Lauren.
"I'm scared" Sofi says as we stand outside of a child's therapist office.
"There is nothing to be afraid of, she's just going to talk to you, ask a few questions, she may even ask you to play with a few things" Camila encourages, her hand rubbing gently against Sofi's back.
"But what if I say the wrong thing?" She asks.
"You can't say the wrong thing Sof, it's not about getting questions wrong or right, it is just about answering honestly, nothing you say will be wrong or right" I explain.
"Will you be coming in with me?" She asks, looking between Camila and I.
"No sweetie, she will want to talk to you alone and maybe when you're done she will want to talk to myself and Lauren"
"Will she tell you what we talk about?" Sofi asks, and I can see the nervous look on her face.
"No, she will only tell us things if she believes you are a harm to yourself" Camila reassures her.
Even though I know she is somewhat telling the truth, I would much prefer for the therapist to tell us everything, at the end of the day to me Sofi is still very much a young child.
"Okay" Sofi nods, seemingly happy with the response.
"And then we're going to view the new house after this?" Sofi asks.
"We're going to view a few properties yes, we don't know if we will be getting any of them yet" I answer.
"Okay" She nods again.
"Sofi Cabello" The therapist calls out, standing in the doorway to her room.
Sofi looks between the two of us, to which we just nod in encouragement.
The second Sofi enters the room and the door is closed, Camila moves a chair down so she is sat right next to me.
"Do you think she will be okay?" She asks.
"I think that it will take a long time before she will be okay, this is something that woll be with her for the rest of her life" I answer honestly.
"Do you really think it is Stockholm sydrome?"
"I'm not going to say it is full blown like some cases, but she definitely seems on the brink of it, the way she talks about it and the fact that she misses the feeling of being in the basement, it's definitely not normal Camz"
"I just hope that she doesn't feel this way forever" She sighs.
"It's going to take time, hopefully once we have found her a teaching aid everything will be a lot easier, she may not ever get to experience a real high school, but at least she will get up to her grade level, even if it takes a few years"
"You know it would be great for cases like this, if the kids were able to go back to the beginning you know, and be taught their grades in a quicker time frame"
"You mean like Billy Madison?" I can't help but smile.
"Something like that yeah, but obviously she'd need to spend longer in each year" She says.
"Well I mean we could try? Still hirer a teaching aid of course, but once we move we can head into Harmony's school and explain the situation, explain that we would like her to experience the things she never had the chance to, and it might even help her learn quicker being in that enviroment" I suggest.
"Won't that make her prone to bullying? Putting her in a class with a bunch of kids, none of them will really understand, they will just think that she is stupid" Camila sighs.
"Well she will have her teaching aid with her, as well as Harmony, Dylan, Jamie and Michael" I say.
"Yeah I guess you're right, ideally I'd like to her be able to finish all of the first grades within six months"
"That might be pushing a little bit, either way we're not going to jump into it right now, we'll wait until the therapist is done with Harmony and see what she says about the idea, she might even have reccomendations for teaching aids" I shrug.
"Okay, I just want her life to be as normal as possible you know"
"I know, but we can't rush these things, the sooner you learn that, the better it will be, especially when you become a social worker"
"You're right" She nods.
"I'm always right" I say smugly.
"Don't ruin it" She shakes her head.
It doesn't take long before the door is being opened and Sofi is walking out.
"Sofi, would you mind reading a book while I talk to your sister for a moment?" Miss Carmichael asks Sofi.
"But I don't know if I remember how to read" She says, and I see the sad look cross Camila's face.
"Just try for me? Or look at the pictures" Miss Carmichael smiles.
"Okay" Sofi nods and sits down on the chairs next to the books, as Camila pushes me into the office.
"So?" Camila asks the second the door is closed.
"I understand what you mean when you say she is still very much a child" She says, taking a seat and offering the sofa to Camila.
"At what age would you say her mind is stuck at?" Camila asks.
"At what age was she taken?"
"I don't really know, ten or eleven I believe"
"So she would have just been starting middle school?" Miss Carmichael asks.
"Yeah I guess so, honestly my parents kicked me out when I was pregnant eight years ago, I went back four years later and they told me Sofi had died a year previous, that's all they ever said" Camila explains.
"They told you she had died? That's interesting, why would they tell you that if she had been abducted and not yet found?" Miss Carmichael asks.
"I genuinely could not tell you, maybe they gave up hope of finding her and said she was dead, or maybe they didn't care enough to look for her, because I didn't see anything about it on the news, did you?"
"Does that not make you suspicious of your parents?"
"What? That they were involved?" She asks to which the therapists just nods.
"I never really thought about it, the past few weeks have been too stressful for that to even occur in my mind" Camila answers.
