Broken

Author: Janet (SkyGirl5)

Genre: S/V, AU

Summary: Michael Vaughn, therapist, runs into a very peculiar patient sitting on the doorstep to a home for runaway girls where he works. Realizing this woman needs help, he dives right in and tries to break down her protective walls, but he soon finds himself falling for her.

Disclaimer: Sydney, Vaughn, etc are properties of JJ Abrams and ABC.

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Chapters 1-10 // Chapters 11 - 18 + Epilogue

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Chapter 1

Michael Vaughn shivered as he got out of his car and locked it. He pulled his coat tightly around him and crammed his hands down in his pocket. It was an unusually cold day in Los Angeles, even if it was the first day of February. Usually, a ‘low’ temperature would have been in the 40’s, but that morning it was a painful 33 degrees Fahrenheit, almost, quite literally, freezing.

He sped up his pace as he approached Sarah’s Home, the renovated home for run away teenage girls where he worked. Michael was a psychiatrist there, or at least he was trying to be. He was twenty-seven and in his last semester of medical school. Sarah’s Home was where he had been placed and he spent three days a week there, talking with the girls and helping out in any way he could.

When he caught sight of the front steps to Sarah’s Home, he saw a figure huddled up close to the house. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Michael was often the first to arrive on the days he worked there and girls often turned up over night, but it was unusual because of the temperature outside. The girl must have been freezing.

“Excuse me,” he said quietly, trying not to startle her since, unfortunately, girls who lived on the dangerous streets of LA often carried a weapon of some sort. “Excuse me, miss.”

The girl stirred and looked up at him. When he saw her, he actually stepped back, for her brown eyes were as big as saucers and quite obviously full of a lot of pain. They were lined in smeared black makeup and her left eyebrow was pierced. She, by no means, looked any different than most of the girls who showed up there. For some reason though, Michael had an instinct that maybe she was different in some way. Only he was unable to identify the reason for this difference. “Would you like to come inside?” he asked her kindly. She nodded without speaking and slowly stood.

When she did this, Michael saw that she was nearly as tall as him and though she was wearing many layers of clothing, it was obvious she was drastically underweight. He unlocked the front door with his key and ushered her inside, out of the cold. “My name is Michael,” he told her. “Can I get you something? Some water?”

“Coffee, please,” she breathed.

“I’ll see what I can find,” he told her. “Just have a seat,” he gestured towards a wooden chair in the front hall before walking off through the creaking house. He returned a few moments later with a steaming cup of dark liquid that he handed to her. “Sorry, it’s decaf; that’s all they have here.”

“Thanks,” she sighed before sipping it slowly and clutching the glass close to her, as though trying to draw warmth from it.

“Can you tell me your name?” he asked her slowly.

For a moment, she didn’t respond, she merely stared down at her black boot covered feet. Then, in a very tiny voice she said, “Amy, my name is Amy. I just need a place to stay.”

“Alright Amy,” he said. “We’ll find you a room here.”

It was only a few minutes before Margaret, or Mar as she was fondly known, came down the stairs. Mar was the head of Sarah’s Home. She lived there and managed the girls staying there, making sure they didn’t get into trouble.

“Mar, this is Amy,” Michael said to her. Mar nodded and then Michael walked off to his tiny office.

“Well hello Amy, can you tell me how old you are?” Mar asked her.

“Seventeen,” she said quickly. Mar looked her up and down suspiciously. “Please, I just need a place to stay,” she added.

“Alright,” Mar sighed. “Follow me and we’ll get you all set. The rules of the house are fairly simple: you do what we say or you leave. It is your privilege to stay here, do you understand that?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Now, did you bring anything with you? Clothes? Personal items?” Mar asked. Amy held up a small bag. “I’m going to have to search that. We don’t allow drugs or weapons of any kind here.”

“I don’t have any drugs,” she insisted. Mar looked skeptical and she took her bag. Inside, she found only a few clothing items and a crumpled, folded photograph of a woman, who looked so similar to the younger girl in front of her, she assumed it was her mother, or at least a relative of some kind.

“Alright empty out your pockets,” Mar instructed. From her large overcoat pockets she pulled a few crumpled tissues, empty candy bar wrappers, a book of matches and a smashed ten dollar bill. Then from the pockets of the pants she was wearing she pulled a five dollar bill, more tissues and a small pocket knife.

“I’ll be taking this,” Mar said, picking up the knife. “Now, you’ll be sharing a room with two other girls. Make sure to keep close track of your things. Within the week we’ll be finding a job for you. Typically the jobs are at a grocery store, do you think you can do that?”

“Uh huh,” Amy nodded.

“Good. In addition to that, we require that you speak with our therapist at least twice a week. You’ve already met him though, I see.”

“Michael?” she asked, recalling the name of the man who brought her coffee.

“Yes, him. I’ll give you a chance to get settled and showered, and then you can speak with him.”

She nodded and entered the room that Mar had shown her. “Thank you.”



Chapter 2

After she showered, Amy went back downstairs and found the tiny office where Michael was waiting for her. She knocked softly on the door and waited for a response.

“Come in,” Michael said as soon as he heard the knock. The door opened slowly and Amy poked her head in. Immediately, Michael saw a very different girl than the one he had seen an hour earlier. Her black makeup was gone and he saw that her long sleeved shirt and jeans simply hung on her bony frame. Her cheeks also appeared to be a bit sunken and there were large dark circles around her eyes. “Amy, hi. Have a seat,” he said, gesturing towards the couch against the wall across from his desk.

Amy sat, but said nothing. “So… um, Mar tells me you’re seventeen.” Michael continued. Amy nodded. “You’re in high school then?” he asked.

“I was,” she said shortly in a quiet whispery voice.

“Alright well, maybe we can get you back into school then. Can you tell where you ran away from?” he asked. She said nothing for a solid three minutes so he continued, “Alright… how about why you ran away?”

She said nothing.

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” Michael asked her.

“I dunno,” she shrugged.

“How about that tattoo right there,” he pointed to the inside of her left wrist where he could see a design. “When’d you get that?”

“Dunno… a while ago,” she shrugged as she pulled her sleeve down to cover it.

“What is it of?” he asked.

“Just a symbol… Chinese symbol…” she said.

