Sophia's Dilemma Read online

  She hovered by the empty bus stop, thinking of Dane with a painful stab of guilt and concern. Her last view of him was the top of his head as he pounded his stepfather’s face into a pulp. The image was horrific; his lips set in a firm line, his brow knotted and fists flailing. Two fairly significant punches landed successfully and Sophia heard the awful sound of bone on bone. “I have to go back,” she sniffed.

  The thought of retracing her footsteps filled her with misery. Her nerves were shot. Sophia’s hands shook as she peered at the screen through her tears, clearing her father’s number and praying for courage to dial the cops and endure Dane’s wrath afterwards. The thought of a second betrayal of him made her weep fat tears. Instead, she turned and ran back in the direction of the derelict house, her school shoes making a slapping sound on the pavement as she bravely returned.

  She reached the end of Dane’s street when she heard wheels screech to a halt next to her. Terrified, she leapt backwards and ended up half sitting in somebody’s hedge. The spiteful branches stuck into the backs of her legs, gouging and scratching. “Get away from me. Get away!” she howled.

  Dane emerged from the vehicle, leaving the driver’s door open in his panic to get to Sophia. He ran around and tried to embrace her, hurt stabbing like a physical pain in his eyes as she pushed him away, too hard for it to have been just a reaction. “Soph, I’m so sorry. I wish you didn’t have to see that.” His chest heaved as he tried again, reaching his arms out towards her, seeing what a struggle it was for her to breathe properly. “Oh crap, look at your neck.” A set of spiteful scratches and gouges were evident on the right side of her neck, turning from a sickly raised area to red and mottled as the blood rushed back into the violated skin cells. “I could kill him!” Dane wanted to reach out and touch it, to cover it up and pretend it didn’t exist, erasing it from memory and physicality. “That he touched you at all makes me sick, but leaving marks makes me wanna kill him. I hate him!” Dane struggled with a deep anger. It burned like a furnace in his soul, dripping hatred down into the hard black residue at the centre of his being, where the horrors and humiliations of his own life hardened into a thick impenetrable crust.

  “Why did you go there?” he asked, the words entering the airspace between them as intelligible mutterings. “I told you why I couldn’t go back.”

  Sophia breathed out slowly through pursed lips as though experiencing labour pains and remained sitting in someone’s front hedge. She didn’t know what to say to Dane, or how to deal with the recurring image of him hitting the man on the ground. The violence seemed relentless. “You were killing him,” she sobbed. “You pulped his face and it’s all my fault.”

  Dane’s eye blackened in the sunshine and a long cut reached from the side of his nose to the middle of his cheek. It dripped blood slowly down his face and touched his chin before pitching elegantly onto the concrete pavement like a graceful red ballerina. His knuckles were bruised and gashed. Someone tooted their horn angrily at the driver’s door, still protruding into the gathering traffic and Dane scooted round to shut it. His movements were heavy and he limped.

  “Is he dead?” Sophia asked and her voice was a whisper. “I nearly called the cops.”

  Dane shook his head, his expression appalled. “No! His mate pulled me off and gave me a hiding. Then they both joined in and I think I bust a rib.” He rubbed at an area of his stomach, screwing his face into an agonised wince. “Why did you go there, Soph? I can’t believe you did that! And if you called the cops...” he gritted his teeth in anger, “you and me, we’d be done. You know how I feel about them!”

  “Thanks!” she shouted at him, taking Dane by surprise. “I went there for you. You told me to go and I got here and was worried sick for you. And now you’re threatening me? You go away!” She got up from the prickly hedge and pushed at Dane’s chest. “Get away from me. You’re just like everyone else!”

  Dane’s mouth dropped open and his brow furrowed. There was blood in his mouth and Sophia saw it as his tongue shot out to lick his lower lip. It made her feel sick and she bent double, retching into the hedge. “Soph,” he whispered, patting her gently on the back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Nothing would make me dump you. I’m sorry, babe. Listen to me.”

  “How did you find me?” she sniffed, struggling to maintain her equilibrium and spitting into the hedge without dignity.

