Addiction

Chapter 8-3

FEBRUARY 2005

As the months went by, Sophie and Taylor became inseparable – where you found one, the other was not far behind. Sophie fancied herself in love for the first time in her life, the strange attraction she'd felt for her stepbrother forgotten in all but the darkest corners of her mind. Logan, she noticed, kept a pretty busy schedule. Uni, home, study, eat, bed, uni. The only times she crossed his path were breakfast and dinner times, and even those were a rarity, her stepbrother preferring to eat with class mates in their dormitories.

She began to wonder why Logan bothered to come home at all, especially on the weekends. When he invariably turned up on a Sunday morning, the smell of alcohol fumes from his breath was over-powering, and more often than not, he'd bring some floozy home to hang out in his room with.

Two days before her seventeenth birthday, he surprised them all by declaring it a weekend event, and that they should celebrate from Friday – the day before her birthday – to Sunday – the day after. “What do you want to do?” he asked her, his face a study in seriousness. “Anything at all.”

“Well,” she hesitated. “There's a new movie coming out in the theater, Taylor said he'd go with me, but he has to help his dad in the shop instead.” Taylor's dad ran a small printing business in town, and during the busier months coming up to the holidays, Taylor would have to spend weekends helping his dad catch up on orders. It was coming up to Valentine's Day and you'd be surprised at the orders that came in. From girlfriends wanting their faces on underwear to boyfriends wanting their own designs made up to show how romantic they could be.

“The theater? Done deal. When?”

“It premiers on Friday night.” She shuffled her feet, nervous. Harry was glaring at them, and her mom was busy rolling out pastry for dinner. “I guess we can all go to that.”

“No can do, sweetie,” her mom chirped, trimming the edges of her pastry to fit the dish it was covering. “Harry and I have a dinner-date that night. We booked our table way in advance too, or I'd cancel.”

“No, it's um, it's fine,” she replied. “We can go another time.”

“What a good idea,” Harry agreed. “Another time sounds great.”

“Nonsense, Harry.” Marie, swept the pastry brush across the finished pie and slid it into the oven. “They can go along by themselves. They're not children. Why don't you invite Serena, honey?” She stood with her hands on her hips, oblivious.

“I already asked her, Mom. She's going out with Michael that night.” Her pulse beat a panicked rhythm in her mouth as she thought of being with Logan in the theater. In the dark. Alone. Without the back-up of her best friend.

Serena had started dating Michael shortly after Sophie had gotten together with Taylor, and usually the four of them were a double-date extraordinaire – they were supposed to double-date Friday night to the movies but since Taylor had gotten stuck working in the shop, Serena and Michael had made different plans.

It will be fine, she told herself. You're over that stupid little fascination you had with Logan. It was only silly kid's stuff, anyway.

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