Covet (11 page)

He took hold of both her hands in his and gripped them firmly. “You won’t have to. I promise, okay? Let me think about this for a little while. By the time we head home I’ll have come up with a solution. Try not to worry about it until then, hmm?”

But it was all Tessa could think about for the next two hours, despite Peter’s admonitions. Fortunately it was a slow night at the store and nobody noticed how distracted and out of sorts she was. She fretted about what might happen to her when she met with the case worker tomorrow, worried as to where she might be living twenty four hours from now, and wondered somewhat wildly if she ought to just grab the few things she’d stored at Peter’s and drive as far and as fast as she could.

By the time their shifts were over for the evening, Tessa was a bundle of nerves and rapidly beginning to descend into real despair. Peter, on the other hand, had a look of grim determination on his face as they walked out to their cars.

“Let’s go over to Starbuck’s and I’ll tell you about the idea I’ve come up with,” he told her. “It’s not ideal, and you might not go along with it, but it’s the only solution that seems workable on such short notice.”

Fifteen minutes later Tessa was staring across the table from him, clutching her cup of tea as though for reassurance. “You want to what? I mean, why would you do something like that, Peter? It’s not like you and I are – well, you know.”

“Dating. Involved. Yeah, I know, Tess. And there are things you’d need to know about me if we decide to go through with this. But for now all I can tell you is that we wouldn’t be doing this for the usual reasons. It would just be to get you out of this mess. And then, a year from now when you turn eighteen, it would all be over with. We could get a quick annulment and go our separate ways.”

Tessa shook her head in disbelief. “You would actually marry me so that I didn’t have to go into foster care? I mean, would they even let us do that? And would it work? Would my case worker accept that you’d be legally responsible for me?”

Peter shrugged. “Why not? We wouldn’t be the first couple to get married where the bride isn’t eighteen yet. What we
would
need, however, is for Michelle’s mother to sign this form giving her consent. She is considered your legal guardian, isn’t she? Able to sign papers and such for you?”

“I guess so.” Tessa glanced at the marriage license application that Peter had quickly printed on the office computer back at the store. “But I’m guessing as of tomorrow that will all change.”

“That’s why we need to go see her tonight,” Peter declared. “Now, in fact. Give Michelle a call and have her find out if Debbie is home. You and I will pay Debbie a little visit, get her signature on this. And then bright and early tomorrow morning we can stop by the courthouse and apply for the license and then make an appointment to, well, get married.”

Tessa tried very hard not to feel dazed at how quickly all of this seemed to be unfolding. “What if Debbie gives me a hard time about signing the form? Not that she gives a damn about me, but she’s probably pretty mad about everything that’s happened.”

Peter shrugged. “She shouldn’t be mad at you. After all, you kept her little secret for these past couple of months, let her keep receiving those checks. And that will be our bargaining chip. We tell her that if she signs the form without any fuss, that you’ll assure your case worker that you just moved in with me a couple of nights ago.
Not
a couple of months ago. That way Debbie doesn’t have to pay back the money.”

Tessa shuddered at the very thought of confronting Debbie again, but decided it had to be better than being sent to an unknown group home. “You really think she’ll cooperate?”

Peter gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Leave it to me, okay? I guarantee that when we leave there in a little while she’ll be willing to sign anything we put in front of her.”

She stared down into her cup of tea for long seconds, the unsettled feeling deep down in her belly growing in intensity with each passing minute. “Why are you so willing to do all of this for me, Peter?” she asked quietly. “This – what you’re offering to do – goes way beyond friendship. I can’t believe you’d actually go to such lengths just to help me out.”

“I would, Tessa,” he assured her, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “I understand what it’s like to be alone and afraid with no one else to turn to. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not someone like you who’s been so nice to me. And, well, there might just be a hidden benefit to all of this for me.”

Tessa glanced up at him curiously. “Like what?”

Peter took a sip of his coffee, seeming more than a little hesitant to continue their discussion. “Remember how I told you that I came real close to moving out of the house about a year ago?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, there was more to it than not being of legal age to sign a lease. I’m pretty sure that if I’d looked hard enough I could have found someone willing to rent to me, or at least sublet. But the real reason I didn’t move out –
couldn’t
move out – was because my mother found my checkbook one day and pretty much wiped out my account. Everything I’d worked to save for a whole year she just wrote herself a check and left me to start over again.”

She stared across the table at him, aghast. “Oh, my, God. How could she do something like that to her own son? You – you didn’t report her to the bank or anything?”

He shook his head. “To answer your first question, if you knew my mother – which, fortunately, you’ll never have to do – you’d realize that raiding my checking account is the least of the sins she’s committed against me. And second, well, in spite of everything she is still my mom. Blowing the whistle on her just wasn’t something I could bring myself to do. Besides, if she’d been arrested or charged with a crime there was a strong possibility I would have been put in a foster home myself. And as bad as my life with her has been, at least I knew what I had to deal with.”

“So what does all of this have to do with your offer to marry me? It seems pretty one-sided to me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” corrected Peter. “I figure if we pool our resources we’d have more than enough to rent a room together someplace. I know I don’t have quite enough saved, and I figured you’d been saving some money these past few months.”

“Yes.” Tessa told him the approximate amount in her checking account, and a look of relief crossed his features.