  “You left your laptop in the car. I got to work and found it so I drove back. I saw you get on the bus at the end of your road and wondered where you were going.”

  “You followed me?” Sophia’s voice rose in indignation.

  “Yeah, I did. And as it turns out, I’m glad.” He patted her back a little too hard and she pushed his hand away. Dane ran his hand through his hair, hissing in pain as he felt the egg shaped lump on the back of his skull. “Bastards!”

  Sophia pushed herself to a standing position, batting Dane’s hands away. “So, you’re blaming me for all this?” she asked, cringing at how pathetic she sounded. “It’s all my fault?”

  Dane stood up, wobbling slightly on his feet. His eyes seemed to come and go in focus and Sophia looked at him strangely. “Yeah.” He nodded, the action making him wince in pain. “Yeah, it is your bloody fault. I told you to stay away. Do you ever listen? The cops stopped me on the way down here for a breath test and road check. If something had gone wrong, I might not have got here in time. Do you honestly think my mother looked like that before he got his hands on her? I can’t believe you did this. I’m so angry with you!”

  “You still found me!” she sulked.

  “Yeah and aren’t you lucky!” he snapped. “I just didn’t wanna believe you’d be that stupid!”

  Sophia’s mobile phone trilled out shrilly into the evening air and frightened her. She dropped it and it broke spectacularly into three pieces on the pavement. Dane hissed in pain and wavered slightly as he bent down to retrieve it, salvaging the different parts and managing to fix it back together again. The back of his white school shirt was soaked with blood, garish and freaky in the gentle afternoon sunshine.

  Sophia stood silently and watched his long, gentle fingers click the battery back into place and press the sim card into its little slot. She tried to unite the image of these sensitive, arty hands with the fists that pounded the man’s face into a bloody mess. The grazes on his knuckles wept clear liquid stained with blood.

  Her heart began to pound less and her breathing evened out. When the phone rang again, Dane answered it and handed it to Sophia. His words seemed slurred as he said, “Here, take it. It’s your dad.”

  Sophia reached out and took the phone, her fingers brushing Dane’s palm. She felt the surge of electricity between them and felt guilty for what she caused. “Dad, I’m on Bankside Road. Please can you get me?” Her voice broke pitifully but she stepped away from Dane’s offered embrace. “Please be quick, Dad. Please.”

  “I’m not far from there,” her father’s disjointed voice crackled from the handset. “I’ll be a few minutes in this traffic.”

  Dane waited with Sophia until Edgar drew up in front of them, jumping out of his driver’s door, instinctively knowing something was wrong. He held his daughter as she sobbed, looking for an explanation from the bleeding boy in front of him. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Dane shrugged and looked away. “Ask her,” he replied and his voice sounded strange. He climbed back into his car, looking awkward and uncoordinated. With a half-hearted wave, he started the engine and was gone.

  Chapter Four

  “So you’re telling me you violated his trust; went somewhere he stated quite clearly he didn’t want you to go and now he’s got you out of your stupid mess – you actually think he was out of control?” Edgar listed his daughter’s offences on his fingers and sat back in his chair, throwing his knife and fork down on the table loudly. The other people in the café stopped and turned to face the girl and her father, their faces alight with curiosity.

  Sophi
a looked around, embarrassed and surprised at the stance Edgar’s stance. “You’re taking his side?” Her cheeks flushed with anger, the hysterical tears long since dried on the pretty face. “He pounded the man’s face in!” she hissed. “I didn’t think he could stop!”

  Edgar shook his head in disbelief, a peppering of grey hair amongst the black looking suddenly more prolific. “Have you any idea who these people are?” he asked, incredulous. “They cook ‘P’ Sophia - pseudoephedrine. You’ve just told me his mother was so scared she...well, how scared is scared, you silly girl!”

  “I don’t need this!” Sophia replied angrily, getting up out of her seat and sending it skittering across the floor with a sound like nails on a blackboard. Gritting her teeth, she stomped over to the door of the café and out onto the street, marching off in the general direction of home, ignoring Edgar’s shouts behind her. It would be a twenty minute walk if her father didn’t manage to catch up with her in his car. “I’ll go down the alleys then. Stuff you!” she muttered.