"Has her abductor been found?"
"No they're still looking" Camila runs her fingetips across her forehead, and I can see that these questions are stressing her out, all of these thoughts now running through her mind.
"Do you believe Sofi has Stockholm sydrome?" I speak up, needing to change the conversation for Camila's sake, however Sofi was abducted it is down to the police to solve it, not us.
"In a way yes, she was closed off at first when I would ask her questions, but she slowly started to open up and I would like to see her a few more times, I wouldn't say Sofi misses the man who abducted her, because she was afraid of him to the point where she would urinate upon hearing his footsteps, but she misses him in a sense of the small comforts he would bring, like the dolly or the new clothes, and that one time he brought her real cutlery, she really holds onto those moments"
"Yeah I know" Camila sighs.
"So what do we do about that? How can we help with her sleeping in her closet, rather than in her bed" I ask.
"Well she mentioned that you will be moving houses soon?"
"Yes, we're viewing properties today, what does that have to do with things?" I ask.
"Well I would suggest her having a room that doesn't have a built in closet, it would be better for her to have a freestanding one, that way she won't be able to sleep inside it"
"Wouldn't that just make her sleep on the floor though?" Camila asks.
"Possibly, so you warm her up to the idea of having a bed, from what she has told me, it seems that she never had any pillows or blankets, or stuffed animals for that matter, something that every child has in their bedroom, so every night before either of you go to bed, head into her room to check if she is on the floor, if she is then lay her quilt over her, give her a pillow for her head and a stuffed animal if you have one, and do that every night until she starts doing it for herself, eventually she will seek the comfort of climbing into her own bed rather than making one up on the floor, this is something that is going to take a lot of time, so it will need a lot of perserverance on your part" She responds.
I nod along in agreement, I know it is going to be hard for Camila to deal with because of how close she is, but I am more than willing to take my time with Sofi and get her back to where she needs to be, even if it takes a year to get her sleeping in her own bed.
"What do we do about getting her into school? Or even to her grade level?" I ask.
"I have a few numbers for great teaching aids, starting her out that way would be your best bet, and maybe in a month or two, introduce her into a middle school if they will allow her to start at the first grade"
"So you don't think she would need to go all the way back to the beginning, with elementary school then?" Camila asks.
"No certainly not, she is a smart young girl Camila, she is just very young for her age because she never had the chance to progress in school and with her peers, so try the teaching aid and in the meantime try and find the perfect middle school that will accept her and her teaching aid" Miss Carmichael suggests.
"Okay, we will do that" She nods.
"Great, let Sofi spend time with a teaching aid for a week and then I would like to see her again"
"Okay, thank you so much for your time"
We both shake hands with her, before leaving the room and seeing Sofi still sitting in the chair with a book in her hands.
"I remember how to read" Sofi grins once she sees us.
"That's great Sof, Maybe after we have viewed the house we can go and buy you some books" Camila smiles.
"Yes please" Sofi smiles.
"Okay, come on Kiddo" Camila nods.
Miss Carmichael offers us a smile as we all leave the room.
"What did she say about me?" Sofi asks Camila nervously the second we're out of the building.
"Nothing much, just that we should try and get you into a school and someone to help you with your school work" Camila smiles, telling her partly the truth.
"Okay, I think I might like that" Sofi nods.
"It will be good for you" I smile.
"Will I make friends my own age?" Sofi asks.
"It may take some time, but yes I believe you will" I nod.
"Okay" Sofi nods.
"Let's go view our new home" Camila grins as she sees Chris waiting for us in his car.
"Slow down Camz, we don't even know if we're getting the place yet" I roll my eyes, pushing myself along side her.
"Sshh don't ruin my dreams" Camila says, before running for the car.
"Your sister is a child" I tell Sofi, who is walking along beside me.
"I have noticed" Sofi nods.
"Hey sis, Sof" Chris waves at us as we approach the car.
"Hey bro, thanks for doing this"
"Of course no worries, what are big brothers for aye" He smiles down at me, offering me his hand so I can stand up.
"You good?" He asks.
"Yeah just pass me my crutches and I'll put myself in the car"
Chris hands me my crutches before taking my chair to the boot of the car and throwing it in.
"Easy, they're my wheels" I say as I sit down in the passenger seat.
"They're crap wheels anyway" He shrugs as he sits down beside me.
"You leave my wheels alone"
Chris just laughs and shakes his head in response.
--
Chris whistles as he pulls up outside the property.
"Nice place" He says looking out of the window.
"Beautiful right?" Camila grins, jumping out of the back of the car.
"Expensive she means" I say, and open my car door as Camila brings my chair round.
The real estate agent is already waiting on the doorstep for us, with a clipboard in her hand.
