FicWad

Chapter III: Confrontation and Lies

"Allison?"

It was a sweet feeling, to have a child's finger poke at your forehead while you were barely coming out of a dreaming state. It was a grand feeling, and it made the coldness and numbness in Alli's body quickly disappear as she opened her eyes to see a little girl with long black hair and green eyes smile at her. Sophia was her dream, her precious dream that she hoped will never go away. She smiled back at the little girl, who seemed to be somewhat curious. Who wouldn't be after seeing her older cousin sob and cry in her locked room all night after what had happened? Poor Sophia…hopefully she will never know what was really going on between Alli and Julian.

"Good morning, Pretty Sophie," Alli murmured softly back to her. She had to maintain that mask of happiness and sincerity, or else the questions that seemed to plague everyone's minds will end up coming back to her.

"Sami says you and her are supposed to go to a party tonight. Can I come?" Sophia asked sweetly, batting those eyelashes at her, trying to get her way by being the cute and adorable girl that they all knew she was. Alli shook her head, knowing that this child received her cunning trait from her mother, Alli's Aunt.

"No, Sophie, it's a grown-up party, you can't come—and don't give me that look!" Alli criticized playfully as Sophia gave a pouting look—her bottom lip poking out and her green eyes giving a sad frown, a look that many people call the "puppy-dog Eyes." Alli just happened to teach her that one long ago.

"Why not?" Sophia whined, and it was breaking her heart to actually hear it. She had to maintain her order, though, she couldn't give into it. She had to keep up her motherly-figure over the girl. After all, wasn't that what she was supposed to be doing?

"Because I said so, Sophia," she told her again, and the "puppy-Dog Eyes" disappeared into a disappointed look. Alli knew that Sophia didn't like being left out of parties, but it was all she could do to keep this sweet innocent girl out of the troubling and sinful real world. "Besides, you're going to be with my mom tonight. Don't you like hanging out with Aunt Erika?"

"Yes, I do, but I want to be with you, Allison! You're fun and cool!" Sophia spoke sadly, and Alli sat up in the bed, holding her arms out to the girl. Sophia walked into the embrace, and the warmth of the child's body seemed to fill her own from the sadness and pain she suffered from.

"I know, Sophie. Tell you what, one of these days I'll take you somewhere. Somewhere fun and exciting. How about it?" Alli bargained with the child, who nodded sweetly, but the disappointment of not going with her older cousin remained on her face.

"Okay. Hey, Allison, why doesn't Sami like Julian?" Sophia asked her cousin, and a chill ran through her spine. She knew why Sam didn't like Julian, she knew the main reasons why Sam hated him with all her soul, why she wished he was dead and got shot by one of his rival "gangsters." Sophia was too young to know, though. For all she knew, Julian and Alli were in a happy, loving relationship, and it will remain that way.

"What makes you think Sami doesn't like him?" rhetorical question, but she wanted to know what Sam was doing or saying in front of Sophia, that way she could fix it.

"She says a lot of bad things about him. I heard her call him the 'MF' word the other day. And this morning, while she was making breakfast, she called him a 'girl-beating B-word,'" Sophia confessed to her cousin. Alli sighed, a bit disappointed in Sam for opening her mouth in front of such innocent ears.

"You know, I don't know why she doesn't like him. I think they just disagree on a lot of things, and because of that, they don't like each other. I'll have a talk with her about watching what she says around you, though."

Alli brought the little girl into her and held her close, stroking those black strands on her head lovingly. This little girl was the most precious thing in the world to her, and she didn't want her to be exposed to such a vicious and cruel world. She couldn't stop her from growing and eventually learning how sinful the world may be, but at least right now, at this age, she can do whatever she can to prevent her from knowing.

"Alright, Sophia, you have everything you need?"

