Feels Like Home

Home again

Sophie was back in her car and on the road back to Geneva within 72 hours of her world being shattered by Benedict. She'd run through the door, slammed her bedroom door shut and cried herself to sleep the day it all happened.

Richard had called Charlie when he saw Sophie's devastated face and he had been worried about his daughter. Sophie had managed to sob out that Benedict had broken up with her before she fell asleep on her older brother.

Charlie had wanted to break Benedict's other leg but Sophie had just sobbed harder and clung to her brother and somehow managed to make Charlie promise not to actually hurt him.

She hated him for doing this to her... again. This time had been harder and harsher than the last time when he had just stopped replying to her letters and her IM's... but this time... to have done it so cruelly to her face...

She couldn't stop. The following morning when she woke up and her father cuddled her she wiped her nose after she'd been crying before and looked up at her father and she knew he knew "you've got to leave again haven't you?"

Sophie just nodded sadly "I can't stay Pops... I..."

"I understand sweetheart, maybe some time away will help you heal and find some peace" Richard said as he kissed his daughter's head.

Richard had already spoken to Violet Bridgerton, he had called her the night before whilst Sophie was crying to her brother and to inform her of what had happened. He had been friends with Edmund when they were younger and had occasionally stayed in touch over the years.

Violet had called him before Sophie had woken up and said Benedict was a mess himself, but whilst he knew he messed up, Violet said they were going to need time...

Whilst Richard didn't want his daughter to leave, he knew that she would not find peace here in Kent... she found it helping people and whilst she had been happier than he had ever seen her... he had never seen her so devastated... so he sat with her whilst she called her boss at Doctors without Borders... and helped her into her car two days later, kissed her goodbye and she promised to take care of herself...

Sophie left her heart and a part of her soul in Kent as she drove away.

Richard watched as she drove away, having told her that time would heal all things, "you know there is nothing so bad that it can't be fixed" he told her, he knew it, but Sophie was no longer convinced. She wasn't sure about anything anymore, the only thing she was sure of was that she had to get away.

When she was with Benedict, she had felt like she was home for the first time in years, she saw a future, she saw a home, she saw a family. She had fallen in love with him, all over again, she had let him in and believed that he loved her... but now... this hurt more than walking in on her ex boyfriend balls deep in one of her supposed friends...

Home felt wrong... it no longer felt like home, not without Benedict.

Sophie cut off all contact with Benedict, since the day she had walked out of his kitchen and left him on the floor, with her heart in a thousand pieces at his feet. She refused to be the person to bend and break first.

His birthday passed and for the first time ever she didn't comment or send a birthday wish.

He had told her he didn't want her... and she wasn't about to give her attention to someone who didn't want her. So she put as much distance between them as she could.

She did 3 months in Africa helping with children with malnutrition and spent Christmas there, it was bleak but it had been helping keep her busy and stopped her missing Benedict. The miserable conditions matched the miserable mood she felt.