One Wild Night

"So, your grandfather, what is he like?" Sonia asked conversationally.

"What is my grandfather like?" Jade asked herself with a thoughtful smile.

"I\'m not sure I can exactly describe him. He is loving. I mean, in his own way. He is just one of those people that believe he is made for a greater purpose. And maybe if he didn\'t marry my late grandmother when he did, he probably would never have gotten married. What am I saying? Not probably. He would never have gotten married had he \'discovered himself\' as he likes to call it, earlier," Jade said, while Sonia looked at her, not sure she understood what Jade meant.

"What do you mean?"

"He lives for people. He doesn\'t believe he was made to merely be a family man. He is a good man, well-loved by all as you must know already. His only shortcoming as far as my dad is concerned is that he is there for everyone but his own son," Jade explained.

"Oh! I think I get it now," Sonia said with a nod when she remembered what Bryan had told her about Desmond being resentful of his father\'s office.

"Bryan told me about your dad\'s awkward relationship with him. So where does he live and how come you haven\'t seen him in years?" Sonia asked as she opened Lucy\'s drawers and snooped through them.

"Despite his age, he does a lot of traveling. As you must know he is a travel writer. He advocates through writing about the places he has been to and the needs of the people in those places. He draws the attention of philanthropists and the government of those places to them. So it\'s hard to see him. We barely have the time to visit our parents who are within the country how much more our grandfather who is always traveling about," Jade said reasonably.

"He is cool and can be annoyingly nosy when he wants to be, so brace yourself. I\'m sure he knows a lot about you already," Jade said, and Sonia raised a brow.

"Bryan told him about me?"

"We don\'t have to tell him anything for him to know. I just mentioned that he can be annoyingly nosy remember?" Jade reminded her.

"I will keep that in mind," Sonia said distractedly as she took out Lucy\'s journal which was on top of the other documents in her top drawer.

"I just realized I haven\'t gotten Lucy a gift for her birthday this year. I got Lucy a set of this pocket-sized journal for her birthday last year. She has a thing for pretty journals," Sonia said with a small smile as she opened the journal.

"Are you allowed to look into her journal? I mean, isn\'t it sort of like invading her privacy?" Jade asked with a slightly raised brow.

"She lets me read her journals. She doesn\'t write her thoughts, it mostly contains her plans and schedules and this," Sonia said with a grin as she flashed Jade the to-do list Lucy had made on her birthday.

"This was the night she met Tom," Sonia explained, and Jade raised a brow as she took a closer look at the list.

"Are these items on the list supposed to be a big deal?" Jade asked in confused amusement.

Dressing sexily, wearing contact lenses, going to a club, having a double martini, and even a one-night stand didn\'t seem like a big deal to her.

Maybe the one-night stand was, but every other thing there was something people did every day.

Sonia smiled, "For Lucy? Yep. Every item on this list is a big deal for Lucy. You have no idea how excited I was when she told me about it."

"How can wearing a sexy dress or contact lenses be a big deal?" Jade asked incredulously.

"She was always so decently dressed after the incident with Jamie. It was almost as though she was ashamed to reveal her body. She said stepping out without her glasses made her feel exposed like she was naked and everyone could see her. She hides behind her glasses."

"Okay. I get that. But what about the alcohol? I mean how can she have never had alcohol or been to a club at her age?"

Sonia shook her head, "Lucy has had alcohol, not just a double martini. Before the incident with Jamie, she used to be so much fun to be with, and very outgoing. We had a lot of plans for college. You know; boys, parties, clubs, and all that stuff teenage girls like to imagine. But after that incident, she sort of closed up. She hardly ever wanted to step out of the house. At first, she would sometimes have panic attacks in public, scared that someone was watching her or stalking her. And to make matters worse, she didn\'t talk much. Not about what happened or anything else. I could be with her chattering all day but she would only say a word or two. I could say that incident sort of rewired her," Sonia said with a shake of her head and smiled as she blinked back the tears that had gathered in her eyes.

"As it would anyone," Jade said, feeling teary herself.

"That must have been tough on you. Watching your best friend change into a different person,"

"Tough? That is an understatement. That had to be the worst period of my life. It was like I lost my family and best friend at the same time. All I had was her after my parents left, but she wasn\'t really present. She was like an empty shell. Physically present, but her eyes were empty. I was lonely. That was how I resorted to writing," Sonia said with a sigh.

"Anyway, going to a club was a big deal because it meant she had to summon the courage to be in a room full of strangers she did not know. Going home with a stranger was a huge risk considering her experience. Do you understand?" Sonia asked, and Jade frowned.

"Sounds more like craziness to me. I mean that was reckless and irresponsible. She should never have gone to a club for the first time alone. What if Tom was a serial killer, a rapist, or something?" Jade asked, and Sonia shrugged.

"Doing something crazy was the idea. She wanted to do something irrational, call it irresponsible. She had spent the years following the incident behaving very rationally and she wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Thankfully, it had a happy ending since that was how she met your brother," Sonia said with a happy smile as she flipped through the journal.

"Did she receive therapy?" Jade asked with interest.

"I told you she never talked about it. The interview was the first time I got the details. All attempts to make her speak with a therapist were futile. The last therapist suggested we let her be. She needed to be willing to confront what had happened and talk for therapy to work. They wouldn\'t know how to help her if they have no idea of what is wrong or how she feels," Sonia explained and Jade sighed.

She had forgotten that Lucy was the same person who had faced such a traumatic experience. Perhaps if she remembered this often, she would be less judgemental of Lucy\'s attitude of moral superiority.

Sonia paused and narrowed her eyes when she stopped at the page Lucy had written on that morning. She had scribbled a lot of things. More like thoughts and questions.

"What?" Jade asked when she noticed the concentration on Sonia\'s face.

Sonia shook her head as she flashed her a smile, "I was just thinking of something," Sonia said as she shut the journal and returned it to the drawer, not wanting to talk to Jade about it until she was able to talk to Lucy and find out why she had scribbled control freak and therapy all over her journal.

"So about going to crash Harry\'s date...."

"Nope. I\'m not doing that anymore," Jade said, and Sonia raised a brow.

"You\'re not? Why? Because Harry said so?"

"Not just because Harry said so. Because it would have been a terrible idea. I really don\'t think I should be taking advice from you," Jade said in amusement and Sonia scowled.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Candace and Lucy were against the idea, but you weren\'t. If I had gone ahead with it I could have caused unnecessary problems between me and Aurora, and also me and Harry," Jade said reasonably.

"Well, it wasn\'t my idea. It was yours. I was only being a supportive friend," Sonia said with displeasure.

"Thanks. But I would rather you discourage me from doing silly things than support me next time. Take for instance, the way you encouraged me to give Harry a call yesterday. You got a point for that," Jade said with a pleasant smile and Sonia rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. It\'s your relationship. Don\'t ask for my input next time," Sonia muttered and picked up her phone when it beeped with a notification.

She raised a brow when she realized the notification was from her menstrual tracker app and clicked on it. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that her period was two days late.