“Oh yeah? I have one of those tattooed on my arm,” he said. With this, she looked up at him, obviously surprised. “Yes, the therapist has a tattoo – be shocked,” he said, and then he smiled proudly since his comment got a very tiny smile from her.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he continued with his ‘friendly, yet trying to search for information’ routine. She shook her head. “What about parents?” he asked. She didn’t respond in any way, she just stared at her feet.

For fifteen more minutes he tried to pry information out of her, but he never got anymore than a head shake or nod from her, which meant he basically had nothing. Finally he gave up, knowing that she wasn’t in any mood to share. He told her he’d see her on Thursday, two days from then, and then she left.

Sighing, he returned to his desk and began to write up a report on her. It wasn’t unusual for the girls, especially on their first day, to be quiet at first. In fact, he had only had one girl break down the first day. The rest held strong for a week or so, mostly because they were too terrified to do anything else, but then they’d reveal everything.

Almost all the girls came from homes with abusive parents, step-parents or foster parents of some sort and they usually stayed at Sarah’s Home a month, maybe two before they were able to find a relative – a safe relative – to stay with. It was rare for them to stay longer, but sometimes it happened. They were always young and very timid.

As Michael sat there, staring at the paper he was trying to fill out in front of him, he couldn’t figure out why Amy didn’t fit the general description of the girls that usually showed up there. For one, she was obviously older. Though she claimed she was seventeen, Michael would have been positively floored if she was really that young. Secondly, she didn’t show any signs of abuse aside from the fact that she looked emaciated. Usually girls came in with split lips or black eyes, but she had neither of those things. It was possible that her torso was covered in bruises though, he supposed.

In the end, he decided he was judging her prematurely. After all, he had only spent a collective half hour with her. His first impression could have been entirely wrong.

~*~

Once she left Michael’s office, Amy returned to her new room. Amy. She nearly laughed at herself for that one. When he had asked her what her name was, she panicked. She wasn’t sure why, but she just couldn’t reveal her real name, so she said the first female name that popped into her head. She did the same with her age.

What was her real identity? It didn’t much matter anymore. She couldn’t be that person again, not ever again. It just wasn’t safe.

Up in her room, she gathered up all her clothes and took them down to the washing machined she had spotted off the kitchen. Her clothes hadn’t been washed in months and they were revolting. She waited for them to be finished while reading a magazine she found in the kitchen, and then she switched them to the dryer. As she did this, two girls came in a nearby door laughing together. The moment they saw her, they stopped laughing and she folded her arms protectively across her chest and backed herself up against the dryer to let them pass. They passed without a word.

She wasn’t there to make friends; she was merely there to survive another day, for she knew that elsewhere she never would have made it.



Chapter 3

For the next month and a half, Michael experienced little progress as he continued to work with Amy. He spoke with her twice, sometimes even three times a week, but each time her responses to his questions or statements were minimal. He managed to find out that she loved dogs. That was it; nothing more. He wasn’t giving up though. In fact, her stubbornness only made him more intent on getting to the truth behind her façade.

For some reason he couldn’t understand or explain, he was utterly captivated by her. At night when he went home, he’d think about who she might really be and devised ways to help her. When he was speaking to her, he was mesmerized simply by the sight of her. Her outward appearance had been the only thing that really changed. She had put on weight and looked less emaciated. He supposed she wasn’t quite back to her normal, healthy weight for her height, but she was definitely close. Her eyes, though they still looked sad, seemed more relaxed. All the piercings she had, except for the standard two in her ears, had been removed and as it turned out, the tattoo on her wrist was a fake and had disappeared within a week. In addition, her features seemed to be getting softer, which didn’t exactly match her seemingly hard interior.

Michael wasn’t sure why, but she still had a hard, thick wall up around her, refusing to let anyone in or even near it. He had never seen her cry, nor had he seen her show any type of emotion whatsoever, she was simply blank. Usually, he wouldn’t have been attracted in any way to such a person, but yet to her he was, and it scared him. He knew that he was attracted her in the ‘I need to help this person or it will eat away at me until I do’ way, which he found to be a good thing, given the nature of his job. The thing that scared him though, was he thought he might have been attracted to her in a romantic sense, which would have been horrible on many, many levels. But he pushed those thoughts from his mind the best he could since she needed him to help her get back on her feet first. Not to mention the fact that, for all he knew, she was over ten years his junior.

One evening, he had stayed late to finish up some paperwork, when he thought he heard someone hovering outside his door. He saw a shadow floating through the frosted window in the office door and got out of his chair to investigate. When he opened the door, the person tried to scamper away, but he saw her before she was able to disappear. “Amy, is that you?” he asked.

“Yes… I… I’m sorry to bother you,” she said quickly.

Michael was stunned at the fact that her voice was cracking, sounding almost as though she was on the very edge of breaking down. “Amy wait, are you crying? Are you alright? Is there something you want to talk about?” he asked as he walked over to her. When she spun around, he saw tears flooding her large, chocolate brown eyes and his heart physically ached for her. “Here, come here,” he said softly as he pulled her back into his office. She followed and plopped herself down on the couch, reaching for a tissue as she did so.

“What happened, Amy?” Michael asked her again. Then, he noticed her hand slip from the pocket of her sweatshirt, in it was grasped a tiny folded photograph, but he couldn’t tell what it was of because her fingers were in the way.

“My…my mom,” she began slowly. “She-she died… this… anniversary of… her dying,” she let out a ragged breath and reached for another tissue.

“Oh Amy, I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. Suddenly, he was beginning to see the light. The death of a parent often triggered instances such as these. “Is this her?” he asked, gesturing towards the photograph. Amy nodded slowly and unclenched her fist slightly so that the photograph came into view.

“She’s beautiful; you look just like her,” Michael told her softly.

She sniffed and nodded. “I just… she’s gone! She was like my best friend… and she’s gone!”

“You wanna tell me about it?” he asked.

She nodded tearfully. “She was… c-coming to pick me up…. Play practice… she didn’t have to, I could have gotten a ride… but, but it was raining… and, and there was an accident,” she choked out, tears now streaming down her face. Then, she looked up to Michael, almost pleading with him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it! I didn’t!

“Shhh, it’s alright. It’s not your fault,” he said soothingly. Upon seeing her body trembling, he could hold himself back no longer and he put an arm around her back. Immediately, she fell into his arms, crying and saying she was sorry over and over again.

