That's what had drawn her to this dive bar, hidden away at the end of a narrow alleyway on a side street three blocks south of the house. She'd always assumed bars were pretty dingy places, but nothing could have prepared her for this place. She'd seen the name come up a couple of times in Ryan's messages to his friends, and it apparently had a reputation for hiring bartenders who didn't look too closely at ID cards. Now she'd seen it she understood why: no respectable adult would ever want to drink in such a hole.
The place was... well, it was awful. The tables were sticky. The lights were dim. The jukebox had been playing the same dozen or so songs on a loop since she'd arrived, and for some reason it seemed to be stocked with music from just two artists: Bruce Springsteen and Celine Dion.
It was also the kind of place that served beer in disposable plastic cups, and while Sophia's experience of bars extended only to what she'd seen in movies she guessed it wasn't a style choice. In fact, she was pretty sure it was because this was the kind of place where people got so wasted they couldn't hold onto a glass long enough to finish their drink, and the breakages had become too expensive.
Sophia tried to block out the grungy, sticky atmosphere and retreated back into her own world. She stared at the Facebook feed on her iPhone screen, searching for a confidante she might be able to talk to about all this shit, but no matter how much she screwed up her eyes and frowned at the pixels they still displayed the same 30 or so friends.
Not even friends, really. Sophia had read that the average college aged woman had around 650 Facebook friends. Surely they couldn't all be close - nobody can have that many real friends, surely - but it was probably safe to assume that, hidden away in those 650 faces, most young women knew at least a few people they could tell anything; a few who knew all of their embarrassing secrets, darkest desires and most hopeful aspirations. Everyone has that one friend who knows about the time they accidentally peed their pants in school, or had a weird sex dream about someone embarrassing.
Not Sophia. She'd never quite managed to crack that code... never figured out the trick to winning friends that every other girl seemed to just know. She'd never been able to make that leap from 'hey, is this seat taken?' to 'hey, you wanna be best friends?' that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else.
In fact, Sophia had only ever had one person in her life who made her feel completely safe; someone she knew she could trust with her secrets, safe in the knowledge that she'd never be judged: her mother. Since she was a little girl she'd known that whatever happened, whatever she felt, or thought, or had done, she could turn to her mom and tell her the truth without fear. In a complex, confusing and frightening world that woman had always been the one constant.
Until now.
Sophia may have been able to tell her mom about her feelings for Ryan. She could pour her heart out, and maybe she'd understand. Maybe she'd understand if she knew about what had happened in the bedroom. Maybe she'd understand if she saw the two years of messages, knew that these emotions had been simmering beneath the surface since long before Isabel had even met Ryan's dad, and that the pot had only boiled over when Sophia had been forced into the room beside his. Maybe she'd even give her blessing. Maybe she'd think it wasn't totally fucked up. Hell, maybe she'd be completely fine with Sophia dating her soon-to-be-husband's son. Maybe it was only a big deal in Sophia's head.
That was the problem. The maybe.
Sophia couldn't risk it. She couldn't risk destroying the relationship she'd built with her mom over the last 18 years. She wouldn't - couldn't - do anything to jeopardize that, and she wouldn't do anything that might steal the smile away from her mother's face, and the happiness from her eyes. Both had been all too rare over the course of her life, what with the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of Sophia's dad, and then having to raise her daughter without any help from anyone. Sophia refused to be the one to take her happiness away. She wouldn't.
But she couldn't get Ryan out of her head. She'd tried - God, she'd tried - but in the hours since she'd pushed Ryan out the door there hadn't been a moment's respite. She could still smell him on her skin, and taste him in her mouth. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his face, and felt his body on hers. She'd tried masturbating, hoping that an orgasm might help flush him out of her system, but if anything it had only made her want him more.
She couldn't help but imagine the years she felt she'd missed, if only Ryan had worked up the courage to speak to her that first day she'd arrived at school, before she'd grown to hate him. If only he'd asked her out that first week... it could have been perfect. They would have been dating for two years now. They would have fallen in love the normal way, over time, getting to known each other's quirks and weird habits. Maybe her mom and his dad would still have gotten together, but at least Sophia and Ryan would have got there first. At least it wouldn't feel wrong.
She needed to speak to someone about this shit. She'd spent the morning scrolling through the depressingly short list of Facebook friends in her iPad, and had even written a long, agonizing description of exactly what had happened to send to a girl who'd sat with her at lunch back at her old school - the closest thing to a friend she could think of - but before hitting the send button she realized how ridiculous it would be to send the message.
Why would this girl care about Sophia's love life, and what sort of advice could she possibly offer? They'd barely even spoken in a year, and the friendship had long ago devolved to the 'like' stage: Sophia clicked the 'like' button whenever the girl, Amanda, posted a cheerful status, and Amanda offered the same in return. That wasn't a friendship. It was barely even a friend canoe.
OK, Sophia, you're getting a little too drunk now, she realized as she giggled out loud at the thought of a 'friend canoe'. Man, this beer is strong!
