“Hey, daddy. Can you come pick me up? I’m at Peter Lougheed.”

“Sophie? Why are you at the hospital?”

“I had someone to visit. Can we talk about this in the car?”

“Yeah. I’m on my way.” Sophie’s fathers voice was burning with curiousity. Sophie looked up at the windows of the hospital. Maybe she’d see Sara in one of them? But, she was nowhere to be found. Sophie couldn’t help but worry about her - after all she had tried to kill herself. On top of that, a twinge of guilt hit her heart. For some reason it could have been her fault that Sara had almost died? Although the logic in her brain was in adamant disagreement about the feelings of her heart. Of course that had been happening an unfortunate amount in Sophie’s head lately.

Sophie’s dad drove a Prius. He was constantly complaining about how decidedly unmanly that his damn Prius was, but he drove it anyway. They easily had enough money to buy a new car, but Sophie’s dad kept driving his “damn Prius” because Sophie’s mother had bought it for him. So he drove it dutifully, with interjections of frequent complaints. Sophie gracefully sat in the car, putting on her seatbelt with decided tenseness.

“You seem tense.”

“Yeah, Dad. It’s been a long day.”

“Oh?” He was clearly burning with curiosity. “So what are you doing at the hospital?”

“Visiting a friend.”

“Which friend? I don’t know anyone who is in the hospital. Your mother and I would definitely have heard about it.”

“Promise you won’t tell Mom?”

“Oh, this should be good.”

“Promise?”

Her dad considered it for a moment, the thought rolling over his mind. He wasn’t sure of how good he was at keeping secrets from his wife since he had this incredibly annoying tendency of not being able to do that.

“Promise.” This reminded him of when Sophie was their little precious baby girl and made him pinky promise to any secrets.

“Ok, I know you are like, literally the worst secret keeper in the history of ever but it’s really important that you don’t tell mom. Because I will get in a lot of trouble and won’t be able to see my friend again.”

“Okay,” Her dad was even more interested now.

“I went to McDonald’s the other day. Before you say anything - I know I’m not allowed to eat McDonald’s but I had to break the rules for once. Anyway, I met this girl there and we ate lunch together. Or more I was super rude and things,”

“So, this girl is your friend now. Where does she live?”

“Wherever she wants.”

Sophie’s dad thought about that for a moment. It took him a couple of seconds before the ‘oh’ moment crossed over his face. Sara was homeless, which surprised Sophie’s dad most of all. He had always taught her that you could get out of any hard situation by working hard, so he felt little to no sympathy for the homeless girl Sophie was friends with. After all, it was probably her fault that she was homeless.

“Ok, so how did your ‘friend’ end up in the hospital?”

Sophie debated it for a moment. Should she tell him the truth? Or did he know enough for now? She knew his views on homeless people and could sort of read the expression on his face - he clearly already had a sort of low opinion of Sara. Even without knowing her. And Sophie didn’t want to lower that opinion any further because Sara did not deserve that.

“She was in an accident. Fell off of the bridge into the river.”

“That’s rough. When is she going to be released?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t technically supposed to be in there with her, but…” Sophie couldn’t finish the sentence to her dad. How could she even articulate the way she felt? Guilty, and something else. She had to see Sara, to make sure that she was okay. Was that so bad? But something felt innately selfish about it, like not only was she doing it for Sara, she was doing it for herself.

“So you snuck in?”

“Yeah. I broke a lot of rules today.”

“And you… expect me to just let you do that without any consequences?”

“No. But before you decide what awful, horrid punishment to dish out, please consider the fact that this is super important to me.” Her dad didn’t reply, just knit his eyebrows together. His thoughts were written all over his face - what was he supposed to do? Clearly something about this friend was incredibly important to Sara - but he couldn’t keep something like this from his wife. Sophie realized his thoughts and fell from her perch on the carseat into an unladylike slump. Her dad didn’t want her to hang out with someone like that. Especially if she was inept enough to fall off a bridge - which sounded like a totally bullshit reason on top of that. Sophie’s dad guessed that she had probably tried to kill herself and his opinion lowered even further.

“I don’t want you to be friends with this girl. She is clearly a negative influence if she got you to break all of these rules.” Sophie put her head in her hands.

“She didn’t get me to break all of those rules. I broke them on my own,” exasperated was portrayed in every word spoken. Sophie was hit with this feeling of totally loneliness. She really couldn’t tell anyone anything. She couldn’t trust anyone not to betray her, not even her own father. Who knows how her mother was going to tear her down after this. One thing was certain - she was going to get torn down. She always had been whenever she tried to talk to her mother.

“This is too much, Sophie. I don’t want you to come - “

“It’s always about you, isn’t it dad? You and mother are the centre of the universe because we live in a big house and make a lot of money. When is ever going to be about what I want?”

“Don’t be self-centred. The thing is, the world does not revolve around you and I, it revolves around the sun which you should know because I pay for your education - as well as everything else in your life. We provide everything for you, and you’d do well to remember that.”

“You provide everything. You know what? I would throw all of it away if I could have the one thing that I really want. A real, wholesome love without a hint of fakeness. Unfortunately, you and my dearest mother are nothing but fake.” Sophie’s usually sing song and posh voice was loaded with acid. To say the least, the rest of the car ride was incredibly awkward.