She cried for half an hour, using up the entire tissue box in Michael’s office in the process. Then, once her tears had stopped flowing she just sat there, still clinging to Michael’s arm like it was a life raft saving her from drifting dangerously out to sea.

Michael didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to leave her, which could upset her even more, nor did he want to risk the chance of her reverting from this breakthrough. He wanted her to keep going; keep talking; get better, but it was after eight at night…

“Amy,” he began cautiously. “It’s late… do you want me to help you upstairs?”

She shook her head and slowly slid from his arms. Then, she gathered up the tissues that had collected in her lap and on the couch around her and dumped them all in the trashcan by the door. She was hallway out when she paused, turned back to him and gave him a tiny smile. “Thanks,” she said almost inaudibly before turning and leaving his office.



Chapter 4

When Amy left his office, Michael was utterly speechless. He didn’t even know what to say. True, he was glad that she had finally broken through at least some of the protective walls she had around her, but at the same time, he knew from the way he felt when he was holding her that he was in big trouble. Falling in love with, or developing feelings for a patient was the biggest no-no in the book (well, aside from actually acting on such feelings). The problem was, he was already on his way to falling, hard, and he wasn’t sure how to stop himself, but he knew he couldn’t stop.

Amy had built up some level of trust with him, and stopping or trying to switch her to a different therapist would have been drastically detrimental for her progress. So, he needed to stay and hope she would soon be well enough to leave Sarah’s Home, which was best for her in the end.

That night, Michael didn’t sleep much, for his thoughts were consumed with Amy. He had never been more thankful that he was working at Sarah’s Home the following day as well, so that hopefully he could talk to Amy a bit more.

In the morning, Michael had hardly walked in his office when there was a knock at his door and Amy poked her head in. He was shocked to see that, for the first time, she actually looked happier. “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” she asked cautiously.

“No, no, come right in,” he smiled at her. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well, thank you,” she said. “In fact… it’s probably the best night of sleep I’ve had in a long time.”

“Well, good cries can do that to a person,” he told her.

“I just wanted to thank you again… and…apologize for freaking on you,” she said rather timidly.

“Hey, it’s my job. No apologies necessary. Freak outs are totally allowed,” he assured her. “You wanna talk some more?”

“Okay,” she said cautiously before sitting down on the couch.

“What do you want to talk about? Your mom?” he asked her. She looked slightly hesitant. “Okay… how about something easier. You never told me much about your job.”

She shrugged. “It’s just a grocery store. I stock shelves and bag people’s stuff.”

“Okay… well, what about after you leave here? I mean, do you want to bag groceries until you’re eighty?” he asked.

“Definitely not,” she said quickly.

“Alright, so… what did you want to be when you were in school? Anything?” he asked.

“Well..,” she said cautiously, almost as though she was afraid to say it. “I… I kinda wanted to be a nurse. I got an A in chemistry… and…”

“A nurse is a fantastic profession,” he smiled at her. “It would be hard work, you know.”

“I know,” she said in a determined manner.

“Alright… well, let’s talk about something more current then,” he said. “Or whatever you want to tell me. I’ll listen.”

She was silent for a few minutes as she stared down at her hands, which were clasped together in her lap. Then, she spoke in a very slow, quiet voice. “I think it happened at the funeral… up until then, it was all too raw… too surreal. I didn’t believe it, you know? She just went to the store… she went away, but she’d be back. She always came back… but not then.

“Something just… I don’t know… and suddenly I didn’t want to be me anymore… I just wanted to crawl out of my body, out of myself… just do anything to escape…. Escape the pain…the change… if I changed it all maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.. maybe….. I don’t know,” she sniffed.

“But… but it all went so fast… it… it got out of control. I couldn’t fix it, I couldn’t get out and it’s too late I can’t take it back!” she sobbed once more.

“No Amy, no, it’s never too late,” Michael assured her as he handed her a tissue from the brand new box he had purchased that morning.

“But they all hate me!”

“Nobody hates you,” he assured her.

“But I can’t go back,” she shook her head as her bottom lip trembled.

“Why? Why not?” he asked her, but all she did was shake her head and dab away her tears. “Okay,” he sighed as he squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “This is good Amy, really, really good. We can just keep talking, a little bit at a time. You’re going to be ok,” he told her firmly. She looked up at him and gave him a tiny smile; that was the first time she actually believed it.

She then left his office since she had to get ready for work, but she was feeling better than she had in… years, really. Every time she talked to Michael, she felt better, even if it had only been twice that they had really talked. Each time, it felt as though she could breathe a little easier, stand up a little straighter, and loathe herself a little less. She was even smiling a little, which she would have thought impossible even a month earlier. Back then she was feeling as though she’d never, ever smile again in her life, but right now, she knew she’d smile once more.

She made sure that her belongings were safely stored away before grabbing her purse and heading off to work. Things would get better, but it would still take some time yet. She needed to heal.



Chapter 5

For the next three weeks, Michael and Amy continued to talk. Each time she told him a little bit more and seemed a little bit ‘better’. But each time, Michael knew he was falling further and further. Another problem had also arisen. He would be graduating the next week and he had accepted a job away from Sarah’s Home, which meant he had to break the news to Amy. He was hoping for the best, even though he had prepared himself for the worst.

He sat her down to talk about it and she was smiling, which made him feel even worse because of the fact that her dimpled, shining smile made him feel wonderful all at the same time. “Listen, Amy, I just want to say how proud I am of your progress in the past almost month and a half. It’s really been fantastic.”

“That’s good,” she said with a hopeful smile.

“Yes, very good. But… Amy I have to tell you… I’m leaving; my placement here has ended,” he said sadly.

She drew back from him and her smile disappeared. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“Well, you see, I’m graduating from medical school… my placement here was only a temporary school assignment and I have accepted a job elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere…,” she breathed sounding haunted.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Today is my last day here.”

“TODAY?!” she said almost shouting. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t…,” he sighed and let his voice drift off. The truth was, he didn’t want to tell her and thus make his leaving real. He didn’t want to leave, but knew he had to.

“But… but what about me… I mean...”

“There will be another therapist staring here. You can talk to her or him,” he told her.

“But you. I want to talk to you. Can’t I come see you wherever you’re working after this?” she asked, sounding almost desperate.

Michael sighed and rubbed his wrinkled brow. “No… see… it’s just… it’s not that simple.”

“What isn’t?!”