She glanced at her watch and was surprised to see it was already almost 11. She'd walked out of the house just before 5, without a word to her mom, and she knew her absence would be noticed soon. She really didn't want to wait for the inevitable phone call, because she knew exactly what would follow: her mom would wait up until she came home, and she'd immediately notice that she was drunk.
After watching Sophia's dad drink himself into the grave her mom had no time for alcohol. She'd often warned Sophia that no good could come of drinking, and she'd already brought up the subject of Ryan's 'nighttime excursions', as she put it, to his dad at the dinner table. Sophia really didn't want to have to listen to a lecture about the demon drink, so she was hoping she could slip to bed unnoticed.
She took a final sip of her Bud, and she was just about to slide out of the booth when a familiar voice caught her ear. She turned in time to see that just behind her, through the cheap, colorful fake stained glass that fringed each booth, a group of three people had taken the empty seats directly behind her. She couldn't see him, but she'd recognize that voice anywhere: one of them was Ryan.
Oh Jesus, she thought, sinking deeper into her seat. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine...
Of course she should have expected it. She'd found the name of the bar in his damned Facebook messages. She knew he was a regular here, and after the events of the morning she shouldn't have been surprised that he'd seek comfort at the bottom of a bottle. She just hadn't considered it. The only thing she'd thought about was her need to escape him and drown her sorrows, and she'd ended up in the very same place as him.
What was worse... Oh no, this is bad... She realized was trapped. Her booth was in the far back corner of the bar, close to the pool table, and between her seat and the door was nothing but a wide open space visible to everyone in Ryan's booth. She already knew from her trips to the rest room that there was no way out the back. The fire exit was blocked ceiling high by plastic crates full of empties - another reason this was a terrible bar - and even if she could get through the door she was pretty sure it only led to an internal courtyard, with no way back to the street unless she wanted to climb five flight
s of fire escape and clamber drunkenly over a roof.
So she was stuck, at least until Ryan went to the rest room. Maybe then, assuming he didn't notice her as he passed her booth, she could quickly slip out the door before he returned.
A voice reached her over the top of the booth. "Come on, buddy, just forget about her tonight. Hey, why not call Cassie? She really liked you, you know?"
Sophia tried not to eavesdrop, but Celine had stopped warbling from the jukebox for a moment, and in the sudden silence she could hear the words clear as day.
"Dude, Cassie was a pain in the ass." This was Ryan. "She spent the whole date going on and on about how Tegan and Sara are the feminist icons of our generation."
A girl's voice: "Hey, I thought you liked Tegan and Sara."
"Yeah, I do," replied Ryan, "but not enough to get a creepy tattoo of their faces on my shoulder. Cassie wouldn't shut up about them all night, and she kept breaking into song at the weirdest times, right in my face. I'm not gonna lie to you, it was kinda scary."
The second guy spoke again. "Come on, Ryan, are you sure you're not just doing your usual thing of finding fault in every girl who isn't Sophia, cause that's not healthy, dude."
"Josh, believe me, I'm not kidding. It was a whole thing with her. If I was either of those girls I'd be worried about my safety. Cassie's got a real stalker vibe goin' on."
Ah, thought Sophia, this much be Josh and Sara from Ryan's Facebook messages.
"OK, so not Cassie," Josh agreed. "How about someone else? There have to be fifty girls you could call at 11 on a Friday. She doesn't have to be marriage material, just someone you can have a little fun with. Y'know, take your mind off things."
Ryan replied impatiently. "Dude, I know you're just trying to help, but I'm really not in the mood for a hook up. Can we just talk about something else?"
The jukebox suddenly started back up, miraculously playing something other than Springsteen, and Ryan's conversation was silenced beneath a wave of... Jesus, The Bee Gees. Who stocked this jukebox?
To be honest, Sophia was relieved she could no longer hear what was being said at the next table. In the last few days she'd already come to hate herself for snooping on Ryan's Facebook messages, and she didn't think she could ever face him again if she listened to yet another private conversation. It would all be just too much.
She turned back to her phone and made an effort to mentally close her ears. The occasional word still found its way through the wall of noise from the jukebox, but Sophia blocked it out. None of my business, none of my business, none of my business...
"I noticed you didn't have a drink," came a voice beside her. "Mind if I sit?"
Sophia looked up from her phone as a guy slid into the booth without waiting for an answer, then pushed a fresh bottle of beer across to her and smiled. "I'm Robbie. What's your name?" He looked to be in his mid-twenties. Maybe a little older, but it was hard to guess his age with the thin, patchy blond beard he was trying and failing to grow. It seemed like he was going for the thick, luscious lumberjack full face growth popular with hipsters, but it really wasn't working for him.
