Chapter: Chapter Seven
Rating: Rated PG-13 for Language and Adult themes
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to JK Rowlings…
A/N Hey guys! Sorry this chapter took so long to get out – next one will be sooner! I'm still looking for a Beta, so anyone interested; please email me at Hunny___@hotmail.com. I'd also love any suggestions or comments to be emailed to me at the same destination. You guy's rock, and your reviews write this fic!
It was much later in the week when disaster finally struck.
But Lily and the rest were completely oblivious at this point in time. It was days and days after that happy sailing adventure and
Lily, Sonya and Sam had been hanging out with BJ, James and Dustin an awful lot. Together they had gone to the movies, sailed towards the sunset many a time and been to the "Ice House" more times then one could count.
And James was still showing interest in Lily.
So far nothing had actually happened. In fact, James had more of a chance of breaking into the national bomb silo. Lily was trying to erase her shyness against him…and it was slowly working, but she felt pretty much like nothing would ever happen.
That aside, it was now a bright and sunny Wednesday, and Sonya, Sam and Lily were busy playing a lively game of scrabble.
"Kiolt is so a word!" screeched Sonya, pointing at her mumbled jumbled letters furiously.
"It's not!" Lily cried, adding, "Look in the dictionary! There is no such word as Kiolly!"
"I think you'll find the word is Kiolt," Sam said slowly as Lily let out a frustrated scream, "but yes, there is definitely no such word."
"Cheaters…" muttered Sonya, slowly taking her pieces off the board. Lily and Sam fell into giggles and soon Sonya had no choice but to join in.
"Kids…" Karen called awhile later, popping her head through the door. "Its lunchtime and as Lily is only here for another week, I feel that we should have a special one week left lunch!"
"Mum," said Sam patiently, "that has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard."
Karen glared hugely, before letting out a snarl and slamming the door. All of them immediately collapsed back into giggles, and it took all their energy to stand back up again and leave the room.
"So, Lily," asked Jack, handing her the roast chicken, "What do you have to say about Australia?"
"Its great!" said Lily happily, "I don't think I've ever had this much fun!"
"Not even playing with swings?!" Exclaimed Kaitlyn with wide eyes.
"Even better then that."
"Much be pretty good to out-fun swings!" quipped Sam with a cheeky grin. Sonya nudged him disapprovingly, but she herself was finding it hard not to smile.
"Anything on the agenda for this afternoon?" Karen asked grinning.
"Well…" Sonya started, "I was hoping me and Lily could go into manly, she still hasn't seen the statues there!"
"Sounds fun!" Jack exclaimed, helping himself to more salad.
Lily looked down guiltily. She felt horrible, but James had already called yesterday to see if she wanted to go out with him. An opportunity to good to pass up.
"Are you up for it Lily?" Karen asked softly, as Lily lowered her head and studied her shoes.
"Um…I'm really sorry, Sonya, but I can't…" Lily trailed off as Sonya started to look devastated. Karen also looked a little shocked and Kaitlyn noticing her sister's face started to whimper.
"Why?" Sonya asked in a voice much lower then a whisper.
"Well, um, I meant to tell you, but yesterday James called and asked me if I wanted to go to Narrabeen with him. I didn't think you would mind…"
"Lily!" cried Sonya suddenly, tears welling up in her eyes; "we haven't gone out with just us since we went to the city ages ago! I miss hanging out with you Lily. You! Not James and Dustin and BJ and everyone else! You!"
"Sonya," Karen said quietly, making Lily flinch, "Lily has a right to hang out with other people then you."
Sonya stared around the table, then asked in a cold voice that made Lily flinch, "May I please be excused. I have a phone call to make.
"Who are you calling!"
"Dylan." Sonya answered in a hard, flat voice.
Karen looked shocked and Lily wondered what all the fuss was about. Jack also looked furious and Lily looked tensely to Sam, who she noticed was chewing his nails viciously and studying her shoes. Kaitlyn was still crying and little Ben looked thoroughly miserable.
"Sonya," Karen finally said sternly, "You know we don't like you hanging out with Dylan and that crowd…I thought we had discussed all this last…"
"I'll be friends with whoever I want," cut in Sonya stubbornly, "And as long as I have one head instead of two, I'll be making my own decisions. You can't prove that it way Dylan last time. In fact, he had nothing to do with it."
"Do you think we're stupid, young lady!" Jack suddenly roared before Lily could even start to consider what had happened 'last year'. "We found you at Dylan's with half your body redecorated with bruises and cuts. You didn't even notice you we're so far gone. I wasn't born yesterday Sonya; do you think I didn't realize that you were on something? Do you honestly believe that me and Karen didn't think you we're becoming a screw up?"
Lily stared at her cousin horrified. She couldn't believe that her lovely cousin had been involved with something so sinister. It was obviously something that the family hated to discuss. Sam was white as a ghost, staring at his infuriated father who was breathing heavily and had a vein twitching in her right temple. Both Kaitlyn and Ben were bawling their eyes out, and Karen was torn between looking after them and telling Sonya off. Sonya herself had just stood up, a proud look filled with fury etched across her face.
"I'm going to call Dylan now," she said in a calmly terrifying voice, "and you just try and stop me."
And then she was gone, leaving behind a devastated family, and one girl that wasn't quite sure what exactly had just happened.