“This! Us!” he shouted. She recoiled even more and he felt sick. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell… it’s just,” he sighed and looked down at his feet. There was no way to explain properly without revealing the truth. “I… I have these feelings I shouldn’t be having… I need to… I need to not be your therapist.”

“Feelings… what feelings?” she asked sounding slightly hopeful.

“I fell in love with you,” he blurted out quickly as he looked up at her. Her eyes widened. “I mean… I don’t know… I just… I can’t.”

I wanted you to know, I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away

“But…. But I love you too,” she told him.

“No, no you don’t,” he sighed, almost wincing because of the pain in his heart at her words. “It’s just transference. It’s a medical condition… you develop feelings for your therapist because-”

“It’s not that!” she cut him off.

“Yes it is,” he insisted. “All the more reason for me to go… besides… I’m twenty-seven and you’re only seventeen-”

“NO!” she cut him off, cursing her lie for coming back to bite her in the ass. “I’m twenty-two!”

“Amy,” he said warningly.

“NO! No, I am! This is May! I turned twenty-two in April. I was seventeen when I left home!” she shouted frantically.

“Amy, please,” he said, trying to calm her.

“No, no you don’t understand, please,” she shook her head tearfully. “Please listen.”

‘Cause I’m broken when I’m open
And I don’t feel like I am strong enough

“I am listening to you,” he sighed.

She took a deep breath and tried to steady her trembling jaw. “My name isn’t Amy…. I, I lied… My name is Sydney Bristow… if you just look me up… look it up, you’ll see. I’m sure my dad reported me missing please, please just look!”

“Okay Amy-Sydney, whatever, you need to calm down,” he said, enunciating each word. She nodded slowly and tried to take deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” he said, though those words were really meaningless compared to how sorry and hurt he really felt. “I’m so sorry it worked out this way, but I still need to leave, no matter what you say.”

“But… but you believe me right?” she asked. “My name is Sydney and I am twenty-two.”

“Yes, I believe you,” he told her. “Why did you lie about it?”

“Well,” she began very quietly. “I lied about my age to get in here… I thought they wouldn’t take me if they knew how old I really was…and… and I lied about my name because I… I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” he asked. She said nothing. “Alright Sydney, I need to go,” he told her. She looked up at him and the look of abandonment in her eyes broke his heart so badly that he had to look away.

The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away

“You’re going to be okay Sydney, I know it,” he told her before leaving.

“Wait,” she called him back when he had one foot out of his office.

There’s so much left to learn and no one left to fight
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

He turned, half dreading what she was about to say. “Thank you,” she said simply; nothing more. He gave her a half smile before leaving.


Lyrics: “Broken,” Seether + Amy Lee



Chapter 6

Michael Vaughn was cursing the fact that his brilliant plan could backfire horribly the whole way he was driving to her apartment. It had been over four months since he had seen Sydney, but he had thought about her every day. Finally after many arguments with himself and encouragements to stop obsessing by his friends who were sick of hearing him whining and moping, he decided to attempt to look her up, just to see how she was doing (or so he tried to convince himself).

Immediately after he had left Sydney at Sarah’s Home, he had checked up on her story, knowing that if he didn’t it would have eaten away at him. He contacted a friend at the police department and later that day he had received a copy of the missing person’s report her father had filed and saw that she was indeed telling the truth. Her name was Sydney Bristow, she was twenty-two and she had run away from home at the age of 17, well, nearly 18. Michael was stunned at the fact that she had lived on the streets for four years, which only made him more intrigued by her case. Knowing it was for the best though, he tried to push her out of his mind, which was easier said than done.

For a while, it worked well. He was so focused on and consumed with his new job to think about much else, during the daytime anyway. He had taken a job at a firm with five other therapists who saw patients for 50 minutes at a time; a typical job in psychiatry. He enjoyed it, he really did, but at night, when he would go home, he’d find himself thinking about Sydney. How was she doing? Was she still at Sarah’s Home? Had she improved or had his leaving made her worse?

He thought about her more and more through the summer and nearly looked her up a few times, but chickened out every time. What if she didn’t want to see him? Finally, by the end of September he worked up the courage. He did some searching and digging and found that Sydney had left Sarah’s Home not too long after he did. She was living in a small apartment with four other girls, all of them former residents of Sarah’s Home or places like it. She still had her job at the grocery store and she was attending classes at a local school.

After finding this out, Michael decided he was going to go and visit her. Of course, it took him about three days to work up the courage to do it. Finally, on a Saturday night, he had parked his car in a rather questionable lot near her apartment and was going to find her, all the while he was hoping she would actually be home.

He found the apartment and knocked softly on it. A moment later, he heard footsteps coming towards the door and some shuffling; someone was obviously looking through the peephole. “Yeah?” someone asked from inside.

“I-I’m looking for Sydney, is she here?” he asked nervously.

“One sec,” the person said before he heard the footsteps walking away. A minute later, more footsteps were heard approaching the door and there was sounds of locks clinking open. When Sydney opened the door, she looked absolutely stunned.

“Hi…,” Michael said awkwardly, feeling like a total fool.

“Michael… what are you doing here?” Sydney asked, still completely shocked he was standing in front of her.

“Well… I um… I wanted to see you- talk to you. I mean, I know it’s Saturday night… you might have plans-”

“I don’t,” she said quickly.

“Oh… okay well, um, did you want to grab some dinner… or some ice cream? My treat,” he said with a small smile.

“Ice cream sounds good,” she smiled back. “Can you give me two minutes?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, feeling greatly relieved that she hadn’t slammed the door in his face… or slapped him.

“Come on in,” she said, opening the door wider. Michael stepped inside the tiny, incredibly messy apartment and couldn’t hide his disgust no matter how hard he tried. He had lived in apartments with three guys during college and they certainly weren’t the cleanest people in the world but they were nothing compared to this. Clothes were strewn haphazardly everywhere. Empty take out food containers were spilled across the floor along with their remaining contents. Two mattresses were laid out in the tiny central room and they were piled with unimaginable amounts of junk. In addition, there was an obvious unpleasant smell.

“Sorry, it’s a little messy,” she cringed at the look on his face.

“Ya think?!” he muttered.

“I’ll… I’ll be right back,” she said before quickly disappearing into an adjoining room that appeared to be a bathroom. Michael was horrified to even picture what that looked like. Two minutes later she returned with a purse slung over her shoulder. “Okay, we can go,” she smiled.