Guys need good, clear skin to pull of the lumberjack look, and the beard has to draw attention to full lips and nice, warm, welcoming eyes. Robbie had none of those. In fact, he looked like the much less cute younger brother of Neil Patrick Harris after a couple of months in the throes of a nasty meth habit. His jaw was too sharp, and the line of his beard cut across it in a way that made his narrow face look pinched and cruel. The ridiculous beanie he wore wasn't helping matters.
She realized she was staring, and had yet to speak. "Umm... I'm Sophia. Look, umm..." she hesitated. She really wanted to tell him she wasn't in the mood for company, but a mixture of the alcohol already in her system and the welcome distraction from the conversation going on behind her stopped her from telling the guy to take a hike. "Never mind. Thanks for the drink." She took a big gulp, draining a third of the bottle in one go.
Robbie grinned and took a sip of his beer. "I don't think I've seen you around here before. You new in town?"
"Yeah," she replied. "I mean no, not really. I'm from Queens, but I just just moved to a place a few blocks from here."
"That's cool, that's cool." Robbie stared at her a little too long for comfort. "I'm here all the time. Got a cool little studio just around the corner. It's expensive, but hey, you gotta spend money if you wanna live in the big cit-ay, right? That's what I always say."
"Uh huh, I guess." Sophia was already wishing he hadn't sat down. It wasn't so much the conversation that was the problem, though that wasn't exactly sparkling, but the way he looked at her. He just stared, unblinking, like some kind of creepy reptile. She was almost certain he was trying some shitty pick up technique he'd read in a book or learned at a seminar. Maybe it worked on some girls, but Sophia really didn't enjoy being the focus of anyone's attention. He looked like he was weighing her up, and it was creeping her out.
"You know," he said, finally, "that outfit is really nice, but I'm not really digging your pants. I think girls with big thighs should wear something a little looser."
Oh Jesus, she thought. I was right. He's a fucking pick up artist. She'd read about one of these guys just a couple of weeks earlier. Some creep who gave seminars to teach guys how to score with women had been barred from the UK (or Australia, she couldn't remember the details) because his techniques amounted to borderline sexual assault.
"Are you serious? You're not trying to neg me, right?" she asked, incredulous.
"Ummm... no, I'm just... y'know, I'm just making conversation." Robbie looked suddenly uncomfortable, as if it hadn't occurred to him that a girl might have heard about the fucked up tactics used by pick up artists. He was 'negging' her: making a negative comment in an effort to knock her confidence and make her more susceptible to his advances. She'd read all about it, but she'd never imagined it would feel so fucking creepy to hear a guy try it for real.
"Just making conversation?" She was going to enjoy this. "OK, my turn. Your beard is really nice, but I think it'd look better on a real man. Oh, this is fun. You wanna go again?"
Robbie shifted awkwardly in his seat, uncertain how to go on. "No! I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know what negging is."
Sophia took another swig from her bottle. She could tell the alcohol was going to her head. She knew she should probably shut up and just tell Robbie to leave, but she needed this. She desperately needed to let off some steam and distract herself, and this creepy dude made the ideal vessel to pour her frustration.
"OK, you don't want to play? Then I'll go again. You're alone in a bar on a Friday night, trying to hit on a woman with techniques you learned from creeps who think that women are objects to be used at their leisure and thrown to the gutter when they're done. I'm guessing you don't know how to have a real conversation with a woman, how to treat her like an equal fucking human being. You don't know how to talk to a woman without your little Internet-assembled bag of tricks to fool her into bed, and without them you'd end every night the same way, alone in your apartment, playing with yourself until you come into a dirty sock. Am I right?"
Beneath the patchy beard Robbie's cheeks glowed red, and he looked like an animal caught in headlights. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, staring at his beer. "I didn't mean anything by it."
"Yeah. Here's a tip: if you have to destroy a woman's self esteem before she'll sleep with her you're doing life wrong, and you'll keep dating your right hand until you stop treating us like idiots. Now, I'm waiting for my boyfriend to arrive," she lied, waving her phone in the air as if it was some sort of proof she had a connection to other humans. "He should be here any minute, soooo..." She left the word hanging in the air.
"No, I get it, I get it," Robbie said, holding up his hands. "It's no big deal, I'll go back to my table. It was... ummm, it was nice to meet you. Sorry to bother you."
Sophia cringed as Robbie slid out of the booth. She knew she'd
probably been a little too cruel, but worse than that she'd lied about having a boyfriend. Now she had to worry not only about escaping unseen from Ryan, but also the embarrassment of leaving alone before this imaginary lover arrived. You're really swinging for the fences today, aren't you?
She returned to her phone and stared at the screen as Robbie slunk back to his seat by the pool table, trying to distract herself with the random status updates of the half-friends and vague acquaintances that filled her feed.
TGIF, bitcheeeees! This one's gonna be off the hook!
Ugh, summer jobs suck the most. Remember when summers used to be fun?
Boracay is awesome! Guys, the Philippines is just the most beeeeautiful place in the world! Shout out to my Filipina home girl Malari!
Stepbrother Forbidden (Stepbrother, Where Art Thou? Book 2) Page 2