Sophie sat cross-legged on her bed, her nose buried in a book. Pinky was curled up beside her. Each page flip was intermittent with the snores of Pinky.

"Not only are you the ugliest cat, you are the noisiest cat too!" Sophie complained, flopping back on her bed. She couldn't focus on her book because of Pinky's snoring. Her father knocked on her door and stepped in. A flash of annoyance passed over her face, you were supposed to walk and WAIT for permission to walk in, not just stroll in. Her parents were never good with privacy.

"Sophie?"

Sophie didn't reply, just studied him as if he was a cockroach that had stepped in to her room.

"Oh come on baby, don't treat me like that."

Sophie didn't open her mouth. Every time she opened her big mouth she got in trouble. Her dad walked over and sat beside her. He didn't say anything for a few minutes. Tension crackled in the air.

"How could you?" Sophie finally whispered. She couldn't cry, not now. Not in front of him. Her dad didn't reply, just put a hand on her shoulder. Sophie took it off and moved away from him.

"Why do you let her bully you like that?" Sophie asked, keeping her voice cool. A lump of sadness threatened to situate itself in her throat.

"Because I love her," Her dad paused. "Maybe you are just too young to know what love is."

That's not what love is supposed to be! She groaned inside of her head. There was something very, very wrong with their relationship and it was the elephant in the room that everyone refused to talk about.

"Dad, you're relationship isn't healthy. I may be too young to see what love truly is, but I know that that's not healthy."

Her dad sighed, and put a hand against his forehead. "I don't know... I just, our pastor said God hates divorce. Too many people are breaking up over the littlest things and I don't want to be one of those couples."

Sophie wanted to say more, but she knew that her mom could be listening. She was snoopy and hated them talking about her when it wasn't to her face. So she spied. Instead, she just sighed and put her hand on her dad's shoulder. She was still kind of mad, but she got it. Their mom was a bully to both of them.

"I'm sorry, honey." Her dad muttered. Sophie frowned and rubbed his shoulder. She wanted to let forgiveness and passion fall from her mouth. Instead she pressed her lips tighter. She was still angry with him and they didn't need to let her bully them. It was because they were weak. It's our fault, she thought to herself. Her mother was much stronger than them. They spent a few more minutes in quiet, reverent silence before her dad stood up abruptly.

"Well, I should probably go and find whatever other mischief I can get myself into. Love you,"

"Love you too," He had left before he could hear her reply. Pinky had left with him, and Sophie couldn't help but feel as if she was alone in the world.

~*~*~*~*~

Abeni was standing in the corner and watching Sara with a reserved stare.

"Good morning, Abeni. Nice to see you watching me while I sleep."

No reply. "Sorry. That wasn't very nice. Sometimes I just can't keep my sarcasm under control, you know?"

Still no reply.

"Well, you always were a talkative one." Sara muttered, sitting up on her bed. Her head looked as if it had thrown a party she was not invited too. She ran her fingers through it a few times, wishing that it was less wild. Maybe she should give herself a haircut? Maybe they would give her a haircut.. Probably not. They wouldn't allow any of the patients to be anywhere near something as dangerous as scissors. A shiver ran down her back.

She made a funny face at the stoic Abeni and then got up to leave.

"Hey," Abeni spoke through a thick accent.

"Hello?" Sara turned around and looked at the other lady. No reply. "Abeni?" No reply. "I swear you talked. Don't pretend you didn't." Sara teased cheerfully.

No reply. Sara resisted the urge to groan. Why were adults so confusing? She turned around to leave. A small sound emitted from the corner. Sara turned around and stared back at Abeni. Two could play at this game.

"I never," She paused, searching for words. "Name," She gestured to herself. "Abeni." She pointed at Sara, willing for her to understand.

"Sara, it's nice to finally hear you talk, Abeni." Abeni grinned and laughed.

"I did hear you talk, Abeni. Just not english," Sara grinned along with her. Her belly loudly reminded her of why she had woken up in the first place. "Well. I'm going to get breakfast. Do you think that they will have grape jelly today? They only had strawberry jam yesterday and I hate strawberry jam." She continued to blather on, Abeni politely listening but not managing to reply through her thick accent. Sara was talking too fast for her to really understand anyway.

They didn't have any grape jelly.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"So how are you feeling today, Sara?"

"Honestly, I've been better Doc. Sophie didn't take as well as I'd like to the whole rely on yourself for happiness thing. Which I don't know why. If you look at it objectively, it makes sense - since other people you can lose. But if you understand ways to make yourself happy, I don't really think you can lose those. On top of that, I've been thinking about my mother a lot."

"I'm very sorry for bringing her here. I feel as if it would be better for your mental health to distance yourself from your mother. And how did you phrase it with Sophie?"

"Well. I told Sophie just like this: 'I need to rely on myself for my own happiness.' I don't know if I was being too harsh or what, but I don't want her to leave me here. I don't want her to leave."

"She won't leave. I'm sure she wants a friend as much as you do. I mean if you think about it - you have only met once before and she comes to visit you in the hospital. Twice, even."