Michael nearly ran from the apartment, hoping to never be in such a place again. “Um, I don’t mean to sound like a parent but…perhaps cleaning? I mean, I think you may be breaking some health codes or something.”

“Oh, that’s not my mess. I share the bedroom with someone and my stuff is perfectly neat, thank you very much. I try to tell them to clean it up but… they just yell at me,” she said quietly.

“Oh,” he sighed. “So, um, how’ve you been?”

“Good,” she said firmly. “Definitely good. I’m going to school.”

“Yeah?” he asked, encouraging her to continue.

“Yeah… in the summer I got my GED and now I’m taking just a few courses… I’m hoping to get into nursing school for the January semester,” she told him as they walked.

“That’s great, that’s really great,” he told her. Then they both climbed in his car and he drove off, trying to find an ice cream place since he was unfamiliar with this particular area of LA.

“How about you? Do you like your new job?” she asked him.

“Oh yeah…it’s nice. I mean, I work at a rather upscale place you could say… so sometimes you can’t help but be slightly amused at the wealthy people that come in and complain because they had to buy the Gucci purse instead of the Prada one… as sad as that sounds.”

“You’re kidding? Do they really say that?” she laughed.

“Well, no, not exactly. I was just trying to give a similar example,” he told her.

“Oh,” she nodded. “There’s an ice cream place around this corner, on the next block,” she told him, gesturing to their left.”

“Thanks,” he laughed. “So, are you still going to therapy?”

“Nah, I quit about two months ago,” she told him.

“Why?” he asked in a concerned tone.

“To be honest… the therapist…he kinda creeped me out,” she told him with a scrunched up nose.

“Creeped you out how?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know… he just rubbed me the wrong way, you know?” Michael nodded slowly, still concerned that she wasn’t talking to anyone. “I’m fine Michael, really,” she told him. He looked over at her. “I am… I mean, I’m not ‘fine’ but I’m getting there. I have friends now… at school.”

“That’s good,” he told her. “What about the girls you live with?”

She shrugged. “They don’t like me all that much… they’re kinda… well, still street tough, I suppose.”

“Interesting coming from someone who was on the street for four years,” he said as he glanced over at her. She just gave a small shrug and shook her head, but said nothing.

Michael parked in front of the ice cream parlor and they went inside, where he ordered a vanilla and chocolate twist (upon Sydney’s request) and raspberry for himself. “I’d suggest we walk around… but this is LA and we’d get shot,” he laughed softly once they got their ice cream.

She laughed softly as well. “We can just sit,” she told him.

As they ate, they chatted about random things. Michael told her a few funny stories about his crazy friends in college and she laughed. Hearing her laugh made his heart swell even though he tried to fight it the best he could. In turn, she told him a few crazy stories about happenings at the grocery store where she worked.

“Can I ask you something?” Michael asked her while they were walking back out to his car. She nodded softly. “How’d you do it?” Her brow furrowed and he continued, “I mean… four years on the street… It’s just, you don’t seem tough – I mean at least not in the ‘I’m going to pin you up against the wall and stab you’ way.”

She shook her head. “No, definitely not... I just… I did it because… because I couldn’t think of another way,” she told him. He just nodded and they got back in his car.



Chapter 7

As they were driving away, Michael noticed Sydney’s attitude had immediately shifted and she was practically curled up in a tight little ball on the passenger seat. Cursing himself upon seeing her lip tremble, he tried to fix it quickly. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“No, no, it’s not you,” she said quickly.

“What is it?” he asked her. She just shook her head slightly. “Please Sydney, tell me what’s wrong?”

“It’s just,” she choked slightly on a sob. “Chantal, one of the girls who I share the apartment with…. She deals cocaine,” she sniffed. Immediately, Michael’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach.

“She deals it out of the apartment,” Sydney continued. “She keeps it in the bathroom… and she always has all these buyers coming in and out… and they’re horrifying!” she said with a rather violent sob. “But tonight she’s supposed to getting a delivery… and they come with guns and I just lock myself in my room – where are you going?” she asked when she noticed he turned the opposite direction of her apartment.

“Well, you’re not going back there,” he said firmly.

“No, Michael I’m sorry, I didn’t…. I didn’t say that to make you… It’s okay,” she told him.

“It most certainly is not okay,” he told her. “You can’t live with a coke dealer.”

“But I don’t know where else to-”

“I know,” he sighed. “Look… just… just stay with me tonight. Tomorrow’s Sunday, we can figure it out then.”

“Michael, I don’t want to put you out… I mean, I wasn’t asking for help. I-”

“I know,” he interrupted her. “I’m volunteering it.” Sensing she was still hesitating, he turned to her when they were stopped at a red light. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, but I also don’t want you going back to a… a crackhouse where there are obvious diseases breeding.”

She couldn’t help but laugh softly through her tears. “Okay… thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled at her before pressing his foot down on the gas and turning his attention back to the road. “So, how long has she been dealing?”

“I don’t know… forever, I suppose,” Sydney sighed. “Chantal already lived there when I moved it… I didn’t find out about the drugs until I found them a month ago.”

“Found them?” he asked.

“Yeah, um the toilet was overflowing and I was trying to fix it and they were taped to the toilet tank,” she told him. “When Chantal found out I knew, I thought she was going to kill me… she threatened a very painful death if I went to the cops… but luckily, from living on the street I knew better than to do that,” she sighed.

Michael just shook at his head. He was so disgusted that she had to live in such circumstances he was sick to his stomach. “Well, you’re not staying there anymore,” he assured her. “What?” he added when he saw her shaking her head.

“Well… it’s just… you’re being so nice to me and you don’t have to be,” she sighed.

“Maybe if there were more nice people in the world we wouldn’t have beautiful girls living in apartments with drug dealers,” he told her then noticed her blushing softly and looking away.

“Wow… is this where you live?” Sydney asked when they pulled up to a large high-rise apartment building. He nodded as they pulled into the underground parking garage and looked for a space. “Well… I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked since you make two hundred dollars an hour.”

He laughed. “Well first, it’s only fifty minutes… no, I’m kidding, but I also have med school bills.”

“Ouch,” she cringed.

“Yeah, they’re not really fun,” he sighed. Then they got out of the car and Sydney followed him to a nearby elevator. They rode it up to the twentieth floor and got out. Sydney then followed him into an apartment labeled ‘20D’.

