Sophia's Dilemma Read online

  Sophia’s Dilemma

  by

  K T Bowes

  K T Bowes

  Copyright K T Bowes ©2013

  Published by Hakarimata Press

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  Acknowledgement

  This book is dedicated to my scientist daughter, who encourages me with kind words and still emails me the corrections. Love you Charlotte.

  Chapter One

  “Yeah? You wanna try it?” The voice caused the smaller boy to back away, dropping his hand to his side.

  “Na, bro. Not today.”

  “Not ever!” The tall man-boy gave his adversary a withering look which left him in no doubt who the alpha male was. “Push me again and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Ok.” The other boy, a few minutes ago so cocky and confident but now deflated like a balloon, picked up his bag and blended into the crowd. His face looked downcast and his friends surged around him with excitement. Dane McArdle was a few weeks away from his seventeenth birthday. He was of average height, but his proportions showed he still had a way to go in an upwards direction before he was done growing. His features were handsome and brooding, reminiscent of the father he once loved dearly and whose death scarred his life irrevocably. He hardly ever smiled. Until recently there was little to smile about and the world had been denied the profound transformation of his face, into something less intimidating, a tiny chip in his front tooth representing the only blemish. He pushed his way through the crowd of teenage bodies, going against the flow of people leaving the school building.

  The other kids moved out of his way, shrinking back from his reputation more than from the boy himself. His school bag was strung across his body and his hands sunk deep into the pockets of his second-hand grey school trousers. His face, usually an unreadable mask, lit up in a smile that looked unusual on him. His blue eyes danced and sparkled and his lips looked full and pink against his dark hair and skin as he ploughed relentlessly through the crowd and back into school.

  “It’s Dane!” a younger girl hissed at her friends. “He’s so hot!”

  “He’s trouble!” replied her companion.

  “He’s the strong silent type. I could go for that,” she sniggered.

  “He looks happy and that can’t be good. Come on. The bus is leaving!” The girls sped off towards the bus stop, Dane’s smile adding a whole new dimension to their fantasies.

  “Where ya going, bro?” a blonde boy called to him, embarrassed when Dane ignored him and kept pushing on through the bodies. The boy turned and cut a track through the wake that began to close ranks after Dane’s passage. He fingered the packet of cigarettes in his pocket but wouldn’t dare light up inside school. “One more dean’s detention away from complete expulsion!” the dean’s voice returned to him. He couldn’t risk that at the moment, not with nothing else to go to.

  He followed Dane to the doors of the art room and watched as the taller boy leaned against the door frame, looking at something – or someone – inside the room. Dane’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and there was a serenity about him which made the scraggly blonde boy jealous. Darren heard a gentle girl’s voice and Dane’s face broke into a wide beam. Darren could only see him from the side, but it was obvious Dane was pleased to see the owner of the voice.

  A girl from their tutor class came to the door, fitting herself into a navy school blazer whilst struggling with a heavy rucksack.

  “Give it here.” Dane easily lifted the strap of the rucksack and swung it over his shoulder. It weighed her down but looked empty on Dane’s muscular frame. The girl was pretty, very pretty. Darren had liked her since Year 10 when they worked on an English project together. She was polite and considerate, not treating him like the outsider he felt he was. He asked her out on a date and she smiled kindly and told him her parents wouldn’t allow her to date until she was sixteen. It was so gently done. There was no, ‘get lost, you’re an ugly git,’ or ‘not if you were the last man on earth,’ none of that. Dane gave him a slap once for talking dirty about her. Suddenly it all made sense if he had the hots for her too.

  Sophia Armitage had dark brown eyes with long black lashes and wavy chestnut coloured hair that curled at the ends down near the middle of her back. It swished in her pony tail when she walked or turned her head and in Year 10, it smelled so good. Darren hadn’t been able to get close enough since to know if it still did. Her skin was tanned and healthy now, although she looked dreadful a couple of weeks ago after the stabbing. She needed an operation to sort it all out. The word around school was that Dane had been a hero and saved her, but he didn’t talk much to Darren anymore. Darren flexed his fingers in temper. I thought we were mates, he complained inwardly, knowing he would never do it to Dane’s face.