"You must be the Jauregui's" She smiles, reaching to shake my hand first, before moving to Camila and then Chris, offering a simple smile to Sofi.
"That would be us" Camila grins back at her.
"You seem excited, I'm Penelope Kareshi" She smiles.
"I'm very excited, I fell in love with this place the second that I see it online" Camila smiles.
"Yes I've had many people that fell in love with the pictures, but then they never had that home vibe when they walked into the property, hopefully today is my lucky day" Penelope aims her smile at me.
All I can seem to be thinking about is the price tag.
"Right, let's give you guys the tour" Penelope smiles and leads the way with Camila and Sofi right behind her, Chris offers to push me, and I'm quite impressed when I see the ramp and stairs leading up to the doorway, I guess Camila took that into consideration.
The second we're through the door, I can understand why Camila fell in love with this place, it's extremely open with high ceilings, the staircase is to the right, which looks like it goes up more than one flight.
"This is the living area" Penelope leads us into a door on the right.
"It's a large open space, we kept the brick wall for the fireplace, we thought it really made the room stand out, you have large bay windows that allows all of the light to flow completely through the room, this is one of my favourite rooms" Penelope smiles.
"It's beautiful" I say, feeling myself being suckered into living here.
"This room has two doors, the second one at the end of the room which takes you straight through to your kitchen"
"You better hope we win this case sis" Chris bends down and mumbles in my ear as he pushes me into the kitchen.
I simple tilt my head back and glare at him.
"We have the kitchen, with all grey cupboards, and a nice wooden finish for the counter tops, a little breakfast island in the middle, so you have unlimited amounts of storage, I'm sure you wouldn't even be able to fill all these cupboards" Penelope chuckles.
"The glass doors that lead out to the garden, but will look at that after we have finished down here" Penelope smiles, leading us through to another room.
"This is the dining area, can fit a table of ten in this room" Penelope smiles, before leading us out of the room and back down the hallway.
"You have a small downstairs toilet" She opens the door for us all to take a little peak, and everything is pure white, a little bit too pristine for my taste, but we can change that.
"Then you have a reception room here, also at the front of the house, the previous owners used this as their second living room, usually for christmas and family parties things that like" The room is smaller than the living area, it would be much better used for an office or a library but that is purely my opinion.
"You have a coat cupboard just as you walk in over there, shall we head out to the garden before heading upstairs?" Penelope asks, her eyes glancing towards my chair at the mention of stairs, but I choose to ignore her.
"I think I'm going to move into this place with you" Chris mumbles.
"As long as you're paying half, then that's fine" I chuckle.
"I'll have to try sell it to Chloe, but sure" He smiles down at me.
"Good luck"
As we exit to the garden and I see the swimming pool, with the mini waterfall I already know that I am going to find a way to buy this house even if I don't have all the money, Harmony would absolutely love this pool, and I think it would be good for me too.
"You have a large shed over the back of the garden, which has been converted into a mini pool house, so it's great if you have guests staying over" Penelope says.
"Or a brother moving in" Chris continues to mumble under his breath.
"Don't you just love this place" Camila grins at me.
"It is beautiful Camz, but we still need to see upstairs" I tell her.
"Is the downstairs not enough for you to want to buy it?" She grins.
I can't help but shake my head and laugh slightly.
"You're acting like a kid in a candy store right now" I smile.
"I know, but every room that we enter, I'm just seeing our lives unfold in all of them, watching Harmony grow up and have friends and a boyfriend" Camila smiles.
"Uh, no boyfriends until she is at least eighteen" Chris says.
"You're not her dad Chris" I laugh.
"No, I am her uncle so I will be any boyfriend's worst nightmare, no boy is going near my little niece until she is eighteen"
"You know I was thirteen when I started dating right?" I ask.
"Yeah but you were gay, it's different" He shrugs.
"Wow, stereotype much" I roll my eyes.
"Hey I'm a boy, I know how boys work, so no boys"
"He makes a good point" Camila shrugs.
"Okay well Harmony having a boyfriend is years away, so let's drop it" I roll my eyes.
"Yeah she still thinks boys are gross right now, so we're good" Camila smiles, and I laugh thinking back to the Cinema when Harmony thought that shawn boy was cute.
"What's funny?" Camila asks.
"Nothing baby" I shake my head, deciding to let her continue living in la la land.
"Shall we head upstairs?" Penelope asks.
"Yes definitely" I nod.
Chris pushes me to the bottom of the stairs and hands me my crutches.
"Are you going to be okay?" Penelope asks.
"Oh yeah, don't worry you can head on up and I'll join you in a few minutes, going up is a little bit harder than coming down" I smile towards.
