She finished her crunches, now too wiped out to consider doing even one more, and reached for a towel to wipe the sweat off her face and neck. As she drank from her water bottle, Tessa fought off the guilt she always experienced when thinking of how much Peter had sacrificed for her sake over the years. If he hadn’t felt obligated to take care of her and make sure she was financially and emotionally stable, he would have likely traveled more than halfway around the globe by now. Instead, he had stayed in Arizona with her to finish his college degree and make sure she had the job training and experience she would need to one day support herself. By then they had just grown used to being together, and Tessa had been prepared to follow Peter anywhere he wanted to go in return for his protection. All the while, she’d known that what he really wanted was to travel freely wherever his whims might take him, following one story after another, and she had felt responsible for holding him back.
She was happy for him – that he was finally getting to live his dream – and she was really trying hard not to resent him for it. She couldn’t be Peter’s responsibility any longer, the weight that dragged him down, and was determined to finally grow strong enough to stand on her own two feet and not depend on anyone else to take care of her. It was hard, the toughest thing she’d ever had to do in a life that had been filled with hardships, but she was getting through it a day at a time.
The loneliness was the worst – the nights when she was all alone in her tiny apartment with no one to talk to or hang out with. Julia had been wonderful, calling several times a week to chat, and they’d met for coffee a few times already. But at present Julia was still recovering from a near-tragic assault she’d suffered at the hands of Nathan’s ex-fiancée. Tessa had wanted to drop by her new friend’s flat for a visit but hadn’t wanted to intrude, especially when Julia’s parents had arrived for a visit.
And now Thanksgiving was only about ten days away, and she knew Julia was flying to Michigan to spend the holiday with Nathan’s family. Tessa hadn’t even begun to think about what she might do herself, since she’d always spent holidays with Peter. Last year they had gone to dinner at the home of one of his former co-workers at the news agency, but this year everything was different. She would most likely be alone on Thanksgiving, just as she was every other day now.
The punishing workouts she’d been putting herself through these past weeks had helped some – at the very least filling those empty hours after work so that she didn’t have to sit around her apartment longer than necessary. And all the exercise had helped make her legs even more toned, her abs tighter and more defined, her muscles leaner. Not that she cared very much about how she looked these days. After all, it wasn’t as though she had a man in her life, or any real desire to find one.
Before meeting Peter, there had been a couple of boys in high school that she’d flirted with, and even made out with a little, though it had never gone any further. And then when things had gone to hell with her mother and her entire life changed overnight, there hadn’t been time for boys or any of the other pleasures girls her age normally enjoyed. Life quickly became about day to day survival and nothing more.
Tessa knew she was considered pretty and had a good body, but she’d never been vain about her looks. Still, she was fairly certain she wouldn’t have a problem in meeting men and going on dates if she were so inclined. But her almost crippling shyness stood firmly in the way, and she wouldn’t have a clue on how or where to begin. She’d only been to a club, for example, once or twice when she and Peter had rather reluctantly been persuaded to go out with her co-workers. Gina, Alicia and Kevin had spent the better part of the evening getting completely plastered, and Peter had made her promise to never go out with them again, calling them a bad influence. Plus, from what she’d observed of the scene inside the clubs, Tessa highly doubted she’d ever want to try and meet men in a place like that.
As usual, she’d had the fitness room pretty much to herself. One of the women from Accounting had been here when she’d arrived, walking on the treadmill, and then two geeky IT guys had stopped in to use the weight machines for a few minutes. The room had been empty for the last forty-five minutes, the only audible noise coming through the earbuds of her tiny iPod shuffle. Peter had bought the device for her in Japan for her last birthday, and had loaded a bunch of songs he knew she liked. It was one of her most cherished possessions, despite the fact it was really only worth about fifty dollars. Even now as she was cooling down before heading off to take a shower, she was tempted to sing and dance along with the throbbing beat of Bruno Mars’ Locked Out of Heaven.