This is a little blurb I wrote a while ago but was unsure of whether or not I wanted to submit it anywhere. Since I heard the community here is awesome, I thought why not.

Chapter 1: Regret Nothing

For a sixteen year old girl, Sofia was incredibly adult. Few could negate that. The fact that her family consisted primarily of doctors was a huge factor, however, since she was a child she had been expected to be a bit more 'adult' than a lot of the kids she knew and grew up with. She remembered the first time she flew on a plane by herself, the first time she went through airport security on her own, the day she learned how to book her own ticket... She had grown up living a life that wasn't the norm for the children her age, not in her immediate 'friend' group, if she could even call it that. At least, that was in New York. There weren't many kids, well, people that she really clicked with in class. She moved so frequently between her mum and her mom and Penny that, even though it was a yearly thing, she couldn't quite feel settled. And that's all a person wants, really, isn't it? Stability? One clear cut place where they belong? For Sofia, that was Seattle. It was with her mum. It was in school with Zola and Bailey, in the doctors lounge at Grey-Sloan Hospital, and it was goofing off with her Uncle Alex when he wasn't being dragged off to surgery. That was home. That was where she wanted to be.

The passed few years had been especially hard. Puberty hit, things changed, her classmates became a hoard of strange, hormone driven, pimple popping, awkward as hell, teenage monsters, and that wasn't the world that she lived in. She had goals and aspirations, she was great in school, and wanted nothing or no one to hold her back. She was going to be extraordinary. A rock star. Hardcore. That was the end game. Although even with all of the work and the knowing that the future she was destined for was awesome, she still couldn't shake the feeling of depression that had begun to cloud her sight. It was just there, beyond all the shit and smoke, just barely visible, yet, her goal felt wholly unreachable when her life felt steadily more upside down with the passing of days. With all the fighting going on behind closed doors it was hard to concentrate on the good. What could have been great memories shared between the three grew suddenly shadowed by the subtlety of Penny's, and her moms', passive comments, their brief glances of disapproval, and their refusal to acknowledge how fucked up they were being to one and other. Sofia couldn't wrap her head around just how miserable they all were and how no one was willing to talk about it. There had been a few attempts on her part to try and reason with her mom, to ask what was going on, why things had drastically changed from what she could remember from when she was a kid, when Penny would actually invest time in their relationship. Sofia wondered every once in a while if Penny even gave a shit anymore. Small kids are cute, no one can get enough of a cute baby, and she certainly was an adorable kid. Now she was a teenager, a person, with so many opinions and questions. She wanted to be heard, to be understood, especially by her family. That's not what Penny and her mom felt like anymore. They were just a well oiled machine now. With all of this swirling in the back of her mind, Sofia shifted in bed onto her side. She stared at her alarm clock and watched the flashing red numbers. 3:06 am. She should have been sleeping. In five hours from now, she would be at the airport, getting ready to board her plane back to New York, and back to her mom; to a life that didn't feel right. Panic and anxiety set in. Why couldn't her mum just let her stay?

The teenage girl flung the covers off her body and sat up in bed. She rubber eyes with the heels of her palms and tried to keep the tears from falling, she tried to slow her beating heart, but it wasn't exactly working. Fuck.. She thought. In a split second, as though the clouds miraculously parted, a spark of an idea lit. It was crazy. It was... well, absolutely ridiculous. Lack of sleep and comfort had really only left one option wide open – She had to run. She jumped out of bed like a flash and started filling her knapsack with clothes and toiletries. She wouldn't need all the stuff in her luggage case, but enough to last a while. She grabbed her wallet and her debit card, making sure to secure both in a safe space in her knapsack, knowing full when that there were loonies out there that had no problem with pilfering anything from anyone. She knew her mum would be passed out cold, she could sleep the hardest of anyone she knew...

"What am I doing..." Sofia breathed as she finished making her bed. Her blond mother didn't know what was coming, she should, but she didn't. Sofia had asked her repeatedly the last few years to just let her stay, only to hear the same excuse. Mom and Penny would miss you, Mom and Penny would be devastated... Mom and Penny, Mom and Penny, Mom and Penny... Mom and Penny were not what she needed or wanted right now, Mom and Penny were too wrapped up in their shitty relationship to see that she was drowning, and Mum didn't know the half of it because she didn't really want to hear how shitty things were. She didn't want to believe it. Sofia wasn't left with much of a choice. She threw her backpack on after she was dressed, she grabbed some stationary and left a note on her bed, detailing everything she was thinking, how she felt, and how misunderstood her mother's had begun to make her feel. She didn't know what her plan was, but she knew she had to take action.

Silently, she crept out of her room and down the hall, eyeing her mothers' bedroom door. She passed it and kept on going. Not a sound. Before long she was locking the front door, her mum none the wiser, and that was good. Breathing grew easier, her mind clearer, she didn't regret a single thing and had a bit of a plan. It all depended on her and the willingness of her family to work together. She hated having to take the situation into her own hands and do something drastic, it wasn't her plan or intention at all, but when pinned in a corner with no way out, with no one willing to listen, that was exactly what one had to do. She knew this for sure.