"Yeah. That makes sense. I don't want to be alone."

"No one does. Listen - for when you get released -" Sara leaned forward in her chair, "I'm going to put you in contact with the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary. They have a special program with homeless LGBT youth, where they can match you with a house that is trained for youth in your situation."

Sara looked at her hands, her brain debating. She didn't want to be homeless anymore... but years of abuse had led to natural distrust of people in a parental position.

"I'm not telling you to do anything. But I think it would be a lot better for you to have a stable and supportive environment rather than back out on the streets."

Sara took a deep breath. "What day am I being released?"

"Three days from now. So on Saturday. Could you please consider it? It will be good for you. Trust me, I have been to a few years to school to know what's good for people's mental health." He finished it with a smirk and wink, which teased a smile out of Sara.

"We should really talk about your parents, while we are on the topic. You didn't tell me about the conversion therapy."

Sara stayed silent, the smile on her face dying very quickly.

"Talk to me. It will help me understand you so we can work on your mental health."

Sara glanced around the office, her eyes resting on a small figurine of a bobblehead Luke Skywalker on his desk. Her heart threatened to climb into her throat. She wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. "I -" her voice squeaked. She swallowed and tried again. "I went to conversion therapy for only 6 months. At first it was pretty basic stuff - stuff to shame me back into the closet. Bible quotes that back up the hatred of homosexuality. I've always been kind of a stubborn and pig-headed person - you know that - and I was sassy. I didn't have much self esteem to speak of back then, I guess more than I have now. I didn't want to change. I resented my parents, so, so much. Both of them." Tears fought to be in her eyes, but none of them escaped. "I started doing things to spite them. Things I would never have done before. I drank on school nights, did drugs and had this whole 'constantly flipping the bird' attitude. They didn't take to that very much - so... So my mom told her to step up the therapy. I had to go every week or else. Or else, uh. Heh. My dad hit me a lot." She winced. "The alcohol really got to him. He would change - he'd be a happy drunk or an angry drunk. There wasn't an in between. I don't think sober was in his vocabulary." Ethan leaned forward and wrote something down on a piece of paper. "When she stepped up the therapy - there isn't.. I don't think there are any laws against it. There should be. This is Canada! We legalized gay marriage in 05, why haven't we dealt with this yet?"

Ethan paused. "What did she do?" his voice was soft and gentle.

"She'd uh. At first it wasn't much. I was pretty used to pain from my dad. But uh, she'd um... She'd show me pictures. Of girls making out, boobs, butts - really pornographic stuff. And she'd hit me with a real thin stick while I looked at them. Then she would hook up these little white pad things. And she would uh, she'd shock me while I looked at those images." Her face coloured bright red, as if confessing to some ultimate sin that had been her fault. Something she had done. Ethan took a moment and sat silently. He adjusted the pin on his shirt that read 'Dr. Ezekiel'.

"Do you think you might have trouble with affection because of this?"

"Yea. I don't know how to deal with people being nice to me. I want people to like me and for me to have friends... but when people are nice to me, I don't know how to handle it. I always end up being a bitch.. and I don't mean to. It just - it's more natural to me."

He wrote something else down.

"And," he looked up, maintaining eye contact with Sara. It was so rare - she would usually never meet his eyes. "I guess it just helped reinforce the idea that I'm really wrong. Or that, that something is really wrong with me."

"There is nothing wrong with you. You have been through alot, but those people, what they said - it's not true. None of it. You know what I think would help?" Dr. Ezekiel usually did exercises like this a lot sooner than he had with Sara. But before his main focus was just to get Sara to talk to him.

Sara sniffled and looked at him.

"Affirmations. It's something you tell yourself daily, until you start to believe them. Because you deserve to believe them."

"...What would I be telling myself?"

"Well, you would look in the mirror. It's up to you how you want to phrase it - but I think there are some topics in particular that you should work on." He phrased it almost as a question.

"Like..." she gulped. "Homosexuality?"

"Yes. Things to help with your self esteem as well. What do you like about yourself?"

Sara paused. What did she like about herself? What was there too even say about her?

"Um. I've always tried to keep my convictions."

"That's really good!" On anyone else it would sound patronizing - but on Ethan it sounded natural and truthful. "How about, appearance wise? What's your favourite thing about your appearance?"

Sara paused and tried to think. It felt like she was pushing her brain through a cheese grater.

"I like my nose.."

"Alright, that's very good. I want you - every morning when you get up to look at yourself in the mirror. You are going to say: 'I am beautiful. I am important. I am not broken. Being gay is ok.' And I need you to say it everyday."

"Ok, I will say it everyday." She wasn't going to say it everyday.

"Promise?" Ethan knew just how to back her into a corner.

"I promise." Now she had to do it. Sara wouldn't break a promise. Especially not to Ethan - the first adult who had actually been kind to her.

He held his wrist up and tapped his watch. "You should probably get going - you are going to miss group therapy and I know you love it too much to miss it."

Sara snorted. "Sit in a group of people and be angsty. I thought I came to you to be angsty?" It was meant as a joke, but she didn't laugh.