  Their friendship group had detonated spectacularly a few weeks ago, leaving the other members drifting around like flotsam. Darren felt vulnerable and angry. So this is why, is it? Because of this chick?

  “Sandra should have killed you,” he chuntered to himself, keeping out of sight. “She liked him for years. You don’t get to do this, Sophia Armitage.”

  “Any news on your mother?” the girl asked Dane and he shook his head.

  “No. And I don’t want to know. She could have turned him away or got the cops when he got out of prison. But she didn’t. Now she’s lost her kids. She made her choice.”

  “But...”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  Sophia’s ponytail swung as she finished putting her blazer on and she smiled up at Dane. “Ok, sorry.”

  Then it happened. Dane bent down and kissed her full on the mouth and she did nothing to stop him. She looked as though she quite liked it. Dane put his hands on her hips and pulled her in close to him, burying his face in her hair and probably breathing in the lovely clean perfumed smell, which Darren craved every time he saw the girl. The blonde boy balled his fists and gritted his teeth, thinking all kinds of awful swear words in his head.

  “We agreed,” Sophia said quietly into Dane’s ear, “that it would be better just to be friends at school.”

  “School’s finished!” he complained and kissed her again before putting an arm protectively around her shoulders and leading her down the corridor, in the opposite direction to Darren.

  “Have you heard anything about Sandra?” Sophia turned her face to look up at him and Dane shook his head.

  “I’ve heard she’s not allowed back. The cops are charging her with wounding with intent.”

  Sophia stopped dead. “I’m kinda relieved not to have to see her here. But I feel responsible. If I hadn’t head butted her...”

  “Then you’d be dead!” Dane’s voice was stern. “Wise up, Soph. This started way before you and me. I knew she liked me and I ignored it. She was just my stepdad’s niece and as rotten as him. I was never interested. It was always you.” Dane reached his hand out and stroked Sophia’s cheek with such tenderness it made Darren’s eyes bug. His car keys jangled to the floor and he backed away from the corner just as Dane looked his way. Dane reached down and kissed Sophia’s upturned lips and then took her arm, moving her along the corridor.

  So that’s his game then! Darren raged inside his head as he bent down to retrieve his keys. No wonder Sandra was driven to distraction, enough to really hurt the other girl. She fancied Dane since primary school, even before her uncle married his mum. It hadn’t stopped her messing around with the other boys in the group, but they had all knew where her real interests lay.

  Darren drew the cigarettes out o
f his pocket and lit one up, satisfied as the poisonous chemicals were sucked down into his lungs. He thought about the other girls in the dwindling group and contemplated seeking them out for some fun. Jane was usually good for a laugh but had begun to get clingy lately, demanding things like movie nights and gifts in return for their fumbled pleasures. Louise was acting weird.

  He walked down the corridor, following after Dane and Sophia, puffing at the lighted cigarette. He couldn’t resist the urge to jump up and wave the burning white stick underneath the smoke sensors half way down. It took a couple of goes, but eventually the alarms sounded and he whooped and ran off, remembering too late the new security cameras installed just after the stabbing. He ran to his beaten up old car in the student car park, suspecting he had just enjoyed his last day at school. Ever.

  Chapter Two

  “Oh crap!” the Year 12 dean moaned as the piercing noise rang out into the car park. “Don’t move!” He just intercepted his best student and wasn’t intending to let him escape that easily. “Someone else will sort out the fire alarm. It won’t be a real fire. The damn thing’s gone off eighteen times in the last few weeks and the insurance company are now refusing to pay for the fire brigade call-out. Look, never mind that, Dane. Where’s your application form?”