"Okay" She nods, and heads upstairs with Camila and Sofi.
"Come on, I'll carry you" Chris chuckles, and before I can otherwise he has chucked me over his shoulder fireman style, grabbed my crutches and is carrying me up the stairs.
"You couldn't have picked me up like a normal person?" I ask, as he places me back on my foot and supports me until I have my crutches underneath me.
"That was totally normal" He shrugs.
"Uh huh" I roll my eyes.
"Whatever, come on peg leg" Chris says and walks off in front of me to find everyone else.
"You're so rude" I scoff, walking behind him to catch up.
"Good ceilings, don't you think babe" Camila winks at me as I enter the master bedroom.
"Amazing" I chuckle with a roll of the eyes.
Penelope looks between the two of us with an odd look on her face, before showing us around the rest of the house, I have to admit that I have kind of fallen in love with the place, but I still have no idea how much a house like this is going to cost me, I'm only going to be getting about 800,000 for the apartment, and a place like this must at least be three million.
"I think it's time you give me a heart attack with the price" I sigh as we reenter the kitchen.
"You didn't see it online?" Penelope asks confused.
"I didn't even see the listing online, I was just dragged here" I smile.
"Oh I see, well actually the price has just dropped from 2.2 million down to 1.8" Penelope says.
"Right" I nod, not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it is still way out of our price range.
"Yes the owners really want to sell the property as soon as possible" Penelope smiles.
"Could you give us a moment?" Camila aks penelope politely.
"Of course, I'll be outside" She smiles and heads out to the garden.
"So what do you think?" Camila asks me nervously.
"I think it's about one million out of our price range Camz" I drag my fingers across my forehead and sigh.
"Couldn't we get a mortgage?" She asks.
"With neither of us working at the moment?" I ask back.
"Right" She nods.
"Well Tay and I have a meeting tomorrow about the accident, I can try my hardest to get the 1.8 million for you" Chris speaks up.
"We can't really be relying on that though, I already don't feel one hundred percent okay about all of this"
"I know Laur, but you can't really let them get away with it"
"Can I come? Tomorrow?" I ask.
"Of course you can, it is about you, it may even work in our favour to be honest" Chris says.
"Okay, Camz we will tell Penelope that we will let her know in forty-eight hours about the property alright?"
"That sounds okay to me, I will go out and tell her" Camila smiles.
"Okay, we'll meet you back out at the car" Chris says, grabbing the handles of my chair and pushing me out of the house.
"It is a nice place Laur, you're not too far from mum & dad and the beach" Chris talks as he helps me into the car.
"I know, I just don't want to get myself in debt over a house"
"Hopefully you won't have to" He smiles and closes my door, taking my chair to the boot of the car.
"You okay?" Sofi asks from the backseat, honestly she has been so quiet I kind of forgot she was even with us.
"Yeah I just feel a little tired, those stairs were hard work" I smile at her over my shoulder.
"You'll have your new leg soon"
"I can't wait"
"Did Camila get lost?" Chris asks, climbing into the drivers side.
"I think so" I chuckle.
"Talk of the devil" Chris grins, nodding towards the rearview mirror.
"And she appears" I grin.
"What you smiling about?" Camila asks the second she is in the car.
"Nothing baby" I wink at Sofi who simply smiles at me.
"I see a small book store down the road, Chris would you mind stopping so Sofi could choose some books?" Camila asks him.
"Yeah sure" He nods pulling out of the driveway.
Chris and I stay in the car while Camila and Sofi run into the bookstore, it is easier for me right now to not get out of the car, and it actually weren't so bad having twenty minutes to sit and talk with Chris, I feel like we don't see much of eachother anymore, it's a strange thing growing up and living with someone for eighteen years of your life, and then they move out and you're lucky if you see them once or twice a month, even though the property is expensive it is defintely in the perfect place for me to see more of my family, but we still have two more properties that we're going to view, they're not as close as this one and probably won't even compare to the one we just saw, but they might be more in our price range, I just need to have that same feeling of home when I walk through the door, or shall I say wheel through the door, I'd like to see my life unravel before me like it just did.
TBC....
Okay so... I lied, The next chapter is going to be the last one, I'm not sure how long it is going to be exactly but I'll try my best with it.
I've always said from the beginning that this book would be no longer than twenty six chapters, and even though I could throw in another chapter before what I'm about to write in the last one, it would then make the book end on an odd number and I just don't do this that way LOL.
Plus I believe I would struggle to write a full chapter for what would have gone into it.
Does that make any sense?
There probably will be another book, because there is a few loose ends, but I may even write an epilogue though I'm not the greatest at that.
We will see, either way don't expect another book anytime soon.
Lily x