  “Hi,” said a male voice and turning round, Sophia found herself looking at the blonde boy from Dane’s old crowd. She worked with him once in a class years ago and stress erased his name from her brain. “You walkin’ home?” he asked and she nodded. “Cool I’ll walk a bit with ya.” He grinned happily while Sophia struggled to recollect his name, realising he was intent on having a conversation. Her wan smile did nothing to dissuade him and eventually they fell companionably into step, with the boy doing all the talking. Darren.

  “I just went to me mate’s place,” he said. “Car ran out of gas, so I went in that cafe for a cold drink for walking home. I’ll get the car tomorrow.”

  Sophia smiled politely and fought to be civil. “Do you live far?”

  Darren shrugged. “Yeah. My place is along the road from Dane’s. Well, where he used to live.”

  “Why don’t you catch the bus? This is totally the wrong way.” Sophia stopped and looked around her for the nearest bus stop. “I might have a couple of dollars...” She groped around in her pockets, remembering Dane’s mother holding her last five dollar note in the wasted fingers. Her coffee rose into her throat. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “Na, you don’t look it. I’ll walk with you for a bit, then shoot off.”

  “Thanks.” Sophia had the decency to look grateful.

  Darren blathered on throughout the twenty minute walk to Sophia’s Flagstaff house and she listened to very little of it, nodding in all the right places but working to banish the awful images of her visit to the derelict house. “I thought I’d be stood down by today. I set the fire alarms off last night...by mistake obviously. I thought they’d have checked the cameras by now and seen me.”

  Sophia nodded again and didn’t comment. She turned to check the road was clear and her ponytail swung to one side. Darren saw the marks on her neck and let out a low whistle. “Dane rough you up?” he asked, sounding concerned. He spun her round by the shoulders to examine the deep scratches. “Didn’t think he was into that.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Sophia defended him quickly, pushing Darren’s hands away. Something about his touch made her cringe. “It was someone else. Dane sorted it out for me.” She bit her lip and wished the teenager would just go away and leave her alone. He showed no sign of doing so.

  Darren shrugged and sounded disappointed, “Shame, I was hoping you two broke up. Whoever it was, I bet he fixed ‘em good though.” He gave a wicked chuckle. “Who was it?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Sophia bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears. They crossed a road, walked up the street and then navigated another alleyway. The suburban back streets were a maze. Darren chatted aimlessly, loping along next to her in shorts and flip-flops. Pale blonde hair spread evenly across spindly legs and his toes were unusually fat.

  “Oh, what a mess,” she sighed into an awkward silence, missing Dane’s capable presence and wishing she handled things differently. Edgar was right. She had been unfair to him. She was the one in the wrong.

  “What’s up?” Darren stopped in the middle of the pavement.

  “Nothing, sorry.” Wanting to text Dane and apologise, Sophia fumbled her phone out of her pocket and it fell apart on the footpath once again. “Damn!”

  Darren retrieved all the parts and looked at it hopelessly. “Na, you won’t be able to fix that,” he said, pushing the pieces around in the palm of his hand. “I could probably nick you a nicer one. Want me to?”

  Sophia shook her head vigorously, “No, please, don’t.” Her tone was a little rough and Darren looked hurt. Sophia made a concerted effort to be nicer to him, reasoning it was better to walk with somebody, rather than alone through the alleys and underpasses to her house. At the end of the last grassy reserve of Discovery Park, Sophia turned to Darren and gave him a forced, lovely smile. “Thanks for walking me back. I’m fine from here.”

  Darren looked reluctant to leave. He flicked his blonde hair out of his eyes and stood awkwardly facing her, fumbling as he reached for her wrists. Sophia knew he was going to kiss her and dodged his hasty movement at the last minute. “Which house is yours?” He sounded hopeful of another try and Sophia cringed inwardly, working hard not to show her distaste.

  “My dad will be home by now. He’s not in the best mood, so it’s best I don’t invite you in.”