“Wow… this is nice,” Sydney sighed at the crisp, clean, modernly decorated apartment.

“Oh yeah? I hate it; my mom did it,” he laughed.

“Well… I suppose it is a bit…”

“Square?” he offered.

Sydney looked around at the boxy shaped furniture and decorations and laughed. “Yes.”

“Alright well, I only have one bedroom… but you can have it and-”

“No,” she cut him off. “No, I can’t kick you out of your bed. I’ll sleep on the couch,” she told him. He was about to protest when she cut him off again. “Michael, I’ve slept in cardboard boxes and in alleys. The couch is fine.”

“Fine,” Michael sighed in defeat. Then he decided to ask against his better judgment, “Did you really sleep in an alley?”

“Yeah, for a while,” she sighed as she began exploring his apartment.

He laughed and shook his head at that concept which was incomprehensible to him. “You should write a book.”

“HA!” she barked with laughter. “I’m afraid my writing skills are lacking… not to mention the fact that books are supposed to have happy endings. I don’t have one yet.”

“You’ll get one,” he told her with a smile.

She gave him a half smile in return. “I really can’t thank you enough for letting me stay here tonight,” she told him.

“Of course; it’s no problem,” he said. He had been hesitant about it at first, after all inviting someone into your home who had lived on the street wasn’t always the best idea, especially if they weren’t trustworthy. But Michael trusted Sydney, and he wasn’t afraid of her in any way. In fact, more than anything, he was utterly shocked that she had lived on the street for any period of time at all, let alone four years. If he had simply met her somewhere, he never would have guessed that she was any different than a normal girl living with her parents or with friend and who had always lived that way.

“Well, um, there’s the bathroom,” he said pointing to a door. “And um, there is a blanket by the couch there… oh! A pillow… Do… do you need anything else though?” he asked as he disappeared into his bedroom.

“No, no I’m fine,” she told him. “Thanks,” she said as she took the pillow.

“No problem. Goodnight Sydney.”



Chapter 8

The next morning when Michael rolled out of bed at 10 a.m. he found Sydney curled up on the couch under a blanket watching the TV at a very low volume. “Hey, how long have you been up?” he asked her.

“Three hours,” she responded as she switched off the TV.

“THREE HOURS?!” he gasped. “Why the hell’d you get up at 7 a.m.?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t been able to sleep late for ages.”

“Alright… you want breakfast?” he offered.

“Oh no, I don’t want you to feel like you have to make me something… I have water, I’m fine,” she said as she held up her glass.

“Okay first, water isn’t breakfast,” he laughed. “Second, I always make eggs on Sunday morning.”

“Oh… well, I’ll have some eggs then… if you don’t mind,” she added cautiously.

“No problem at all. Have a seat,” he gestured towards the high counter with tall stools in front of him.

She slid up on one of the stools and watched him pull a carton of eggs from the refrigerator and crack them into a pan. “You… you don’t have any alcohol here?” she asked cautiously.

“No… why? Were you looking for some?!” he asked in utter horror.

“NO! No,” she said quickly. “I just had to go through most of your cabinets to find the glass,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry…”

“Oh, that’s fine,” he laughed softly. “But no, I don’t have any.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“My dad was an alcoholic,” he told her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“It’s alright,” he sighed. “I mean… he wasn’t abusive or anything… he just never left the couch until he drank himself to death.”

“Wow,” Sydney sighed. Then she was quiet a moment before continuing, “My mom never let alcohol into the house… she said it was the devil’s drink,” she laughed softly.

“Nice,” he laughed. Then he looked at her curiously for a moment, but turned away quickly, scorning himself for trying to diagnose her.

“I drank for a while,” she continued voluntarily, “until I realized that bad things happen when you’re intoxicated… and I never drank again.”

“Bad things?” he asked cautiously.

She nodded. “To people around me.”

“And to you?”

She shook her head. “Almost… but no, unless you count a few bruises and broken fingers from falling down the steps.”

“Ouch,” he cringed.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Well anyway, I guess I need to figure out where I’m going to stay,” she said, quickly changing the subject. She was in no mood to talk about anything sad or that would make her cry that morning.

“Right, well I assume you have a rather tight budget, right?” he asked as he scraped the eggs from their pan and onto two plates, one of which he handed to her.

“Very,” she sighed. “I mean, between my tuition, books, bus fair and every day stuff, I barely had enough left over to make rent.”

“Which was?” he asked.

“About a hundred and fifty dollars,” she cringed.

Michael nearly choked on his eggs. “One fifty? Ok, there is no way we can find you a place to stay where you won’t get shot at for that price…”

“I know,” she sighed.

“You’ll… just stay here,” he said quickly.

“What? No, Michael I can’t put you out like that,” she told him.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Well.. because. I mean, you don’t have an extra room and I don’t wanna… cramp your style.”

“Cramp my style?” he laughed. “Well yes, I guess I will have to cut down on the wild parties celebrating Freud I throw…”

She laughed. “I’m serious. I mean… if you brought a date home and I was sitting on your couch what would she think?!”

“Sydney, trust me, that is not a problem,” he assured her.

“You’re a priest slash therapist?” she smiled at him.

“No,” he laughed. “I just… well I mean, I don’t think that would be a problem, but if something arises why don’t we just leave it as a ‘cross that bridge when we come to it’ type thing.”

She sighed. “You’re really okay with this?”

“I absolutely am. Besides, this is closer to your school, right?” he asked.

“Yes, but further from work,” she said.

“Well… you work at a grocery store chain, right? You could transfer I suppose…”

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“And I think you should go back into therapy,” he told her. She grumbled and stabbed rather violently at the eggs on her plate. “I’m serious, Sydney.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But… but the only person I liked talking to… was you,” she said very quietly.

He smiled softly at this, glad that their trust hadn’t disappeared. “So talk to me.”

“I can’t afford you.”

He laughed softly. “I promise our conversations will be free of charge.”

She smiled. “Are you really sure about this?”

“Yes,” he laughed. “And stop asking that.”

“Alright… thank you very much, Michael… but will you at least let me pay you rent?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Groceries? Come on, I work at the store and get a five percent discount!”

He laughed. “Half the groceries?” he offered to appease her.

“Deal,” she said.

