Free One Night in Italy by Lucy Diamond

as a last stab at independence.
    ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her mum told her. Stubbornness was rather a theme in the Frost family.
    ‘Good,’ Jim said, looking exhausted all of a sudden. He shut his eyes and Sophie noticed how pale his face was against the pillow. ‘I’m going to have a kip now,’ he murmured, as if his work here was done. ‘See you later.’
    Sophie and her mum looked at one another. ‘Well,’ said Trish uncertainly.
    ‘Well,’ echoed Sophie.
    ‘I’ll leave him to it for a bit,’ Trish said. ‘I need to pop into town anyway. I’ll pick up a few things.’ She hesitated. ‘Fancy a chop for tea?’
    ‘I’m vegetarian,’ Sophie said, then felt bad for the injured expression that appeared on her mum’s face. Try harder, Sophie. ‘Maybe I could cook us something instead. Save you the hassle.’
    Trish looked as if she was about to argue, but then glanced back down at Jim who was frowning slightly, eyes still shut. ‘That would be . . . nice,’ she said weakly. ‘Thank you.’
    Sophie went to pick up her stuff from the hostel then got the bus up the Fulwood Road to her parents’ house in Ranmoor later that afternoon. There were the houses and shops she’d walked past a million times looking both familiar yet different at the same time. She could almost hear the sound of rollerskates whizzing as she remembered how she and Kirsty, the girl next door, had zoomed around together on these streets, hand in hand, squealing as they careered along. She’d had her first cigarette skulking in that bus shelter (coughing and spluttering, green in the face) and drank her first underage half-pint of lager in the Gladstone Arms up the road. And now here she was again, getting nearer her parents’ house with every step.
    Oh God. It had seemed the right thing to do back at the hospital – the only thing to do, when her dad had fixed her with that imploring expression – but now she was bitterly regretting caving in to his whim. She hesitated outside the pub, suddenly longing for a vodka tonic to take the edge off things. Then she opened her purse and gazed at the meagre contents. Three tenners, a crumpled fiver, some pound coins and a handful of silver. Thirty-nine pounds. That was it.
    ‘There you are!’ called a voice from behind her just then, as a young, good-looking mixed-race guy with a buzz cut came out of the pub.
    Sophie thought he was talking to her for a minute, but then saw a woman approaching, wearing a black bomber jacket with skinny jeans and thigh boots, her long, dark hair pulled up in a messy bun. ‘Freddie!’ she called, hurrying over to him. The two of them kissed passionately right there in the doorway of the pub, hands sliding all over each other. Sophie turned her gaze away. It had been a long time since anyone had held her like that. Three years and two months, in fact: Dan, in Sydney. But she didn’t think about him any more, she reminded herself.
    She shoved her purse back in her bag and walked reluctantly past the pub. ‘Here goes nothing,’ she muttered under her breath as she went on up the road.
    Trisha Frost obviously didn’t trust her daughter’s ability in the kitchen because the fridge was full of Waitrose vegetarian ready meals. Sophie, who was used to existing on the tightest of tight budgets, even if that meant eating noodles seven days a week, wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled (massive treat) or scandalized (massive waste of money). Hunger won out though. Everything looked bloody delicious.
    ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said as Trish showed her where the biscuits were kept (like she would have forgotten that !) and the new extension which housed the utility room and a downstairs loo.
    ‘Just leave any washing in the basket here,’ Trish told her. ‘I do the ironing on Sundays, so if there’s anything you want doing . . .’
    ‘It’s fine, Mum, honestly.’
    ‘Dinner will be at six,’ Trish went on, ‘and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t smoke