  Chastising herself for her inhospitable behaviour, she left him on the pavement and walked towards home, anticipating Edgar’s wrath. She knew she would be in a heap of trouble and steeled herself to face the music. The big stucco house was around the next corner and she traipsed towards it, viewing it from the side, her footsteps getting heavier as she went. It wasn’t until she turned into the driveway that she came face to face with her father, leaning with his arms folded on the bonnet of a car. His backside rested casually against the bumper as though relaxed but Sophia saw the tiny vein ticking in his neck and sensed trouble.

  She stopped dead, preparing her speech in her head – ‘Sorry dad for running off, I’ve just had a rough day,’ no, that wouldn’t work, it was far too self-pitying and Edgar didn’t do sympathy. He admitted he didn’t find bringing up girls easy. He said it was because he’d never been one. She settled finally on, ‘Sorry Dad for running off,’ but the words caught in her throat as she realised whose car bonnet her father leaned on.

  Dane’s old brown car looked square and tatty against the smart house behind it. Sophia bit her bottom lip and had the decency to look ashamed at the sight of her father’s worried face. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  Edgar shook his head. “Save it!” He observed her sternly and jerked his head backwards towards the stairs. “In!”

  Sophia’s feet dragged up the steps and the scar on her thigh pulled as she bent down to take her shoes off. She rubbed at it obviously, courting a little gentleness from Edgar. The action was entirely wasted. He kicked his work shoes off and jammed them in the cupboard by the door and then pushed his daughter in the back to make her go upstairs. It wasn’t a hard push or even a jab, but he somehow still managed to convey his great irritation by pressing his fingers into the middle of her back a couple of times. Sophia felt like she was ten years old again and instinctively wanted to throw a paddy, considering leaning back into his fingers and becoming difficult and obstructive. But it was just a fleeting thought. She didn’t dare.

  Edgar was the family disciplinarian, especially with his son, Matthew. Their mother was the softie. It was ironic really. Such a softie she went missing for over two months while she established herself in a new relationship just around the corner, with another lawyer from her office. Sophia threw herself down on the sofa in the family room, opening her mouth to start issuing her apology whilst wanting to know why Dane’s car was on their driveway. Until her mouth started working, she wasn’t sure which would come out first. Luckily for her, it was the apology. “I really am sorry Dad,” she said, managing to sound genuine. “I shouldn’t have walked off like that. It was sill
y.”

  Edgar nodded and messed around with the kettle and the tea pot. Then shaking his head, he reached up to the drinks cupboard above the fridge and grabbed a bottle of whisky, pouring a generous slug into a tumbler and sipping it hungrily. “Sod it!” He looked at her with defiance.

  Sophia’s heart sank, blaming herself for forcing her father to turn to alcohol. If she was a better daughter, things might have been different. Maybe her mother wouldn’t have left. She hung her head sadly. “It’s ok. I know everything’s my fault,” she sighed, staring at a line of dangling thread on her skirt.

  “Don’t start that! Let’s not even go there. We’ll just deal with this one minute at a time. Your mother made her own choices without even thinking about the rest of us so don’t take on responsibility for her! Try sorting your own crap out first.” Edgar reached into the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the first aid box they kept for emergencies. Sophia hoped he would tend to her neck, feeling a little softer towards him, but he didn’t. He laid it on the work surface and left it there, spewing unopened packets of bandages and gauze.

  The sound of a door closing further down the house made Sophia start, her brown eyes widening with hope. Perhaps Matthew had arrived home from his London University, or maybe her mother came to her senses and moved back in. It was a foolish hope, chiefly because Dane’s car sat unattended on the driveway. Sophia shouldn’t have been surprised when he walked through the doorway from the hall. He glanced at her momentarily but without acknowledgement.

  “Let’s have a look at you,” Edgar stated and they fiddled around in the first aid box. Sophia watched as her father gently bathed Dane’s cut lip, the gash on his cheek and a wound to the back of his head. Edgar went over to the freezer and pulled out a cold pack, having to wrestle it from the ice it was welded to and Sophia suppressed a gasp of horror as Dane lifted his shirt up and exposed the dreadful red and black bruising around his ribs. “I think I should take you up to the hospital,” Edgar began and Dane pulled his shirt down over the cold pack, shaking his head firmly.