“Alright then, let me get dressed and we can go get your stuff out of that hole you lived in,” he told her.

An hour later, Michael was helping Sydney collect her belongings and carry them out to her car, all the while stepping quietly around her still sleeping roommates. Once they were done and leaving, Michael’s whole body shivered. “That place was disgusting.”

“Yeah… but believe it or not, I’ve been in worse,” she sighed. Michael lowered his head; he believed it, but it hurt. “Well anyway, at least I don’t have that much stuff, right?”

“You hardly have anything… you hardly have any clothes!”

“I know,” she sighed. “Can’t really afford them.”

“Well, you’re lucky we live in LA and you don’t need winter stuff,” he sighed.

“I know.”

“Alright, alright, let’s just get out of this place,” he shivered once more. Sydney laughed at him. “What?”

“Oh… you just wouldn’t survive an hour out there.”

“I know and I pride myself on that,” he smiled at her. She rolled her eyes.



Chapter 9

“Well… I don’t know what you usually do on your days off…,” Michael said to Sydney as they were standing in a rather awkward silence once all of her things were put away.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I mean, don’t feel like you have to do something with me. Just do whatever,” she told him.

“Well, that’s kind of the point of you living here… so I don’t have to be pathetic and alone,” he laughed. “I don’t really have plans… except laundry.”

“How exciting,” she smiled.

“Oh yeah,” he said enthusiastically and she laughed. “No seriously, what do you do?”

“Read my text books,” she shrugged.

“How studious of you,” he laughed.

“Well yeah, once that urge to get a 4.0 is engrained in you it’s difficult to get rid of,” she told him.

“I know that feeling,” he sighed. “That’s probably the reason why I don’t have much of a social life… I was focused on school.”

“That’s good… I’d prefer a therapist or a doctor for that matter, who got A’s instead of barely passing with C’s.”

“Right,” he laughed. “I believe everyone would prefer a surgeon who was the best in their class so they didn’t have the wrong part removed.”

“Definitely,” Sydney laughed. “So I have a question… I mean, you’re the therapy expert here… what exactly am I supposed to talk about.”

“Well, that really depends on what you want to talk about,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious. I’m here to listen to anything you want or need to talk about… perhaps starting with the switch blade knife that’s hidden in your clothes which, frankly, I’d prefer you get rid of,” he told her.

“Oh… that,” she sighed while blushing slightly. “I never used it… I mean, I never stabbed anyone or anything, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I wasn’t, but thanks for reassuring me,” he laughed nervously.

“Well…. I just had it because that’s one of those things you just had… the only thing I ever used it for was cutting up an apple or something, I swear,” she told him.

“I believe you,” he told her with a nod.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she wrung her hands, looked down at her feet and shook her head, backing away from him slightly.

Noticing that she was trembling, Michael took a step forward and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “Hey it’s okay, it’s okay,” he told her. But she continued to shake. “My god, what happened to you?” he asked rather rhetorically.

“A lot Michael, a lot,” she said quietly.

“Come ‘ere,” he sighed, pulling her closer. She locked her arms around his back and rested her chin on his shoulder, just breathing. Michael held her tightly knowing that in that moment, he’d do everything in his power to fix her.

“Can we go to a movie?” Sydney asked quietly after they had been hugging for a few minutes.

“Sure,” he smiled at her. “I’ll even take you to one of those sappy chick-flicks.”

“Thanks,” she laughed softly.

They spent the rest of the afternoon at the movie theater. During the movie, Sydney had started a popcorn fight with Michael by tossing one of the kernels at him. It nearly poked him in the eye; she giggled. He retaliated by throwing one at her; it went down her shirt, which wasn’t the intention, but he laughed anyway. After a few more throws by each of them, they decided to stop and began the task of removing the popcorn lodged in their hair and clothes.

After the movie, they grabbed takeout for dinner and then went home to Michael’s. They did their laundry together in the basement Laundromat while laughing about the movie they had just seen and how stupid it was before heading back up to Michael’s apartment. “I’ll get you a key made tomorrow,” he told her.

“Oh yea, right, forgot about that,” she sighed.

“What’s your schedule like for tomorrow… and this week?” he asked.

“Well, my classes are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from eight a.m. to two-thirty p.m.… and then I go to work from three to seven, except Friday; I have Friday off this week. And then Tuesday and Thursday I work from nine a.m. to five,” she told him.

“Oh, ok, sounds good,” he smiled. “I work from eight-thirty to five every day so… yeah.”

Later that evening, Sydney and Michael were sitting on his couch as he flipped through the TV channels. She was sitting at one end with her feet up and her hands wrapped around her knees paying more attention to him than what was on his flat panel TV screen. “You know what I feel the worst about?” she said rather quietly. Michael turned off the TV and turned to face her, looking interested.

“How… I knew it was wrong… but I didn’t feel like it was… I mean, deep down I knew it, but I just didn’t care… I probably broke my dad’s heart and I didn’t even feel guilty about it until later on… I just did it… I’m a horrible person,” she said in a defeated tone.

“You most certainly are not,” he assured her.

“When my mom died… it was April… barely a week before my seventeenth birthday. I was a junior… I don’t even remember how I finished out the year, but I did… it was summer that things started to change…

“I found this group of friends,” she scoffed as she shook her head. “I don’t even know why they let me hang out with them… I mean, I was in student council… they barely even attended school... anyway, I stayed out late, drank, did everything I never did, never even thought about doing… my dad didn’t know what to do with me, but he was so depressed he just… I don’t know…

“Then in the Fall, I started skipping classes… hanging out with these people… we’d go on day trips and just drive anywhere…all my friends abandoned me, they thought I was insane… of course, I was,” she sighed. “After December I didn’t go back to school, I was practically flunking out anyway. And then one day, I just packed a bag and didn’t go home.”

“Where did you go?” he asked softly after a few minutes of her silence.

“Bunch of places… I slept in people’s basements… wherever. I just couldn’t be home. Home was too painful… home reminded me of her… Eventually in the summer, the summer after I would have graduated high school, me and these people drove up to Vegas and we stayed there for a while… we lived all over.”

“Vegas?” he asked. She nodded. “What’d you do there?”

“You don’t wanna know,” she laughed softly. Michael panicked slightly at the thought of that. Noticing this, Sydney continued her explanation, “The girls I were with… most of them were addicted to some sort of drug by that time, became strippers. I was just a waitress at some Hooters-like place.”

