Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

I thought if I did what they said, the assholes would have no reason to hit me.

Unless the beer wasn’t cold. I certainly paid the price for that when their refrigerator broke. Ever since the cast came off, I’ve been freezing mugs.

I move my hair to the right to make sure the lump is covered and swipe on a coat of sparkly pink lip gloss, the shiny kind that makes my hair stick to my lips if there’s a gust of wind. My cheeks are flushed pink without any help from a bronzer. I’ll have a real friend in town already, and hopefully Damon can put in a good word to be a waitress or something.

My phone beeps with a text message that my Uber driver is two minutes away, so I close my hotel room door behind me and head to the elevator. Inside, I check my face again in a compact mirror to see how it fares against harsh fluorescent lights. The lights in the bathroom in my hotel room are soft and perfect for putting on makeup, but that doesn’t always translate to the real world. But I’m good. No caking.

I see Jerry and note the plate on his silver Honda Accord, and it all checks out. He has Damon’s apartment address plugged into the app, and off we go.

It’s only a ten-minute ride, thankfully in the opposite direction of yesterday’s shithole motel situation. We’re only on a highway for five minutes and I watch my new home pass me by. The supermarkets, The Walmart. The Home Goods, my favorite. Then we pass a stretch of land that has the banks, the professional buildings, and the doctors’ offices. Jerry turns off the highway and we roll down a dark, tree-lined street. When it opens up, there is a hospital, a few strip malls, and then an apartment center, which the Uber app tells him to turn into.

There are four buildings in the complex, and I know this because we pass three of them and Damon’s is the last one. They don’t look super fancy, all standing five stories. From the dark, they look like white stucco on the outside. There’s a keypad by the front of the main door to each building, so I’ll have to be buzzed in.

I thank Jerry and jump out of the Uber, being careful not to slam his door. Once, about three months ago, Asshole and I were getting out of an Uber that took us home after what I thought was a fun night of dinner and drinks with our neighbors. The driver thought I slammed the door too hard, and it dinged Asshole’s perfect five-star rating.

I learned the hard way never to do that again.

At the keypad, I search for Damon Moretti and hit the button. There is a buzzing sound that indicates it’s okay for me to open the front door. He didn’t even confirm it was me through the call box. Once inside, I wait at the elevator and when it opens, an attractive couple walks out. They aren’t holding hands, and both wear their frustration with each other on their faces like a pressure cooker about to blow. I give them a quick smile, which they don’t return, and get in the elevator.

When I get to the fourth floor, there is a ding from the speaker above me and I follow the sign to the left to go to apartment 4D. The carpets in the hallway are brown and old, like something from the living room of Foster Family Number Whatever, because they hadn’t updated the house since it was built in 1960. Fluorescent lights hang overhead, which I was afraid of, and outside each door there is a little brass light. The one in front of 4B is broken and casts a dark shadow, making it look like the entryway to Hell House. I knock on the door to 4D.

Footsteps approach, and Damon opens the door, shirtless and in jeans. “Hey. I need another minute to finish getting ready,” he says, then walks away without properly inviting me in.

O-kay then. Opening the door shirtless? Is this supposed to be some twisted date? Because I thought we were just going to be buddies.

The door is still open, so I invite myself in and close it behind me. I place my purse on the granite counter. The counters look new, but the appliances look old. White. Rusted in the corners. Electric stovetop, not gas. The tile on the floor is fake linoleum. The place is nicer than a lot of the places I’ve lived in. A quick scan shows a living room with a small eating area next to a single door with a knob, which I assume goes out to a small balcony, but the four small windows on the door are covered with a solid blue curtain so I can’t be sure. To my left, there’s a hallway that I believe leads to the bathroom and two bedrooms. The carpets run throughout the whole place, except for the kitchen, and look like they’re in need of a decent shampoo. There are two candles burning, one on the counter and another on the cocktail table in front of the couch. It smells like Christmas. At least the Christmas I got to see in school, when I went.

Most of my Christmases smelled of rail gin, stale beer, and baked beans.

When Damon reappears, he’s fully dressed, his dark hair perfectly full and loose, not slicked back as he had it in the bar. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, and a belt with silver studs to match his boots. His tattoo on his arm shows, and it’s a picture of a heart with a dagger through it, blood dripping down the tip.

“Nice place,” I say. “How long have you lived here?”

He shrugs. “Couple of years. You want a beer?”

“Sure,” I say. “Is your