If you’re in the mood for soapy drama with a unique flair not seen on the three broadcast networks, Soap Hub Insider has a treat for you.
Introducing our exclusive online daily soap opera for Insider members. Like current soaps on air, Best For Last features daily written episodes focused on the drama surrounding Laurie, Seth, and a host of other players.
Get immersed in stories and characters you’ve never seen before and let them become family, like the players we see every day on Days of our Lives, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, and The Bold and the Beautiful.
Continue from Episode 24
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“That’s not any of your business, either.” Lauren blushed a furious crimson. But then, because she kind of really wanted Seth to know, added, “Yes.”
Seth didn’t turn red when he got angry. Mostly because Seth rarely got angry. But, when he did, Lauren knew it from how the muscles of his face got so tight, it looked like he’d had a stroke. They jerked in unison with every syllable, like tiny electroshocks.
“Dump him,” Seth ordered.
“What? No!”
“What does Granddaddy think of Steven?”
Granddaddy thought Steven was a stammering, mealy-mouthed, backbone-deficient dilettante who’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. “Just like Junior,” Granddaddy had added.
But Lauren wasn’t about to tell Seth that. “He hasn’t banned me from bringing him around the house.”
“That honor is reserved for me, I know.”
“I don’t have to listen to Granddaddy,” Lauren whistled past a graveyard. “And I most certainly don’t have to listen to you.”
She turned and headed back to her table. Seth grabbed her for a second time, more gently now.
“Laurie… Think. You have to know about the… Everybody does.”
“I know.” This time, she didn’t pull away quite so aggressively. She did it regretfully, truly sorry that matters had come to this, but way too entrenched in her position and with too much pride on the line to admit he might have even the beginnings of a point. She told him the same thing that she told herself, “I can handle it.”
Lauren knew about the cocaine. Seth was right, it was an open secret. Even the Stanford administration looked the other way. Because it was no secret that Steven needed it to play. Rather, he needed it to play well. In competition.
In practice, he was invincible. The most natural talent Lauren had ever seen, and she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. But, something happened to Steven when he stepped onto the court for a competitive match. The talent was still there. But his confidence in it was gone. He was fine as long as the set was going his way. But if the tide happened to turn, that was it.
His serve could go unbroken for a dozen games straight. But, once he lost so much as a single point, it threw him so staggeringly off rhythm that it was near-impossible for him to get his groove back. That’s when he started mumbling to himself, berating himself, furious and despondent and humiliated to the point where it grew painful to watch him.
The cocaine, as Steven explained to Lauren, took the edge off. It gave him confidence in his own abilities in a way no coach – or girlfriend’s – pep talk had ever been able to do. It freed him to be the person he wanted to be, instead of the one he unfortunately was.
It wasn’t a problem, he went on, because Steven only took as much as he needed. He used it, he didn’t abuse it. There was a difference. And, hey, did she know that Amerigo Vespucci, the guy who may not have discovered America, but he made the maps so he got naming rights, wrote about using cocaine as medication in his memoirs? And that it had served as surgical anesthesia for centuries? Sherlock Holmes endorsed cocaine – who cared if he was fictional? Ernest Shackleton carried cocaine tablets when he went to Antarctica, and Captain Scott did the same on his journey to the South Pole. Even Coca-Cola included it in its original recipe for 20 years!
That’s all Steven was doing, too. Using it medicinally. It was a tool, like a hearing aid or glasses. Cocaine wasn’t cheating. It didn’t improve his physical playing, just his mind-set. It didn’t change who he was. It just helped him drill down to the better, truer version of himself. The one that wasn’t plagued with self-doubts. You do understand, don’t you, Lauren? Everybody else understands…
She said she did. At first, merely because he expected her to; later, because she honestly did. Steven was right. He was only using drugs to become the man – and the player – his natural abilities supported his becoming. Nobody looked down on kids with ADD taking medication to help them focus so they could become the excellent students they could be once they were no longer hindered by brain chemistry. Why was it any different with Steven? Why was one drug legal and encouraged – Lauren knew dozens of people still taking it in college – while the other was stigmatized and banned? They both helped people reach their true potential.
Besides, when he played well, Steven was more fun to be around. When he lost, he sulked and moped and insisted on being left alone. It could take days to cajole him out of one of his funks.
When he won, though, he spent those same days on top of the world. He took Lauren out wherever she wanted to go; restaurants, bike rides, beaches. He accompanied her to parties and told jokes and made conversation with people he didn’t even like. He seemed happy. More importantly, he seemed comfortable in his own skin. And that was really all Lauren wanted for him. She wanted him to be happy.
So she’d told Seth the complete truth. She had no problem with Steven’s cocaine use. She could handle it. But that was before the cops arrived at his dorm. And slapped the cuffs on both of them.
Continue to Episode 26
About the Author
Alina Adams wrote the “As the World Turns” tie-ins, “Oakdale Confidential” and “The Man From Oakdale,” and co-wrote “Guiding Light’s” “Jonathan’s Story.” She was the Creative Content Producer for “Another World Today,” and worked on the 2013 relaunches of “All My Children” and “One Life To Live.” Her books include romance novels, figure skating murder mysteries, and the historical family saga, “The Nesting Dolls,” from HarperCollins. Read more at: AlinaAdams.com
