Chapter Twenty-Four

Tessa “Mom, I’m so proud of you, and I hope that you keep up the good work!”

She laughed. “Who’s the mom? You or me?”

She was right, I did sound a little patronizing, even though I didn’t mean to sound that way. I just wanted her to know that all those years of her sacrificing to be at home for me, making sure she was both parents when Dad wasn’t around, which was most of the time. This was her time, and I wanted her to shine. Whenever she talked about work, she had this big smile on her face. It was amazing, she talked about me changing, but she should compare her closet before and after this promotion. I was pretty sure that she’d dropped a couple of sizes, and her knee-length skirts were now half-way up her thigh.

“You never know, when you come back, I may be blond. I don’t want you to have a shock. After all, they say that blonds have more fun,” Mom said as she pulled away from my embrace.

Something Grandma always said. I didn’t want to let her go. I should have been excited to go back to college. I had seven men waiting for me, but the truth be known, I was a bit nervous about the whole idea of it. Seeing them all and satisfying all of their needs.

“We need to get going, I don’t like driving in the dark, and I want to drop you and head back to my apartment,” Dad said as he shut the door and jumped into the driver seat.

I needed a car, then again I needed a license too, it was something that I said I would save up for, but everything that I’d planned to do over the last year had gone out of the window, from the moment I started writing for the paper, being with the guys was the first time in forever that I hadn’t worked on the paper, well technically not. I didn’t put everything that we did together in the articles.

“Mom. You sound just like Grandma.”

She nodded. “Yeah, she was fun. Sometimes I wish that she was still around. Look at us getting emotional. Dad’s right, you need to get going and keep in touch more often. Ok?”

I smiled and waved to her as I tried to fight back the tears. I found myself speechless as I waved her goodbye and my other friends that I wanted to see when I got back home, and I forgot about. It was nice to know that they didn’t forget about me, as they waved from the corner of the street. I needed to make sure that during the Christmas vacation, I hung out with them. I wanted to find out what they were up to too, but that wasn’t the reason that I'd kept my distance; they’d want to find out what I’d been up to, something that I wasn’t willing to share.

***

The drive felt so long, I was hoping within an hour or maybe two, Dad would drop me at my apartment, and I would be on my way. This was the plan in my head, I made sure to keep the conversation going, to make sure that he never asked me the one thing that I was convinced that he was curious about, my article.

“So, you going to keep it to yourself then?” he asked.

I knew what he was referring to, so I decided to play dumb. “What?”

Before, he could eve respond, I decided to quickly change the subject.

“Dad, can you believe that I’m a sophomore already, I mean one day I was a freshman and the next a sophomore. It’s like time’s on a quick timer. Right? Did you feel like that when you went to college?”

I did some quick thinking, a new skill that I’d adopted to avoid talking about myself. I’d done it when Jenny wanted to ask who this mystery person was that I was interviewing. I did it when Mom asked me about what had made me change so much in college, and I was doing it now.

“Now about this article that you’re writing. I thought that you would be telling me about it. Ranting and raging about it. But you’ve not mentioned what you’re writing, just that it’s keeping you busy.”

I nodded. And very sore! I decided before and certainly now that there were some things that you didn’t share with your parents. If Dad had told me that he was still in the heat of it all and writing some dark story and shared his secrets, probably then, would I tell him?

Nah, I still wouldn’t tell him.

This wasn’t the kind of thing that you shared with your parents.

I played it in my head a thousand times this week how this conversation would go, and I decided that it would end with me not telling both of them and certainly not him. And nothing was going to change my mind about that, nothing.

“That bad, huh? The moment I talked about the article, you went bright red. That’s weird. I hate you to be keeping anything from me,” Dad said as he stopped at the lights.

I was close to the apartment. I could just jump out now.

“You’re not hurting anyone, are you, Tess?”

I laughed. “No.” Thinking that the only thing hurting was down there and now that it had some rest, it was ready for some action.

“Good. That’s the number one rule of being a journalist. Not hurting anyone. I must admit that I’d done some pretty shady things to get the story, and none of them am I proud about.”

“Oh?”

He shook his head. “Nice try. You’re not turning this around on me. This is about you. I would love you to be able to share this article with me. But…if you’re not ready, then all I can do is wish you luck.”

The GPS said that we’d arrived at our destination, and it wasn’t a moment too soon. I was glad, happy that the conversation was stopping there. But I couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“I’m not hurting anyone, Dad. If anything, it was speaking to you a few weeks ago and words of wisdom from Grandma that has brought about me feeling different. Finally, I feel as if I’m coming out of my shell at long last and living.”

“God, this article isn’t about Playboy, is it?”

I shook my head; it was time for me to leave. I kissed him and even offered for him to come up; he wanted to get to his apartment which was close to our house, seeing as the journey took a lot longer than he’d envisaged, and I was relieved that our conversation had come to a dramatic end. The look on his face when he mentioned Playboy was priceless. I wondered if I’d told him the truth would he be able to handle it. The idea of Playboy had put him into a state of shock; the truth would probably give him a cardiac arrest. I couldn’t tell him the truth, because as much as he wanted to know, one thing was for sure, he couldn’t handle it.

I let myself into the apartment and called out for Kim and Cheryl. They weren’t around, so I sent them a quick text, telling them that I was home and that I was heading straight to bed.

I’d texted Rich while I was in the car and he’d understood that once I got home, I was probably going to crash. He wasn’t very demanding, and I suspected I’d never actually meet him, that he just wanted someone to talk to more than anything, which was fine too, so I didn’t push him.

He was Sunday, but part of me felt that I couldn’t cope with all six of them let alone being physical with someone else. I shouldn’t have been so tired, but I felt as if I was storing up my energy for the week. Archie was tomorrow and I knew no matter what he would be demanding, and I couldn’t wait to spend some time with him.