Sam looked towards the backseat of her 2004 black Ford Fusion—her father had bought it for her when she graduated from high school. Alli looked at the child sitting in the backseat from her own compact mirror, Sophia had dressed herself up nice to go visit her Aunt Erika, her favorite black and hot pink-striped dress fitting her too perfectly along with her own pair of black dress shoes. Sophia had in her lap her Kim Possible backpack, stuffed with toys and entertainment utilities needed. The child smiled back at Sam, who turned to Alli for a moment.

"Are you ready?" she asked her friend. Alli nodded, reapplying her red lip-gloss to her mouth before opening the door of the passenger side and hopping out. Sophia appeared out of the car, and walked beside her innocently, even to the point of grabbing her hand to swing from as they both clambered up the steps to the house. Before knocking on the door with the golden hoop hanging from the center of the oak surface, Alli leaned down to come only a little taller than the child in order to give her last minute words.

"Okay, kiddo, Sami and I are going to pick you up around ten or eleven—"

"But that's past my bedtime," Sophia quickly added before Alli could finish what she was saying.

"I know, it's alright. It's Aunt Erika's choice if she wants you to stay up or not. You listen to her, okay? If she tells you not to do something, you don't do it," Alli warned her briefly before she knocked on the door.

"Okay, Allison," Sophia smiled brightly up at the older woman, and they waited patiently until the door was opened, and there stood a familiar face to them both.

Erika was an older woman, eighteen years older than Alli, with curly faded black hair and hazel eyes. Her posture was that of a strict and controlling woman who never seemed to have gotten over the fact her children had left the nest, an old bird searching for a way to replace that missing piece in her life. However, that coldness in her face dissipated at once when she saw the child standing at her doorstep, looking adorable in her black and pink dress.

"Oh, Sophia, it's so good to see you again!" the woman cried out happily.

"It's great to see you, too, Aunt Erika," Sophia replied politely, but she looked up at Alli anxiously, having known that the relationship between her and her mother was not a steady one. Erika looked from Sophia to her own beloved daughter, and her frown seemed to be one to shake a blood relative's heart to the core.

"Sophia, why don't you go on in? I made a fresh batch of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. I know those are your favorite," Erika's smile, although sincere, couldn't fool anyone when it was turned onto Alli. Sophia stepped into the house, excited to fill her mouth with the sweetness and warm dough that she was forbidden to eat at the apartment. Smiling after the excited and happy Sophia, Alli's expression quickly turned cold and criticizing when those gray eyes turned onto her mother, the same look that a mother would give of disapproving of anything her child did.

"Do me a favor and don't get her hyped up on sugar. We barely let her have any at the apartment," she told her mother.

"Come on now, she's a child. She's bound to eat candy and chocolate and get hyper. You used to all the time," her mother argued.

"Yeah, but I have to be the one to come take her home and put her to bed tonight. It's hard trying to calm her down when she's rattled up," Alli told her.

"Alright, I won't give her too much sugar. She's over here barely at all, and I think it's nice she gets to relax and enjoy time here."

"Whatever, Mom, just don't let her get too hyper," Alli turned on her heel and was about to walk away when her mother called back after her. She knew Erika had seen it, there was no way to avoid it, to hide it. It was clear on her, and however much she tried to cover it up with conceiler and make-up, there was no possible way to hide it or to conceal the pain.

"How'd you get that bruise, Allison?"

Subconsciously her hand rose to her face, and the tips of her nails gently grazed against the spot that the mark rested on. The memory of yesterday came flooding back inside her, ripping at her heart and soul violently, trying to get her to break down and re-experience the pain that had occurred as the root of it. Taking in a deep breath to keep those sobbing feelings down, she maintained a calm, if somewhat embarrassed expression in order to support the lie she was about to tell. She turned to her mother, a somewhat humiliated grin on her face.

"I fell and landed on a large rock. It hurt like hell, but I'm okay. No busted teeth or anything," she quickly lied. She saw her mother's mouth open in response, but she needed to get to the car before Sam got impatient with her and would leave without her.

"I have to go, Mom. I'll see you later!"

