Saving Amy

Rehab

2008

Sophia was sitting on a kitchen chair, feeling very nervous. She was five and a half, and she was about to walk to school by herself for the first time. Her school wasn't very far away, but it seemed like it for a little girl. She wasn't going completely alone because London wasn't safe for her on her own. Isla was going to be behind her a little distance away to make sure nothing happened.

Her school bag was by her feet and her hair was tied up in a ponytail. "Hey Soph, are you ready to go?" Isla asked, coming into the kitchen holding Sophia's reading book in one hand and brushing her hair with the other. Sophia nodded. Isla gave her the book and she jumped off the chair and put it in her bag. She'd already been outside and fed her rabbit and given him clean water.

Isla opened the front door and Sophia stepped outside. It was a cold morning, so she held her arms out and Isla put her coat on her. Sophia started walking ahead of Isla, who waited five minutes and started walking along behind her. She felt slightly emotional, watching Sophia's dark ponytail bobbing ahead of her. She knew Sophia would be scared to walk pretty much on her own, but she was proud of her for doing it. In the years she'd been looking after her she'd come to think of Sophia as her own daughter, and the poor little darling didn't know any different.

When Isla reached the school gate Sophia was standing there waiting for her. She jumped into her arms and hugged her goodbye, kissed her face and then ran off into the school playground.

Sophia saw all the girls standing against the playground fence watching something on Alessia's iPhone 3G. Her dad was a technology person and he believed kids should start learning how to use it early. Alessia looked up for a moment and saw Sophia. She stopped the video and put it back to the beginning. "Hey Soph!" She called. They'd been waiting for her to get there, all of them were best friends and they shared everything. "Come over here!" She called to her. Sophia crossed the playground and joined them.

"What are you watching?" She asked, squeezing herself into a space between Flora and Sasha. Alessia held the phone up to show her, and Sophia saw a woman with a lot of curly dark hair sitting at a desk on the screen.

The day before
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"Sophia!" Mitchell called to his granddaughter who was playing upstairs in her room. Sophia ran down the stairs into the lounge, and found her grandad sitting on the sofa with a photo album on his lap. Sophia climbed up on the sofa next to him. "What are you looking at, Grandad?" He opened the photo album to a photo of a little girl who looked a lot like Sophia smiling up at the camera. Sophia smiled and pointed at the photo. "Is that me?" She asked.
"No, this is grandad's friend Amy." He said. He'd decided last night to show Sophia a little about Amy so she would at least know what she looked like. He wasn't telling her that Amy was her mum though. It'd just upset her knowing she had a mum who wasn't there for her. He turned the pages, showing her all the photos in the album. The last one was Amy aged 20, on the night she went to the party where Sophia was conceived. Sophia smiled at the glossy photo representation of the woman she didn't know, whose smiling face looked back up at her. "She's pretty." Sophia giggled. "You have pretty friends. Have I ever met her?" Mitchell nodded. "Just once, when you were a baby. She gave you this." He reached into his pocket and held out a silver chain with a silver A hanging from it to Sophia so she could look at it, and then he put it around her neck.
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Present day
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"That's my grandad's friend Amy!" Sophia said excitedly. Alessia and the other girls stared at her. "I'm not joking! That's her. He showed me photos, and she gave me this when I was a baby!" She showed them the necklace. Alessia's eyes widened. "Wow, but Soph, she's famous!" She pressed the play button on the video. "They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no,"