*
"James," asked Dustin quietly, as they sat on his blue-carpeted floor, "What do you really feel about Lily."
James looked up in surprise from his luggage that he was finally sorting out. His mother's hysterics had eventually made him feel guilty enough to do something with his room.
"What's that supposed to mean?" James answered, distracted.
"I just meant, why do you like Lily?"
James forehead furrowed as he considered the difficult question.
"I dunno…I guess she's very good looking."
"Right," said Dustin quietly, "I guess that's it then. You like her because of the way she looks."
"Yeah…But what's wrong with that, huh?" James asked with a slight biting tone as he realized his cousin's disapproval.
"Don't you like anything about her personality? Sonya say's that Lily is a lovely person, but you seem to miss that altogether."
"Ohh…I get it, Sonya told you to tell me all this," James said sarcastically, "Silly me for not listening to Sonya, your little angel, your little baby-cakes…get a life Dustin. Sonya bloody well likes BJ, she's all but stuck bulletin signs around the world saying that she has no feelings for you! And don't you lecture me on liking people for their looks…Sonya isn't exactly a hag. Bet you can't see anything past those beautiful eyes…huh, Dustin? Can you?"
"Yes," said Dustin defiantly, "I can see more. I can see that she is loyal and honest and feisty. I don't care if she hates me, I don't mind if she never wants to be with me, because I can see more. Unlike you, James, I don't need a girl to practically worship me before I decide that she might just be fun to use. I like Sonya because of how she makes me feel, not what she feels for me."
"Oh give it a break, saint Dustin, and get over yourself for a least five seconds. I do not like girls because they throw themselves at me, do you think Lily is doing that? No! She's not writing me love letters or pining after me every three seconds…"
"No, but your girlfriend is."
James went white at the mention of his girlfriend of three months.
"Don't bring Natasha into this."
"Would you rather I left her out? She has sent you that many owls recently, and have you replied to a single one? No. And why not? Because you've been too busy following Lily around. What's going to happen when you get back to England and there is no Lily? But I guess that means nothing to you. To you, Lily is just a piece of meat. You're just going to use her aren't you?"
"I've got a date." Said James in a voice filled with suppressed fury, "And nothing you say is going to talk me out of it."
"Then go, and have fun with your little toy."
"I will."
And then he was gone.
*
Lily wandered aimlessly around the family room. Sonya had locked herself into her room, and refused to talk to anyone, even Sam, who was sitting on the couch with, tears in his eyes. Like most twins, Sonya and Sam held a special bond, and it was unusual for Sonya to shut Sam out of her life.
"You don't know what it was like last year," Sam said in a low voice, speaking for the first time.
Lily walked over to the couch and sat next to him, reaching over to take his hand.
"What was it like?" She asked quietly.
Sam took a deep breath, and looked out the window. A lone seagull was flying past, the white against the blue sky creating a contrast of freedom.
"Sonya would disappear all the time. We never really knew where she was, or who she was with. She had friends at school…bad ones, troublemakers. Dylan was like the ringleader. He had all these girls around him…not nice girls like Sonya, but total sluts, and it made me feel so…helpless - because I couldn't do anything to help. I would try to talk to Sonya, and she would brush me off, or act as if I was accusing her.
"She started to act strange. Like, talk complete nonsense then just blank out for hours. We all knew she was on something but we didn't know what or who was giving it to her."
Lily was startled to feel something wet on her face, reaching a hand up she realized that she was crying.
"Anyway," Sam continued, "one day I heard a rumor at school. There was going to be a massive party at Dylan's and Sonya was going. There was nothing Mum or Dad could do to stop her…if they got really bad she would always run away and live with even more screwed up people. So she went. But half way through the night I got worried. Not just normal worried, but I knew something was wrong. So I told Mum that I knew where Sonya was, and that I knew something was the matter. So me and Dad went to get her."
He trailed off and looked at the floor. Lily followed his gaze, although her eyes were blurry. She couldn't imagine Sonya as this wild child that was being described to her. She couldn't imagine it. It just didn't make sense.
"So we went to get her," Sam continued, "And when we reached the house there were kids everywhere. They were strewn across the ground, passed out and looking as if they were dead. I'll never forget the look on Dad's face. It was like complete devastation. He knew that something had happened. Anyway, we searched through the entire house, and then we went out the back. We finally found Sonya, with some guy trying to get into her pants. She was half gone and her body looked as if someone had been scratching decorations into her skin. It made me feel sick, Lily, to see how like that. I could imagine myself lying where she was, alone and helpless.
"Anyway, Dad lifted her up and took her home, but half way she started to breathe heavily and strangely. We took her to the hospital and then the truth came out. She had taken something…some new drug that Kids everywhere were getting into. Lily, she almost died."
Lily couldn't take it anymore, reaching her arms out she pulled Sam into a bone-breaking hug. And they cried together.
*
Sonya finally emerged from her room, and for Lily, it took awhile to realize that it was Sonya, not a stranger. She was dressed completely in black, with cuffs around her neck and a skirt that left nothing to the imagination.
Pushing past Lily, she ignored anything and everything, even when Lily followed her up the flight of stairs that led to the exit.
A black car swerved up and Sonya got into it. Just before it took off she leaned out of the window and said in a hollow voice.
"Have fun with James."
And she left.