“That’s more than enough,” he assured her. “I mean, assuming that you’d be okay with an arrangement like that? We don’t have enough to get an apartment of our own, given the amount we’d have to fork over for a security deposit and two months rent, but I figured you wouldn’t mind living in a shared rental.”

“Not at all,” she replied quickly. “And I know there are vacancies available since classes ended at the university a couple of weeks back.”

“I’ve already made a couple of phone calls,” replied Peter. At her look of surprise, he gave a sheepish shrug. “If we’re going to convince your case worker that this is all for real, we have to be prepared, have a plan. If we can show her that we’ve already started looking for a room to rent, she’ll be more likely to believe us.”

Tessa heaved a sigh. “Sorry, but I don’t have a real good feeling about all of this. I mean, today’s a Wednesday, after all.”

At Peter’s puzzled expression, she quickly told him about how this particular day of the week had always seemed cursed to her, how nearly every bad thing that had happened in her life had occurred on a Wednesday.

“Well, tomorrow is a Thursday,” he told her firmly, “so we have to hope that turns out to be a lucky day for us. What time do you have to be at school tomorrow?”

Tessa had two more days of school remaining, and only had to show up to take her final exams. “Not until ten-thirty.”

“Good. The courthouse opens at eight, so if we get there early we can apply for the marriage license and have it in hand when and if your case worker shows up at your school. And with any luck they’ll have an opening for us to get married within the next couple of days.”

“So soon?” Her head really was spinning now at how quickly all of this was happening.

“The sooner the better,” declared Peter. “Not only to satisfy your case worker, but so you can stop sleeping in your car. And so that I can finally get out of that hellhole.”

“You’re really sure?” Tessa asked him worriedly. “This seems like an awful lot for me to be asking of you.”

“I’m sure,” he told her gently. “And you aren’t asking a thing of me, I’m offering.”

Tears blurred her vision for a few seconds until she impatiently brushed them away. “This is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” she whispered brokenly. “You – you’re most likely saving me from having to live in some horrible place for the next year.”

Peter took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “We’re saving each other, Tess. It goes both ways, okay? And while I might be saving you from an uncertain future, you are definitely saving me from a terrible past.”

Tessa huddled deeper inside her sleeping bag, pulling it up over her head as she groaned, “How much longer do you think they can possibly keep this up?”

Peter grimaced as he glanced up from the book he’d been reading. “Guess none of them have early classes tomorrow. Then again, that doesn’t seem to matter much, does it? Here, try using the headphones and see if they help block out the noise a little.”

She accepted them gratefully, and while they did help to muffle the sounds of the wild party going on elsewhere in the house, she knew that nothing would do the trick completely. Except, of course, moving out of the house she and Peter shared with four other roommates – roommates who were overly fond of hosting loud parties that usually lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

“You’re sure we can’t afford to move out?” she asked in resignation, already knowing the answer. “I’d take on a third job to make that happen.”

Peter shook his head. “We’d forfeit the terms of the lease, lose the security deposit plus two whole months of rent. And then have to come up with all the money we’d need to find a new place. No, I’m afraid we’re stuck here until spring. Sorry, Tess. I should have done more research, shouldn’t have jumped at the first place I found.”

“No, it’s not your fault,” she assured him. “You’re right, we had to move fast, had to show that case worker we already had a place to live. And it
was
quiet when we moved in. At least until the fall term started up again.”

In fact, it had just been the two of them plus their female roommate Alexia who had lived here over the summer. It had been the return of their two male roommates – Kirk and Evan, plus Evan’s girlfriend Roni – that had caused all hell to break loose, and the thrice-weekly parties to commence.

Tessa sighed and burrowed her head more deeply beneath her sleeping bag. “How can you concentrate with all that racket?” she asked Peter.

He shrugged. “You know how much trouble I have sleeping. It doesn’t really matter to me if it’s noisy or quiet, because I know I won’t get more than a few hours of sleep anyway.”

In the months they’d been married and sharing this small bedroom – but not a bed – Tessa had seen firsthand that her husband was not only an insomniac but suffered from terrible nightmares as well. Little wonder, she thought sadly, considering the living hell he’d gone through a few years back. She still didn’t know all of the story, and figured that she might never hear the rest from Peter. It had taken an awful lot out of him simply to tell her the basics, and she’d been reluctant to press him for more details, especially after witnessing his nightmares firsthand and realizing how traumatized he still was.

Peter had insisted that she know the truth before they got married, so that she would understand why theirs wouldn’t be a normal marriage by any stretch of the imagination. Legally they would be husband and wife, but they wouldn’t be sleeping together and definitely not having sex.

“You’ve probably noticed that I don’t like being touched,” he’d told her the night before they had been married. “That I sort of cringe whenever anyone puts a hand on me, and try to avoid contact as much as possible
.”

“
I have noticed, yes,” she’d replied gently. “I just figured that you didn’t like, well, me. Or, um, other
- “

“
Girls?” Peter had finished wryly. “Don’t worry, I’m not offended. In fact, I’m fairly sure most people just assume I’m gay. But I’m not. I’m – I’m not really sure what I am, Tessa. Except for really, really messed up
.”

He’d told her then – haltingly and with great difficulty – about the uncle who’d sexually abused him for more than two years. Peter had been eleven years old when his mother’s younger brother had moved in with them, and the abuse had begun almost immediately thereafter. Tessa wasn’t sure what had repulsed her more – the fact that Peter had been subjected to such horrors or that his mother hadn’t believed a word when he’d gone to her
.