Page 88 of Just One Silver Fox

“But you must have had some friends.”

“No. Katia had Tommy and I tagged along, uninvited and unwelcome but too desperate to let myself be left behind.” Sonia winced, not liking the truth of her younger self. “Tommy smoked, too, because he thought it was cool, so he and Katia pooled resources to get cigarettes, then skipped classes to smoke together. And Tommy had been friends since kindergarten with Nick, this jock who was captain of the football team. They were a pretty unlikely pair but they’d always been buddies.” Sonia reasoned that she might as well say the rest. “And the truth was that Nick was a big part of why I followed Katia.”

“Nick,” Nate said as if the name meant everything. “Your crush.”

To call her infatuation with Nick a ‘crush’ seemed to make it much smaller than it had been to Sonia. Her obsession had been all-consuming and Nick had been the star of all her fantasies. Sonia doubted she could make Nate understand, but she tried. “He was tall and handsome and had this great smile. He was popular and athletic and everything I wasn’t. I wanted so badly to have him notice me.” She couldn’t even say the rest. It sounded so pathetic.

“First candidate for handsome prince?” Nate asked, proving that he did get it.

Sonia blushed even though no one could see. It sounded so childish. “Exactly.”

“And did he?”

“No. He married someone else, right out of high school. They were dating all along but I had this idea it was just convenient—until they announced their engagement just before prom.” She sighed at her own misguided optimism. “I never went to prom.”

“You could have gone stag.”

“I had a date actually. He was one of Nick’s friends. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me, but you know what they say about things that are too good to be true.”

“What happened?” Nate demanded, a thrum of anger in his voice.

She went with the executive summary. “It didn’t work out. And I guess you’d say it gave me a snap.”

“How so?”

“I made my escape that night.” She took a breath. “I knew I couldn’t stay in that house. I knew there wasn’t enough money for us to go to college either.”

“The career downturn,” Nate remembered.

“And the divorce. Olivia wasn’t working at all. It was explained to us that it was time we contributed to the household since we were turning eighteen. I’d been working part-time at a store that sold art supplies and had saved my money. Tommy helped me get the job, even though I don’t have any artistic talent. I didn’t have any friends or reason to stay where we were. I did some research and made my plan.” Even remembering her escape—she still thought of it as an escape—made Sonia’s mouth go dry. “I’d taken all my savings out of the bank and I’d packed a bag with everything I needed. On the weekend of prom, Olivia was away. She’d been invited to a house party in Malibu and was hoping to talk some director into giving her a part. I had hopes for that date, but once it went bust, I took the old car and drove to Las Vegas. It took me all night. I abandoned the car, changed my name, and bought a ticket for a plane to New York. Even Katia didn’t know where I was.” Sonia exhaled, remembering the thrill. “It was wonderful and terrifying.”

“To be alone?”

“To be free. I got a job in another art supply store and found a teeny tiny apartment of my own as soon as I could. The amazing thing was that I wasn’t hungry at all.”

“Proof that it was emotional.”

“Absolutely. I went to weight loss clinics, taking advantage of counselling when I could find it free. At one, I met a therapist who did some charity work—including me. She really helped me to dig down into what was driving my choices and gave me tools to do better. I started to work out, mostly doing yoga and some stretches I remembered from ballet class. I lost most of the weight, although it took more than a year.”

“Without surgery? That’s fantastic!”

“It was, except I didn’t look the way I wanted. My skin had stretched and it wouldn’t pull back into place. What I saw in the mirror was disheartening and started to affect my progress. My therapist referred me to a surgeon, but I couldn’t afford the procedure.” Sonia bit her lip. “And that’s when I made a mistake.”

* * *

Nate was outragedby Sonia’s story.

He couldn’t believe that any parent would treat a child with such indifference and he really couldn’t believe that anyone could ever be cruel to Sonia. What had she done to deserve that? Whatcouldshe have done to deserve it?

He was well aware that she hadn’t confessed details that would explain Katia calling DerekSatan,but the story was hers to tell, if she chose to. He could understand that Olivia wouldn’t have been very interested in a story that challenged the perfect picture of their family life.

Nate was particularly impressed that Sonia’s background hadn’t changed her nature, that it hadn’t made her harsh or judgmental—or that it hadn’t convinced her to withdraw from everything and everyone. A preference for privacy and quiet was a more reasonable tendency than most people would have developed.

Even a fantasy of a handsome prince sweeping her away was comparatively harmless but made more sense now.

“What did you do?” Nate asked when she didn’t continue. “What happened?”

“I saw an ad for the launch of a new book at a big book fair in town. The author was making an appearance to do a signing, along with a woman dressed as the main character. It was a YA steampunk series of mysteries, featuring a character called Anastasia Armitage and this book, the third one, was supposed to be big. The cover was gorgeous, but more importantly, the woman playing the main character was Katia. I recognized her right away. And the author, Tobias de Wynter, was Tommy White in fancy new clothes.”

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