telling the truth about this particular situation, no,” she mumbled.

Debbie drew her cigarettes and lighter from her purse and lit up, taking a long drag before pointing an accusatory finger at Tessa. “Well, I happen to think they
are
telling the truth. That you
have
been trying to cause trouble between them. And I won’t stand for that kind of thing, you hear me? There’s enough shit going on in this house without you causing additional trouble, and I don’t need any more grief. I think you’ve overstayed your welcome here with us, Tessa, and that it’s way past time for you to go. So get your things and get out of here. Now.”

Tessa’s jaw dropped open in shock. “What? Just like that – with no warning or anything? Where – where am I supposed to go?”

Debbie shrugged, clearly unconcerned, and intentionally blew a stream of cigarette smoke directly into Tessa’s face. “That’s your problem. I’ve tried my best, offered you a home when you were a complete stranger to me, didn’t have to stick my neck out. And this is the way you repay my hospitality. I’m sure a girl like you must have a few boyfriends, maybe more than a few. Go crash with one of them. But I want you out of here within the next ten minutes, so better hurry and get your stuff.”

Tessa opened her mouth to protest, looking worriedly from Debbie’s grim, unsmiling face to Brittany’s plump, smug smile of satisfaction, and avoided glancing in Sean’s direction altogether. Kimmie was still tapping out a text, rather frantically at this point, and Tessa knew the situation was hopeless. She wished Michelle was here to go to bat for her, but knew that her friend likely wouldn’t be able to change Debbie’s mind at this point.

Fighting off both tears and an ever increasing surge of panic, Tessa walked down the hall to the bedroom she occupied. The few things of hers that weren’t already stashed in the trash bag were swiftly tossed in, along with a handful of toiletries she grabbed from the bathroom. When she returned to the bedroom, an anxious looking Kimmie was waiting for her.

“I just texted Michelle,” she whispered. “Haven’t heard back from her yet. I don’t know what to do, Tessa. I’m sorry.”

Tessa shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do,” she assured Kimmie gently. “Or Michelle either. I think Brittany has been working on your mom to get rid of me ever since she and Sean moved in last month. This would have happened eventually, and I’ve sort of been expecting it.”

Kimmie made a horrible face. “I hate her guts!” she muttered. “Her and that creep and their two brats. I knew there would be trouble when they moved in, and it’s been even worse than I thought. Brit is constantly trying to stick me with babysitting her kids, and Michelle found some money missing from her purse last week, figures it was either Brit or Sean who stole it.”

Tessa gave Kimmie’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Hang in there. Maybe your mom will get sick of it all and kick them out one of these days.”

“You mean the way she’s kicking you out right now?” Kimmie replied sadly. “That’s messed up, Tessa. Where does she think you’re supposed to go? What are you going to do anyway?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Tessa, trying her best to mask her fear. “I don’t even know what my options are. For tonight, I’ll probably get a motel room somewhere, or just crash in my car. I guess after that I need to call my social worker, tell her what happened, and keep my fingers crossed that I don’t wind up in a group home.”

“God, don’t let her put you in one of those places,” begged Kimmie. “This girl in my class – Anya – was telling us about the group home she got stuck in for three months. One of her roommates kept stealing her things and threatening to beat her up if she told, while the other would stay up all night screaming and carrying on. She finally got out of there, but only when one of the boys went on a rampage and stabbed about half a dozen of the counselors and kids. Anya was one of the kids who got cut – she showed us the scars.”

Tessa couldn’t suppress a shudder at Kimmie’s revelation. “I’ve heard those sorts of stories – and ones that are a whole lot worse, too. I just have to hope there’s a better situation available for me.”

After giving Kimmie a quick hug good-bye, Tessa picked up her trash bag and backpack and tentatively made her way through the living room. Brittany hadn’t wasted any time in plunking herself down in front of the TV, and was currently watching one of the reality shows that she seemed addicted to. She glanced up as Tessa walked past with a satisfied smile.

“Bye, Tessa,” she said with exaggerated sweetness. “I’d say it’s been nice knowing you, but we’d both know that would be a lie.”

Tessa didn’t even spare her tormentor a glance, grateful to note that Sean had evidently made himself scarce. But Debbie was waiting for her at the front door, and had a final warning to issue.