  Dane shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, his scuffed black school shoes grinding the gravel beneath.

  “Why haven’t you given it to me yet?” The teacher vented his frustration. “This scholarship would really help you right now. Geez mate, money just to come to school and do Years 12 and 13, why would you not apply?” Dane shrugged and kept quiet, but the man hadn’t finished. “Fill in the form I gave you, bring me your birth certificate before Friday and I’ll photocopy it. Mr Pearce is a Justice of the Peace, so he can verify it and I tell you what, I’ll even post the damn thing myself! Just do it, Dane!” The teacher tugged angrily on a shaggy red beard at his throat and peered at the student in front of him, aware the young man was almost a head taller than him. When did that happen?

  Dane’s face remained impassive. It was an expression he perfected during the most difficult years of his life, protecting his tiny siblings from a pseudoephedrine addicted mother and a brutal stepfather, who deliberately got her hooked each time he came out of prison. He said it made her more obliging.

  Alex Moeras gritted his teeth and stared the young man down. “I mean it, Dane. I know you’ve got a lot on at the moment. But I want to help keep you in school.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dane’s voice was expressionless in the face of the man’s angst.

  The teacher relented and stepped closer. “Look, I admit it, your results can’t hurt my statistics. The rest of your graphics class are...of dubious quality. You can lift my credibility just by putting your name in the right place on the exam paper, which is more than the rest of them will manage.” He smiled at Dane and it appeared as more of a grimace. He looked hopefully down at the elfin-like girlfriend. The pair looked cosy and relaxed in each other’s company. She seemed like a nice girl, not that Alex ever taught her. He stared at her appealingly. “Can you make sure he does it? I need to get it in the post by this Friday. Otherwise, it’s too late.”

  Sophia smiled back at the dumpy, red-haired man with the tiny eyeglasses which made him look like a blind mole. She daren’t nod in agreement, unsure if she could ever make Dane do anything he didn’t want to. With an awkward smile, she broke eye contact and moved around to the passenger side of the car, watching a blonde boy from her year lope across the gravel with a lighted cigarette. Alex wagged his finger at Dane and in a threatening voice, told him, “Friday at the latest, first thing in my office. Don’t make me come and find you!”

  Dane flung his school bag and Sophia’s into the back of the car and climbed in, slumping back against the seat and raising his arms above his head. Sophia watched him as his shirt exposed a swathe of muscular stomach, a little unnerved as he groaned frustration. “Bloody hell!” Dane ran his hands through his dark, wavy hair and thumped the steering wheel angrily with strong, man-sized fists. The steering wheel shook and the car vibrated with the force of his irritation.

  Sophia’s brow knotted in fear as she contemplated getting back out of the car. Dane’s unpredictability terrified her and she watched him with wide, frightened eyes. “Sorry, sorry,” he gushed, seizing her right hand as her left one grappled for the door handle. “It’s fine; you know I’d never hurt a girl. I’m not angry with you; I’m just angry.”

  “Because your mate set the alarm off?” Sophia asked, her brown eyes blinking in innocence.

  Dane looked at her in surprise. “Is that what he did?” He saw the skinny blonde boy as the teacher railed at him. Darren tore across to his car with a lighted cigarette trailing smoke in his hand, moments after the alarm sounded. There was only one possible explanation. Dane sighed. “No, not that.” He pulled Sophia in towards him, holding her tightly. He liked her so much - had done ever since their first day at school as thirteen year olds in Year 9. It burnt into him like a physical pain. He held her because she made him feel whole again – and because he didn’t want her to do a runner.

  Dane ran his fingers up the side of Sophia’s soft neck and pressed his lips to hers. He heard her give a soft sigh as her lips parted willingly for him and the electricity arced between them.

  “No,” Sophia whispered, breaking the kiss. “Someone might see us.”