She ran towards the Ford Fusion, throwing open the passenger side door and hopping into the seat before her mother could echo out a good-bye to her. Sam smiled at the girl beside her, and, after one last wave to the woman standing on the stoop, they rode off down the street to the party.

The Fusion car came to a stop along a crowded suburban street, and the two girls looked at each other, examining and perfecting the other's make-up and giggling as they talked about who might be at the party. It was a typical night for the two roommates to be going out to a party and leaving little Sophia with Erika for the time being. With the chaos of relationships, school, work, and their own personal lives, it was nice to be with their friends and drink and dance until they were content with themselves and left. Neither one was a heavy drinker, a casual sip of beer or small glass of wine, but neither one seemed to prefer the taste of hard liquor. Sam had somehow developed an allergic reaction to hard alcohol, having experience the retched feeling of vomiting blood during one party where she took in an average sip of Jack Daniels, and Alli trying to be a responsible motherly-figure to Sophia—not to mention she had learned to be careful with her drinks long ago with her deranged lovers. So, neither girl truly were drinkers unless the occasion called for such casualties.

"So, are you ready?" Sam asked. Her dark red hair fell past her shoulders, the longest they had ever been since the two of them had been in high school. Her brown eyes kept darting towards one of the houses up the street, lingering on a pacing figure that seemed to have caught her attention strongly.

"Yeah, but before we go, I need to talk to you about something," Alli told her sharply, closing her black purse with her make-up in it.

"Uh-oh, am I in trouble?" Sam asked teasingly.

"No, no, I just need you to watch what you say around Sophia," she told her friend softly, tapping her index finger against her now red and lusciously attractive lips.

"She heard me cursing again? Goddamn it!" Sam winked at her friend, who restrained a rising giggle or two.

"Well, yeah, that, too, but…she heard you talking about Julian."

There was a moment that passed between the two young women, neither one wishing to say anything to other on something that was such a sensitive topic. Not so much that she said anything about Julian in front of a child---it was the fact she had said anything at all about Julian. It was not even a sensitive topic. It was a traumatizing one. However, it was Sam who broke the silence between them.

"When are you going to leave that jack ass?" Sam asked of her. Alli didn't answer, she couldn't. She had always talked about leaving the guys she's dating, the ones who were similar or worse than Julian, but in the end, she never could. Something always bound her to them, something powerful and terrifying, something that kept her curled up in the corner, numb and paralyzed with horror.

"I…I don't think I can leave him," Alli confessed.

"Oh, don't tell me that you love him. I know you don't love him, Alli. I can see it in your eyes. You hate him, you loathe him. So just leave him. You've left plenty of other guys before," Sam told her, and each word carved into the girl like a knife to a Jack-O-Lantern. Everything she said was true, even though Alli will never admit it. She didn't love Julian, she hated him, but she was somehow bound to him. This bond…it was something different from the rest, something completely different…stronger, and more dominant.

"Yes, but those were different guys, different times. I can't leave right now, I just…I can't," she sighed, oppressing the tears that were rising up in her eyes. Despite her efforts to hide them, Sam could still see them. She always saw them, back in Junior High, back in High School, in College, and even now. She always saw them.

"Alli, come here, honey," she leaned over and took her best friend into her arms, holding her and embracing her lovingly. It was sad how the only forms of comfort she received were from her best friend, and although she was unable to help, because long ago she had learned to stay out of other people's business, she couldn't help but cry and sob when she saw her friend break down in pain. However, Alli pulled out of the hug and smiled at her.

"I don't know, Sam, one of these days I will break up with him, but not right now."

"When, Allison? When you're in a body bag being carried away because he beat you to death?"

"He's not going to beat me to death, Sam. Just relax, I'll be fine."

That smile wasn't fooling anyone, but it was the smile that told everyone to drop the topic. It was a kind smile, one that seemed to be scene constantly nowadays. She was a kind girl, a cherishing girl that Sam hoped nothing bad would happen to her. She had prayed for years that Alli would escape her habit of dating men that hurt her and tormented her. Unfortunately that day had never come, and she was starting to believe that it may never come.