A Blessing in Disguise 1 | COMPLETED

The Choice

Sgt. Hank Voight was in his office doing paperworks and thinking about the next step for the case when Jay and Hailey walked in and told him about the new information they got.

The team contacted Lizzie's school and got some personal documents, they went through all the names and addresses in the documents but no records came up on neither the mom nor the dad so Kim and Hailey went to talk to Lizzie.

Lizzie was back in the break room again with some food to eat, she was in the middle of her snack when Hailey and Kim walked in. They sat right across from her, "Hey Lizzie," Hailey says. Lizzie sat up and set the food aside, "What's wrong," Lizzie asks. "Well, we went through the documents the school has on you," Hailey says, "and we don't have any record of your mom since she might also be using a fake name. So we're going to get a sketch artist up here, do you think you could describe what she looks like?" Lizzie nods and says, "Yeah, I can do that." Hailey smiles at Lizzie, "Alright, well this is Officer Kim Burgess, she'll keep you company for a bit while I contact the sketch artist." With that Hailey stands up and walks out of the break room.

Kim was sitting right across from Lizzie and she was looking at the covered up bruises on Lizzie's arm, she was wondering how Lizzie is still happy and how she always has a smile on her face. Lizzie notices this, and giggles. Kim looked at her, immediately realizing that she was staring and was embarrassed about it but she was more confused than embarrassed, how does she laugh about it? How does she go through all that and still be happy?

Lizzie already saw this look a couple of times when she was in the washroom in school trying to cover up her bruises then a couple of girls comes in. Some of them would give her the same look as Kim was giving now while others, well, they would pick on her, but she learned not care about what they would say because they didn't know what she's going through, they didn't know her.

Lizzie smiles and looks at Kim, "It was a choice between letting his words and the pain get to me or pushing all that away to be happy and I chose to be happy because I learned that I shouldn't let my dad or my situation dictate how I want to feel," Kim looks at Lizzie, not knowing what to say, but Lizzie continues, "and trust me it was easier said than done but I really wanted to be happy and I keep telling myself to keep fighting, to keep going, and to not let him win. It also helped when I continue to believe that one day it'll get better, it gave me that hope and determination to keep going but of course, just believing my situation will get better won't really help me in the long run so I also have to find a way out and I found that going to school was kind of a temporary way out for me on the weekdays, and it helped me by just being there." Kim looks at Lizzie, stunned at how she was handling the situation. "Wow," Lizzie says, shocked at how much she just said, she laughs and Kim smiles at her.

After a while, Lizzie suddenly got worried. Where will she go tonight? Will she go back home? Questions started to fill her head but Hailey entered the break room with the sketch artist and her questions were put aside to be worried about later on.