“Lovely,” he sighed.

“I hate who I was,” she said, tears beginning to fall. “I wish so badly I could just make it go away but I can’t…. I got in so far and I just…I want…I just…”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he sighed as he pulled her into a hug and let her cry on her shoulder.

“How is it going to be okay?” she sobbed. “I can’t change it!”

“No, you can’t. But you can move on from it, move past it and grow from it,” he told her.

“I don’t know if I can,” she sniffed.

“I know you can,” he told her. She just hugged him tighter.



Chapter 10

Michael was surprised at how well their first week together actually went. They seemed to mesh together perfectly and towards the end of the week, Michael even thought he was beginning to see what must have been the real, true Sydney, always lighting up the room with her perfect dimpled grin and giggling frequently.

It was late Friday night or early Saturday morning, he wasn’t sure which, when he awoke with a start. Though confused at first, within a moment he knew the reason for jolting from his peaceful sleep. Out in the other room, Sydney was screaming and wailing practically at the top of her lungs. He bolted from his bed to see what was the matter and he found her struggling with her sheet as she tossed and turned on the couch.

“Sydney, Sydney,” he tried to wake her as he shook her gently. Her eyes snapped open and she recoiled in fear, her whole body shaking. “Syd it’s okay; it’s me. It’s Michael. You’re safe.”

“I… Michael,” she stammered, her heart still pounding.

“Yes, it’s me; you’re okay,” he told her. Then sobs took over her as she crumpled down into his arms. Michael, not knowing what else to do, held her tightly and she clung to his t-shirt. He held her for a few minutes but when he started to get up and shift his position since his foot was beginning to tingle, she wailed even more and begged him not to leave her.

“Okay, I’m not, I’m not,” he told her as he scooped her up and carried her into his bedroom where there was more room, since his couch wasn’t overly large. She curled up in his lap as he rested his back against his bed’s headboard and held her trembling body tightly.

It took almost an hour for her shaking to stop so she could fall back asleep. Once she did, Michael carefully laid her down in the bed and curled up beside her, not wanting to leave her side for an instant.

~*~

In the morning, Michael awoke to find Sydney lying on her stomach, watching him while he slept. “Hey,” she sighed quietly.

He reached over and combed some of her hair from her face with his fingers. “Hey. You okay?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry about last night…”

“Don’t apologize,” he told her. “I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

She nodded slowly. “It’s just… sometimes I have these nightmares… flashbacks sort of, only worse.”

“You want to tell me about one?” he asked her.

“Well… it was about a year and a half ago… I was staying with these people… this guy was a pimp, sort of… I suppose…”

“He was your pimp?!” Michael asked in horror.

“God no, no, no, no,” she said quickly. “I was never a hooker or anything like that… I just cleaned his filthy house.”

“Oh,” he sighed with utter relief.

“He was also a pot dealer… Anyway, one night, I was sick; I had a really bad cold… so I went to bed early. Of course bed meant just a corner of this run down apartment and he came in with his usual parade of whores… but I think that night they had taken something other than pot… I don’t know what it was, but he got so angry at something and he started throwing things and breaking stuff in his apartment.

“I woke up and he was towering over me with a broken chair leg…,” she sniffed as she pressed her face down into the pillow for a moment. Then she looked back over at Michael. “In real life, it ended there… he just walked away… but in the dream he started beating me with it… I mean, I could feel it and he wouldn’t stop and…. and,” she choked.

“It was just a dream,” he told her softly as he rested a hand on her back, rubbing it softly.

“I know but…it felt real,” she sniffed.

He nodded understandingly. “So… so this pimp person-”

“Joel,” she told him.

“Ok, Joel, was he like… your boyfriend?” he asked.

“God no,” Sydney said quickly.

“Then why were you with him?” he asked her.

“I borrowed money from him… and… well I didn’t know at the time it would be like selling my soul to him,” she sighed. Then at the look on Michael’s face she added, “It would be easier if I just explained everything, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably,” he said. “I know I’m not doing anything today… and you don’t have to work until tonight, but only if you want to.”

She nodded slowly. “I didn’t stay with the Vegas crew long… they just… well they got really into the scene there and that just wasn’t for me. I knew I wanted to come back to LA, but I didn’t know how to get there. I mean, I had some money from my waitressing, but it wasn’t enough to make it back to LA.

“I ran into Joel there, in Vegas. He was from LA and just in Vegas for a weekend of ‘business’ or so he said…”

“How old was he?” Michael interjected.

“Um… about twenty-five, I think… I was eighteen. So anyway, he lent me some money to use for the rest of that week and then he said he’d take me back to LA with him when he returned. So… once we were back in LA I went off and did my own thing… I found work in this rather sleazy bar as a bartender, which was good work, I mean, not fantastic but decent paying and as long as you stayed behind the counter, you didn’t get too abused.

“I had only been working there a few months when Joel came looking for me… he said I owed him. He just kept having me do favors for him…,” she said in a very distant voice.

“What kind of favors?” Michael asked, not sure if he wanted to know.

“Delivering packages… I knew they were drugs, but I tried to convince myself that they weren’t,” she sighed. “I didn’t want to do it… but I was just so scared of him. I had seen him beat some other women and I just…. I didn’t want to cross him. It was then I really started thinking about wanting to go home… but I didn’t want to go because I knew Joel would find me and I couldn’t endanger my father like that. I was just stuck,” she said sadly.

“How’d you get away?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “One day I was just so sick of it, I ran. That’s when I had to live on the street… hide out really, just so Joel wouldn’t find me. I couldn’t find any work or food or anything really…”

“Is that when you went to Sarah’s Home?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I had heard about it… and I got to the point where I knew if I stayed on the street any longer I was going to die.”

“Oh Syd,” he sighed as he pulled her closer and into a hug.

“God, I’m so messed up,” she sobbed.

“No you’re not,” he told her.

“Don’t lie, Michael… I’m horrible.”

“You are not horrible and you need to stop saying that. You went through a rough patch; everyone does. You’re ok now,” he told her.

“I want to be ok,” she sighed.

“You’re going to be,” he told her.

She buried her face in his chest and sighed. “Thank you, Michael.”

“For what?” he asked with a soft laugh.

“For making me feel safe,” she sighed.

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Chapters 11 - 18 + Epilogue