  Dane sighed in frustration. “You’re safe. Sandra’s not around. The others won’t do anything to you. They won’t risk it.” Dane’s face hardened. “Unless it’s because I’m not good enough for you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Sophia spat, her brown eyes misting with naked anger. “How could you think that?”

  Dane sat back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. “My mum’s a junkie, my stepdad’s a convicted drug dealer and I voluntarily surrendered my little brother and sister to foster carers. I’m hardly a shining example of clean living, am I?”

  “None of that’s your fault!” Sophia grabbed his hand back and kissed the back of it. Her lips were soft on his skin and Dane bit his lip at the sensuous feel of it. He took a giant swallow and almost choked on it.

  The girl laughed and tossed her hair. “Careful.” The anger melted in her eyes, quickly replaced by mischief as she stroked his dark hair away from his face. Dane kept his eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Tell me what’s wrong then?” Sophia shifted across and settled herself sideways on his knee, wincing at the jab of the gear lever against her painful thigh.

  “Still hurting?” Dane asked, saddened by the slight nod and the way her face became shrouded in misery. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He reached his arms around her slender waist and exhaled slowly as Sophia slumped over his chest, resting her head against his shoulder.

  “It’s fine. It’s heaps better already. I just need to forget...all that.” She kissed the underside of his jaw and Dane swallowed again, running his hands down her waist and along her skirt, feeling the silky stockings under his palm. He bit his lip. As his fingers caressed the softness, exploring under the chunky hem of the school skirt, Sophia halted his wanderings, pressing her hand over his to still his fingers. Dane wrestled with his heart rate and blood pressure momentarily, his forehead against Sophia’s curls.

  “Distract both of us,” she sighed, sitting up and accidentally grinding her bottom against his thighs.

  “What if I don’t want a distraction,” he breathed, kissing her cheek and feeling the heat of her heightened colour.

  “You need one.” She pushed at his chest. “We both do! Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  Dane exhaled loudly and groaned, tipping his head back against the scarred leather headrest. “It’s too hard to explain.”

  “So try.” Sophia planted her lips over his, pulling away at the instant dilation of his pupils. His blue eyes sparkled with danger and she snuggled against him instead.

  “Fine!�
� Dane sounded grumpy and she tensed, sensing the old, reactionary Dane McArdle just beneath the surface.

  “I have filled it in – the form for the graphics scholarship – but I can’t hand it to him. I don’t have my birth certificate and I need it to apply. Like the man says, it has to be a verified copy. I don’t have time to get another one, not that I know how anyway, so I can’t apply.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him that?” Sophia asked, her voice muffled from the front of his shirt, which snuggled her deliciously. “Mmnn, I love it when you cuddle me,” she whispered. “Nobody else does, not since Mum left...” She left the sentence unfinished and Dane wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him tightly.

  “Moeras will think I’m an idiot,” Dane answered.

  “He will if you don’t tell him the truth. He’s only trying to help.”

  “I know. Stupid thing is, I know exactly where it is. I just can’t get it, not without going back...there.”

  Sophia pulled her head out of his embrace, staring up at him. Her eyes betrayed her sadness. “Is it at your mum’s place?”

  Dane shrugged woodenly, his body stiff and unyielding with remembered pain. “It should be, unless my stepdad’s burned the lot in the back yard like he did last time he got out of prison.” Dane shuddered involuntarily, remembering his hurried flight with tiny siblings in tow before his stepdad trashed everything, including the art project he spent months on.

  “What about your case worker, from Child Services. Can’t she go and get it?”

  Dane snorted, the sound rich with sarcasm and lack of hope. “Not likely. Not without cops standing either side of her, not after last time! I’m almost seventeen, Soph. They only worry about the little kids. They don’t give a crap about me. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”

  Sophia sighed and pushed her face back into his warm chest. “I know you’re not living at the hostel. You’re sleeping in your car, aren’t you?” She didn’t look at his face, not wanting to damage his fragile ego.