“I’m just guessing you’re all set to sic your do-gooder social worker on me,” sneered Debbie. “But you might want to think about that for awhile, Tessa. No telling what sort of place she’d stick you in, is there? So let’s make a deal, huh? You keep quiet about all this, go stay with another friend, and I’ll keep my mouth shut, too. Let your social worker think you’re still living here, all nice and safe and cozy, so that she doesn’t send you to live with some perverts or rapists. Sounds like a fair deal to me.”

Tessa gave Debbie a look that she hoped conveyed her utter disgust. “Especially since you’ll still get to keep the money they send you every month, right?” asked Tessa with a rare burst of anger. “I won’t say anything if you don’t. But you know what, Debbie? Sleeping in an alley somewhere would be better than staying one more night in this house.”

She didn’t look back as she walked down the front steps, continuing down the street to where she’d parked her car barely half an hour ago. She tossed the bag that held all of her worldly goods into the trunk along with her backpack, and drove off without sparing the house another glance.

Tessa had barely driven a mile before she forced herself to pull over, her legs shaking so badly she was afraid she’d crash the car otherwise. She wrapped her arms around her midsection, trying desperately to take deep, calming breaths, and to think about what her next course of action should be. Even on the night of the apartment fire she hadn’t been as terrified as she was right now, and she fought off the waves of panic that threatened to drown her.

She would get through this, she told herself fiercely. It was far from the first time, after all, when she’d been forced to deal with adversity. It was true that she’d had her mother with her those other times, but those had almost always been occasions when Gillian had been mired in the throes of a deep, dark depression, and it had largely been up to Tessa to make the decisions. This wasn’t any different, she consoled herself, nothing she hadn’t been through before. One way or another it would work out, and no matter what it would still be vastly preferable to spending one more night in that awful house with everyone fighting and screaming, or living in fear that Slimeball Sean would eventually succeed in forcing himself on her.

Tessa had never felt quite so alone in her young life as she did at this very moment, or so overwhelmed with the bleakness of the future that awaited her. She couldn’t stop the tears that began to stream from her eyes, or the sobs that shook her slender body. She had no idea where she was going to sleep tonight, or tomorrow night, or a month from now, or how she was going to get through all of this by herself.

But, as she forced herself to stop crying and get a grip on her wayward emotions, she knew that she needed a plan of some sort, a plan that didn’t involve merely living from day to day with no thought to the next. She had only herself to count on now, and the sooner she realized that the better.

“Ready to call it a day?”

Tessa was retrieving her backpack from the employee lockers, and glanced up at the sound of Peter’s voice. “To put it mildly,” she agreed, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn. “It’s been kind of crazy here tonight, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Peter nodded. “It’s the half price sale, people starting to stock up for the summer. Not that it doesn’t already feel like summer outside. It was almost ninety today.”

“I’m already using the AC in my car every afternoon,” acknowledged Tessa. “I think someday it would be nice to live someplace where it didn’t reach a hundred degrees every single day for four or five months. After living in the Southwest my entire life, I’d like to maybe live by the ocean or in the mountains somewhere.”

“Alaska in the summer, Hawaii the rest of the year,” offered Peter. “Sounds pretty good to me. You ready to go?”

“Yes. I’ve got some studying to do tonight, and a paper to finish writing.”

Tessa didn’t add that she’d be doing her homework at the 24-hour Starbucks located two blocks from here. She spent most of her evenings there, nursing a single cup of tea and hoping that no one would ask her to leave before she finished her studies. Thankfully it was a very popular and crowded establishment, and the staff was usually kept far too busy to notice how long any of the patrons hung around.

It had been two difficult and stressful months since she’d been on her own, since that awful night when Debbie had all but kicked her out of the house. Michelle had called her within an hour after she’d left, alternately sympathizing with Tessa and cursing Debbie, Brittany, and Sean for the parts they’d played in the disastrous series of events.

“This is all my sister’s fault, you know,” Michelle had ranted. “Brit’s had it in for you from the day they moved back in. She’s let herself go so bad since she had those brats that she’s jealous of anyone who looks better than she does. And since you’re drop-dead gorgeous – well, you can figure it out for yourself. Look, I’m heading home now, Denny’s not feeling so hot so we’re cutting our evening short. I’ll talk to my mom when I get there, try to make her see reason. I mean, where the hell does she think you’re going to live – in your car?
”