Roommates & Soulmates

Ch126: Tessa's September

September. Tessa couldn't remember how long it had been since that month had meant something more to her than a change in the calendar. Then again, how old was Lucie... a year and nine months or so? Had it really been that long since September had meant the start of the school year?

Tessa could remember why she hadn't applied for her fourth year of university. She'd discovered she was pregnant in March which put the due date in November, right in the middle of the first semester of her last year of school. She'd thought trying to finish a semester with a newborn would have been highly impractical, and she'd been right. Tessa could only imagine how her postpartum depression would have affected her grades, even if she'd been able to stay awake in class. So it had made sense to skip that first semester. She hadn't even thought of applying for January as Lucie had been only two months old, but Tessa had no excuse as to why she hadn't started taking classes again this time last year. Sure, she'd still being recovering from the depression, but it had been so much better. And yes, Will had been hurt by Lucie's obvious favoritism, but why should that have stopped her from returning to school?

And now yet another September was here, and Tessa could be found folding baby clothes in her living room while her toddler was sleeping. Yes, toddler. Lucie was almost two after all, and had developed a few more words. She'd taken to calling Will da, while still using da-da for Jem. Tessa had become ma. She wasn't sure how she felt about only getting one syllable, but she supposed that didn't really matter.

Tessa knew that between Will and Jem, she could get enough childcare to attend a few classes a week, and yet she hadn't applied. She was starting to wonder if she was the problem. If she really cared about finishing her degree, surely she would have put more effort into it than this. A dedicated student wouldn't have just dropped out because she could, right?

Tessa stopped folding clothes as she picked up one of Lucie's tiny socks, staring at it. Sometimes it felt like a dream, this falling in love with two wonderful men and having a child with them. A very long and mostly wonderful dream. What if she woke up tomorrow and it was all gone? Who would she be then?

Tessa rolled the sock up with it's pair, sighing deeply as she collected all the clean laundry to put away. And even if she did finish her degree, what was the point? Had she any plans to do something with it? What jobs could you get with an English Literature Bachelor's degree anyway? She loved learning about literature, but that didn't mean she'd like working in the field, if she could indeed get a job in publishing or something. Or was the only thing an English Literature degree good for was a stepping stone to a Master's so you could teach the pointless subject to others.

At least Tessa could be useful here. At least she could be a mother and lover. Then again, the lover part had been a long time. When Lucie was younger she hadn't had the energy. Then the depression had killed any desire she had apart from misery. After that, Tessa had started to notice the changes to her body. There were great white lines across her stomach, and similar stretch marks around her breasts which weren't quite as firm as they'd once been. Before Lucie they'd been small and firm, and now they felt saggy and too big. It had been a long time since Tessa had felt beautiful. It wasn't like she thought she was ugly or anything, it was that she felt uncomfortable in her body in a way she couldn't remember being before.

Jem didn't seem to mind. Tessa knew - from her extensive research on the disease - that hemochromatosis had a tendency to lower one's libido, and she had a sneaky suspicion that Jem was relieved, almost as if he'd been pushing himself to keep up with her and Will all this time. Tessa sensed Will was more aware of the change in her than Jem was. They'd done some deep kissing and a little more, but always at night with the lights down. She just wasn't as comfortable naked as she'd once been. Tessa liked the lights off, as if the darkness was a blanket shielding her from exposure.