Finding Sophie

Chapter 2

Three months later

Early in the morning, I woke up. Anticipation was coursing through my veins. The meeting that would occur later causing sleep to become out of the question. I had to focus and have a clear mind for what was to come if my predictions were correct.

I tried to make myself reasonably presentable but couldn't do much to mask the lack of energy and hope in my eyes. I splashed some cold water on my face and chucked on my hoodie some dirty jeans. Applying a little bit of concealer to veil the massive bags that held the gaunt look in my face. I had spent every single waking hour going through over and over again everything that I could and should have done to keep Sophie safe. School was completely out of the questions for me in the past few months. Luckily they understood and said I could spend this time at home with my mum.  Unfortunately, this had been detrimental to all other areas of my life. I was only 13 and suddenly became responsible for such a large event. The few hours I would get I was so exhausted my body was practically begging me to sleep or rest, I couldn't possibly as my mind was constantly working in overdrive. I was so worn out at one point that I fell asleep while reading some newspaper articles on my laptop. 

Sophie's face had plastered the front page for weeks now and I couldn't quite believe how large this had actually become. There were group searches as well as police led searches had been undertaken on many a day but we didn't find anything useful.

"Natalie, are you ready?" My mum asked, her shouting bringing me out of my daze. 

"I'm just coming" I replied. I quickly collected myself and ran down the stairs. "Mum have you had breakfast?" 

"Yep I'm ready to get going, can you grab the keys off the counter?" She said without even glancing my way.

We arrived at the police station about 20 minutes later and walked into the reception. Many people looked weirdly in our direction, most likely because in the past months we had become pretty famous. We were told to sit and wait while the missing persons leading officer was noted on our arrival. The room smelt of disinfectant and freshly brewed coffee which made my eyes water. The smell filled me up inside giving me a homely feeling as that used to be what our house smelt like. I finally started to relax for the first time in three months.

As soon as he came out I stood up in record time. He went through all the formalities of shaking our hands explaining who he was and I wasn't really listening to what he was saying as I was too restless. It took forever. All I wanted was for him to get to the whole point of us coming here in the first place. He kindly asked us whether we would like a coffee or tea which gave me the inkling that he was delaying something as much as humanly possible. I assertively told him "We are not here to drink coffee and chat, we have come to find out about Sophie. Will you stop delaying and just do your job." 

He mumbled a reply which was something like "Yes I'm sorry, of course." My mum looked at me with the gaze which could shut almost anybody up. So, I looked back at her apologetically whilst also having a gentle shake of my head which signalled not to start something here.

Eventually, he took us to his office, presumably for a little bit of privacy. We slowly walked into the room he was hovering by the door almost waiting for something or stalling for some reason or another. It really unnerved me.

"I'm sorry, there is nothing more we can do" He apologetically looks at me hoping for me to be the sensible one. 

"No, that can't be true, she's only eight, how can she survive" I looked at my mum and her face said it all. "But you haven't found a body...have you?" 

"No not yet, but we are closing the case as we haven't found any evidence or witnesses," He said with a sympathetic look on his face.

As we walked out of the station I could hear my mum crying but wouldn't dare look at her. She asked me "Why would you treat the man who has tried to help us so much with so little respect?".

 I wasn't quite sure what to say and I definitely didn't want to say what I thought. How could I tell her that he shouldn't be allowed to delay to stop it from being so bad on him, surely we are the ones that should have some sort of shield? However, I told her "I'm sorry I wasn't thinking, I just miss her" She came over to me and held me, we both cried into each other acting as a sort of comfort.

The drive home was silent. I think everything was taking quite a while to sink in. This wasn't the outcome either of us expected.