I also was in no mood to discuss any of it with a damn shrink who was rolling in bed with the very people who put me into this mess in the first place. Namely my parents, grandparents, and siblings. There was no fucking way I could ever trust or even respect Danielle again.
Tess and I talked on the phone as often as we could manage. First for hours each day, but she had to excuse herself more and more often because she was tired. And I believed her because, as time went on, she sounded more and more listless and exhausted. I had read up on stories from people caring for sick family members, and accredited her exhaustion to the emotional burden of caring for a sick loved one while knowing that, in the end, there is shit all you can do but hope. I was determined to support her in any way she allowed me to, and to be there for her when the inevitable would happen.
Outside the office, I stayed by myself and avoided the family (and especially Aunt Danielle, who had heard about Tess leaving from Bill) like the plague. Which honestly wasn’t hard, considering I never got out of the office before 7:30 PM and then got something to eat before going home, so the house was usually dark by the time I stepped through the front door.
The guys at work were awesome and did everything they could think of to lift my spirits. They even snuck me into a strip joint one day. When I told Tess about it, she thought it was a great idea and even encouraged the guys to do that more often. It only helped marginally, though. I still missed her. She also started talking about girlfriends my own age again and, on half our calls, she made me promise I would “keep going and hang on” again. For some reason, though, it no longer sounded like she just wanted my promise to “keep going and hang on to school”.
When Golden Boy left for college about six weeks later, I didn’t bother to make an appearance at his farewell party. The prick was moving to the next town over, for Christ’s sake. And, apparently, they got him a nice new Mustang GT Fastback, so he could make the drive home whenever he wanted. No need to get sentimental about it just because they couldn’t sneak into his bed every single night anymore. They’d make up for it on the weekends, I was sure about that. Though I couldn’t be certain, because I would have rather spent the weekends living in my car than staying in that house while he was there.
It also didn’t help that Claire had, apparently, rediscovered their access to my bank account. Each month I would check the balance after my salary was deposited, just to find a transfer of a few hundred dollars to Logan’s account. When she had transferred a whopping eight-hundred dollars one month, the desire to stay clear of them lost out to the need to confront her.
When she told me that Logan needed some extra cash for “college stuff”, and Aaron didn’t see any problem with using my hard earned savings for it, I almost went postal on them both. On Claire, for simply giving my money to her Golden Boy. On Aaron, for happily going along with it after not only ridiculing the way I earned it, but also not having spent a damn dime on me for almost two years. Bear in mind, despite barely spending time in that house before Tess left, I was still diligently paying my three-hundred dollars rent each month, in addition to paying for my own food, phone bills, car insurance, and gas. Somehow, they still felt the need to take more.
That was the day I finally decided that I really needed to get the hell out of there. On the days I didn’t have to interact with the family, I was just ... better. As long as I could just spend time with Tess, and had her apartment as some kind of sanctuary, I was able to deal with all the shit. But with her gone now, and with none of the direct family members even thinking of inquiring about the reasons for my mood, I had to step up my apartment-hunting.
Going by what Tess had paid for her apartment, it would cost me at least three times of what I was paying Aaron per month if I wanted something in driving distance to work and school, but I would get two or three times more space in addition to my own bathroom! And once I turned seventeen, the police wouldn’t force me to go home anymore, even if the family decided to call them as yet another way to mess with me.
Now, strictly legally speaking, minors can enter into legal contracts. The problem is, however, that the only ones actually bound by those contracts would be the legally adults. Landlords indeed can rent apartments out to minors, but as long as I wasn’t emancipated I could just skip on the rent and leave the place devastated. The landlord could be left sitting on the losses. To get emancipated, I would either have to wait until I turned seventeen, or prove that I was already living alone while managing my own finances. Even after I turned seventeen it was still a long shot to get emancipated, as long as I wasn’t physically abused or orphaned. So, I decided to simply make myself look as good and dependable as possible for landlords.
Many landlords asked for character reference letters, but the only thing I could get from my boss and coworkers was a professional reference letter, which Bill happily prepared. It held some value, but the landlords didn’t just want to know whether I could pay the rent, but rather whether I actually would pay it. A character reference was unattainable for me, though. I could ask family members ... who neglected and didn’t know shit about me. I could ask teachers ... who ignored my bullying and refused to teach me how to drive. I could ask neighbors ... who only knew me by looks. Or, I could ask friends ... which I didn’t have anymore.
In early September, I finally found a nice two-bedroom apartment for $1,200 per month, on the first floor of a gated apartment complex ... after offering to pay twelve months’ rent in advance, so there was no danger of me skipping on rent before I turned eighteen, and double the security deposit, so there was no danger of me leaving the place ruined. Interestingly, even then most landlords had refused, thinking I might just burn the whole building down or something, causing more damage than I could deposit for.
After I talked about it with the guys from work, one of them, Paul, introduced me to the landlord of the apartment complex he lived in. Thanks to him putting in a good word for me, the Landlord agreed to give me a chance. He ‘only’ wanted six months rent in advance, plus three months’ rent as security. I would have to drive thirty minutes to school in the mornings and twenty-five minutes home from work in the evenings, but it was a nice distance away from the family, and came with a communal pool and BBQ-Area! The lease would start from the first of November.
My plan was to move into it the day after I turned seventeen, which was a Saturday, and turn the apartment into a place Tess would be happy to live in with me. I wanted to stay true to my promise to support her in any way possible, especially if her mother would actually be gone. I got five big moving boxes, stored them in my room, and anxiously awaited my birthday.
And then my world ended.
In the middle of September, three months after Tess left and only two weeks after I found an apartment for us, I could only reach her voicemail when I tried to call her. This lasted for a few days, my anxiety about her finding someone else had driven me up the walls by that point, before someone finally answered my call. It was her mother.
I learned then that it wasn’t Tess’ mother who was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. It was Tess herself, when she had her medical checkup in celebration of her thirtieth birthday. She never told me, because she didn’t want to take me along for the ride. So, she stayed with me for as long as she could fully hide the symptoms, then she wanted to spend time with her family. When she was diagnosed, the doctors had given her roughly six months. She was gone after five.