Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Sophia
8 months later
“I went to a psychic. She told me that I’m going to have a special moment with the guy of my dreams soon.”
“I’m sorry, you went to a psychic ?” Berlin looks at me with a ‘be for real’ expression.
“Like a lady with a crystal ball and voodoo dolls and stuff?” Mel asks.
“She didn’t actually have any of that stuff, but I know what you’re getting at, and yeah, that kind of thing.”
“Weird.”
“I think it’s cool,” Laura tells me. “No harm in meeting the man of her dreams.”
“I think I’ll believe it when I see it. She’d have to leave the house to have a moment with the man of her dreams, unless she’s expecting him to break into her bedroom in the middle of the night.” Berlin smirks at me. “Or is he just another one of your book boyfriends?”
She’s such a smartass. She knows it winds me up when she talks about me like I’m not right there. I know what she’s doing – trying to egg me on enough that I’ll prove her wrong.
I hate that it works.
“I do so leave the house.”
“Supermarket doesn’t count,” Carissa replies quickly. “Or the butchers.”
“Or that fruit and vegetable place,” Mel chimes in. I guess it’s gang up on Sophia day.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Berlin agrees.
“I go places other than the supermarket.”
I’m lying. I don’t go anywhere really.
“Ooooh what, like the paediatrician or the toddler clothes shop? The kindergarten maybe?”
I flip Berlin off. Firstly, because she pisses me off, but mostly because she’s right. I can’t really expect to meet Mr. Right at those places.
“You should get Tinder ,” Mel says excitedly, clapping her hands together .
“No!” Berlin, Carissa, Laura, and I all reply in unison.
Mel pouts. “But it’d be funny .”
Maybe for her.
“It’d be tragic . The men around here making themselves available options aren’t going to be anything we need to see,” I tell her. “Trust me.”
“I bet at least half of them are holding fish in their profile pictures.”
“Or a dead pig on their backs.”
“Either way, it’s a no from me,” I tell them all. “I’m open to meeting someone, but I’m not going to try and chase it down. If I meet someone, then great, if I don’t, then oh well.”
“Boring,” Mel mutters. “Do it for the plot.”
Ever since she got herself a steady boyfriend, she’s been trying to get me back into the dating world. She’s all loved up and delusional about the rest of the male population.
But at least I know if I have too many wines one night and decide that putting myself out there is a good idea, I’ll know who to call for encouragement. It’s always good to know you have support to make questionable choices.
Truthfully, I don’t know how interested I am in dating altogether. I’m not sure I have it in me. The last time I went out on a limb, I got shot down, and it hurt, maybe I’m just not cut out for it.
Bryson’s face flashes in my mind. I can still hear him telling me that he wanted me to go home to my parents.
I don’t know if I’ve quite recovered from that still to this day.
I think I should give up on the whole idea. My track record isn’t exactly great. Twenty years old and still single. My one and only boyfriend, and baby daddy is in prison.
What a winner I must look like.
At least I have something going for me these days.
My food blog has really taken off lately. I’m actually starting to earn a decent amount of money now, enough that if things continue on the trajectory they have been, I’ll be able to afford to get my own place and finally move out of the flat out the back of my parents’ house.
It’s not that I’m not grateful for what they’ve done for me, because I totally am, I couldn’t have got through this without them, and the fact that they built me a little unit of my own so I could still have my independence has been a life saver. I don’t think we could have coped under the same roof for the past year and a half.
They’re so good with Aria though, and it will be sad to move somewhere less accessible, but I think it’s time.
It took Dad a long time to warm up to the idea of being a grandfather. I don’t think he ever expected to be a ‘Pop’ at his age, but once Aria captured his heart, she ran away with it. The two of them are thick as thieves. It’s going to be tough on both of them when they don’t see each other every day.
“Fine, no Tinder, but we need to have a girls’ night out!” Mel says excitedly.
“Oh my god, we have to. It’d be so funny to go out here again after being away for so long,” Laura agrees.
“I don’t know…” I mumble.
I’ve never really been out on the town on a Saturday night. Bars aren’t really the kinds of places you go with a pregnant belly or a small child. But I did go out once, a few years ago with a poorly done fake ID, and I can’t imagine the night life scene has got any less disastrous.
“We’re doing it,” Berlin insists. “I refuse to go to Japan without a girls’ night first. We’ll have a few drinks, get all dressed up, and go dancing.”
I open my mouth to argue but she silences me with a look.
“Don’t even start with me, cupcake, your book and fluffy slippers will still be here waiting for you when you get home. We haven’t all been together properly since before Liana earnt herself a criminal conviction. It’ll be nostalgic.”
Her and Cullen are leaving for Tokyo in a month. Cullen got a two-year contract to play rugby professionally over there, being paid a huge amount of money, so he and Berlin are off out of here.
I can’t quite believe she’s going to be in another country, so far away, living the WAG lifestyle, but maybe in another year or so, I might be able to save up enough to visit them.
I’m so happy she decided to go. Her degree in marketing can be completed remotely, and she’s already been approved to do her existing clients’ work from over there, so there was no reason for her not to.
“Don’t even try and be a buzz kill.” She points a finger at me in warning. “We need to have one last blow out before I get on a plane and disappear for two years. You practically have built-in babysitters, so there’s no excuse.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” I argue.
I don’t think mum jeans, or a cooking apron are the right kind of fit.
“Well lucky for you, I have more than half of my wardrobe to donate to your sad, tragic little cause. You’ll have enough outfits to go out every weekend for the rest of the year.”
As if that’s ever going to happen.
“Why are you giving me your clothes?”
“Cullen won’t let me take it all with me.” She pouts. “He told me I should sell them, but it’s like I sensed you were going to have excuses, so there are about fifteen bags in the car.”
“B, I’m not –”
“Oh my god, shut up, yes you are.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You’re right. I don’t know, and I don’t care. You’re going to put on some fire-as-fuck fit from me, and we’re going to go out and dance and have the best time. You might even enjoy yourself, if you can remember how to do that. Maybe Mr. Voodoo will be out.”
I can see this isn’t an argument I’m going to win.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” she mimics, her expression smug. “It’s about time that hot little body of yours got to experience something other than activewear anyway.”