Eight Weeks (Unfrozen Four Book 2)

“shooting for the stars when I couldn’t make a killing”— High Hopes by Panic! At The Disco

“How’s it going?” my brother asks after I finally pick up the phone at five in the goddamn morning. “Did you hear the news already?”

“What news?” Clearly, I didn’t.

“The ones about Leon and Julia.”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me very soon, Lukas.” Lukas is five years older than me… and yet he is the one that loves gossip. With his twenty-six years on this earth, you’d think he finds gossiping childish. Well, he doesn’t. Especially not when it’s about our sister and that fucker that used to be my boyfriend.

If I’m being honest, I’ve always preferred Lukas over Julia. I never thought he preferred me over her though, given that they’re closer in age than we are. But the second I told him Julia fucked my boyfriend while I was still with him, he turned against her instantly.

Now, I know siblings should always stick together and have each other’s backs and such. But I refuse to call Julia my sister at this point.

She’s twenty-seven years old. Leon is my age. She knew very well that we were dating, and she still went and seduced him.

I’m not upset we’re no longer together. In fact, I knew Leon and I wouldn’t work out the second we started dating. Doesn’t mean she can go and fuck him while he’s in a relationship with me though.

And to make matters worse, they’re now a couple.

“Leon is going to propose to her on Christmas morning,” Lukas tells me. “As far as I know, Julia knows of it. They’re planning the proposal to make you feel bad when you come back for the holidays.”

Only Julia would be this cruel.

She’s always been heartless. Even more so when we moved to Germany. In a country where people tend to take words too seriously sometimes, she definitely fits right in. That is unless you move to a small town on the countryside and the townies are all chirpy and not saying hello while passing someone on the streets is counted as being rude.

Such a nightmare for my dear sister. A definite laugh for me.

“I’m not even sure I can come,” I say. The thought of having to watch my sister get proposed to by a guy I’ve dated before just gives me one more reason not to have time to be home for this Christmas. “I’ll probably have tons of homework etcetera.”

“No, Sofia. You will be there. I need you here. You think I can get through that act all by myself? If I’m the only one wasted, dad will make me clean our barn for a whole month. You know I can’t keep my mouth shut when I’m drunk, so I would tell Julia how much of a bitch she is only to get punished from our parents at the age of twenty-six.” He sure would. Our father is a little stricter than our mother, and yes, somehow, he still thinks punishing his adult children is acceptable.

Still. “I don’t know, Lukas. Everyone is going to look at me with pity in their eyes. They know what happened. It’s a small village we live in, word gets around. And then Leon proposes to my sister too? They’ll assume I’d be devastated.”

“So get a boyfriend and make him top Leon’s proposal.”

I chortle. “Doing what?”

“Propose to you a second later with a far bigger ring,” he says. “Or no, I’ve got something better. Just ask a man that looks better than Leon to be your date. You were always far too pretty for him anyway. Julia will be jealous, try to snatch that guy away from you but he will humiliate her by calling her out.”

That sounds awful. Hilarious, but awful.

“Where the hell am I supposed to find a hot guy that will pretend to be my boyfriend, fly all the way to Germany with me for the holidays and act as though he’s head over heels in love with me?” Impossible.

Lukas is quiet for a whole minute, just thinking.

While he thinks of an answer that won’t come because it is simply impossible to make that happen, I decide to go through the box containing the pictures one more time.

I didn’t get all too far last time as memories flooded my brain.

The first picture that catches my eyes is from December 2007. More specifically, my seventh birthday.

Lily, Aaron, and I are sitting at a table, my face covered in cake because a certain someone figured it was funny to push my head into the purple frosted birthday cake. Luckily for me, the candles were already blown out. Unfortunately, the purple frosting left an ugly stain that took a whole day to wash off. Imagine what the food coloring would have done to someone’s teeth.

Back then, I thought this was the worst thing to ever happen to me. But thinking back now, that birthday was probably the best I’ve ever had.

“I got it!” he screams into the phone. “A male-escort. But instead of using him to fuck, you’ll get him to be your date. Easy. I’ll pay.”

What? I burst out into a horrific laughter, a holding-my-hand-to-my-stomach kind of laughter.

“You’re right, bad idea. Julia would definitely snatch that guy away. But I have another option for you. What’s that guy’s name again? Adam? Alan? You know, the hockey guy you liked so much. Didn’t he live in New City? You think he still lives there?”

“No.”

I can feel him smirk. “No what? No, he didn’t live there; no, he doesn’t live there anymore; or no, this won’t happen?”

“Just no.”