Not a sound could be heard in Sophie's house. Sophie gently walked through the house, freezing if something creaked. She had to get out - to escape.

The front door closed shut behind her and she was home free! She ran until she couldn't run any more from the burning in her legs and lungs. She felt incredibly alive, and grounded. Her house was very far away from the Peter Lougheed Hospital - it was across a river and up on a hill overlooking the rest of the city. Even though Sophie wanted nothing more to visit Sara in the hospital again, it was decidedly not an option. That fact made Sophie's heart hurt. Instead she chose to walk aimlessly down the hill.

The moon was full and it shone with a surprising amount of light down on Sophie as she walked. Out here in the world, listening to the sounds of the city, she felt innately connected. Connected to the engines of the cars driving past on the road, the streetlights shining, the river running and the moon glowing. It was an absurd, almost comical feeling. Comical because she had never felt so connected - so belonging like this before. She certainly never felt that in her own home. Every bone in her body was screaming for her to just stay there. But she couldn't. If her dad or mom caught her she would get into even more trouble and her mother would tear her down all over again. See, Sophie was in a constant state of building up walls - hiding behind her flounciness and her posh manners to make sure that no one could get anywhere deeper than that. Unfortunately, one of her mothers specialties was tearing down those walls that Sophie worked very hard to keep up.

It must have been an hour before Sophie managed to pick her way back to the house. Luckily, no one was awake and the walk was fine. When Sophie climbed back into bed she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

That relief was short lived. Sophie wanted nothing more to get out of this house again - she'd much rather be with Sara right now. She had to try and go to sleep, somehow. Even that little task seemed impossible. The night was spent tossing and turning.

"You look like crap,"

"Good morning to you too,"

"Seriously, its not a good look with the bags under your eyes. You have to represent this family and to represent this family we have to look good."

"Maybe I'd sleep better and look better if you weren't constantly hounding me, mother." Sophie picked up her coffee and grabbed her bagel, running to catch the bus. This had been the first time ever being almost late and boy was it a shock to the girls she sat with on the bus. The only reason she was friends with these girls is because they went to school together, but their relationship didn't go any deeper than that. In fact, with the disaster that Sophie had appeared as today, they all shifted away uncomfortably as if they didn't want to be seen with her. That confused Sophie to no end - she didn't look that bad. Sure, she hadn't put on the same amount of makeup she usually wore, but she still had a bit of cover up on, and a tiny bit of mascara. Sophie didn't speak a word to her 'friends' but it didn't matter - she wasn't going to be staying at the school today. When the bus pulled up to the school, she scanned the area for any teachers. She was lucky, the teacher who was supposed to be supervising had been late. That made it easy to casually walk away from the school as if she had never been going there in the first place. Sophie had to be careful - the entire street on the walk to the Peter Lougheed was littered with schools. If one of the teachers from those schools saw her... It wouldn't be a good scene. She walked slow with the hood of her hoodie pulled tight around her head. Uneventful and long would be the best two words to describe the walk - it was about half an hour away from her school. When she got to the Peter Lougheed there was still a good two hours before the psych ward was open for visiting.

Sophie lingered in the cafeteria. She played on her phone and went into the gift shop about three times - every time she revisited there was nothing new. When 10am finally rolled around Sophie sprang to her feet and had to keep herself from running up the stairs to the ward. The guard stopped her.

"Aren't you the girl whose banned?" Sophie chose not to reply to that.

"I'm here to visit Sara."

"Last name?" That never really came up in the two of their conversations.

"I don't know."

"Then you don't know her well enough to visit her." This guard was an asshole.

"Please?"

"That's not gonna cut it, cupcake." A degrading, sexist asshole. "Why do you want to see her?" Sophie didn't reply, just paced in front of him. She had pepper spray in her purse - her dad forced her to keep it on her at all times. Funny. How he couldn't even try to protect her at home yet was so eager to protect her out in the world.

"Hey, I asked you a question, cupcake."

"Stop calling me cupcake."

"Why do you want to see her?"

Sophie couldn't answer that. She very well knew the answer to his question, but she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. After all, she was a Christian. Sophie went to church every Sunday, was part of a youth group every Saturday. There was no way that something could be so, so... wrong about her. Besides. She was her friend. Nothing more. Right?

"She's a friend of mine." It was a somewhat lie.

"Yet you don't even know her last name. You must be one good friend,"

Sophie felt the bubble of angry rise up in her chest but she quickly squashed it. After all, she was trying to get in to the ward, not piss the guard off. The guard finally sighed, breaking under Sophie's glare. He clicked on his walkie-talkie.

"Hey Elise, can I talk to Ethan please? Thank you." He clicked off the walkie-talkie. "What was your name again?"

"Sophie." His walkie-talkie clicked on with a beep.

"Ethan. There's a girl here - the one who is banned and she wants to see Sara."

"I'll be right out." Was Ethan's crackly reply. The guards smile was devilish - it seemed he believed Ethan wasn't going to let Sophie in. Ethan buzzed his way out of the ward and stood before Sophie.

"So you are the friend that snuck in?"

"Yes sir." Sophie tried to keep the blush from her cheeks. She wasn't used to breaking the rules, but here she was. Breaking all of the rules just for Sara.

"Why?'

"Because she's my friend. And she almost died and I was worried."

Ethan nodded.

"And she still owes me lunch." Ethan looked down and put his hand to his face. He took a deep breath and looked Sophie right in her eyes. Sophie wanted to look away - Ethan had this look that stripped you down to your very soul and he casually peered into it. She couldn't tear her eyes away.

"You know what? I'm feeling nice today. I'll go talk to Sara."

"Sara, you have a visitor here. I'm pretty sure she skipped school just to come see you."

"And yet you don't want me to see her." That's when Sara saw the look on Ethan's face. He was thinking about letting Sara see her, and that was written plain as day on his forehead.

"I'm going to let you see her - on one condition. Remember what I told you though, this is real life. Not some soppy romance movie and you need to draw happiness from within yourself, not from Sophie."

"Yes, Doc. Can I go see here now?" Besides, she probably doesn't even like me back. She thought to herself, feeling a momentary wave of sadness wash over her.

Ethan let out a sigh. "Yea, you guys can go down to the cafeteria."