My trip to the kitchen for ice ended up being successful, but I don't think it made any difference to the state of my ankle. All I could think about was the conversation I overheard from Mother and Father that night.

The way Father mentioned the idea of a boarding school so casually made me think that he might have been thinking about it for a little while. I wouldn't put it past him seeing as everything I did somehow managed to annoy him and he couldn't even meet my eyes anymore. Still, they had discussed boarding school for me a few years before, especially after Miss Reid mentioned it due to her belief that it would have served me better than my current school. They both refused.

I suppose time can change opinions.

That night, I barely slept. Whether it was my ankle hurting or the thoughts created by Father's comment I didn't know, but sleep evaded me for the entire night. I don't think I managed to sleep for even a second and my eyes were still wide open when the sun started to creep in through the curtains and floorboards started to creak just outside with the movement of Helen and Mary.

I stifled a yawn and pushed back the blankets, exposing my ankle so I could examine it to see how much of a difference the ice had made. My ankle didn't look like it had become any smaller overnight and the purple bruising was more prominent against my pale skin. If I didn't know any better, I would say it looked worse than when I had taken the ice off; there were even small indents from where my boots had pressed into it.

Slowly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put my left foot onto the floor before gingerly lowering my right foot down beside it. Pain spread up my leg like a wave, reaching my knee and then flowing back down to start all over again. I fell sideways, grabbing onto my nightstand so I didn't hit the floor and alert everyone.

After a few seconds, the pain faded but I didn't try to put all of my weight on my right ankle again. Instead, I hobbled around the room on my toes which wasn't all that practical but stopped me from falling over. For a fleeting second, I considered telling Father what had happened but then I remembered what I had overheard and the idea quickly disappeared from my mind. That would be a sure-fire way of being sent off to boarding school.

I dressed quickly and then put my boots on, tying the laces as loosely as possible so they didn't cut into my ankle; it didn't work. It would be much harder to hide the limp from Mother and Father since I couldn't put any weight on my leg at all, but I didn't have much choice since Mrs Smith had yet to arrive with a breakfast tray. So it was to be a family breakfast.

Downstairs, I try to act as normal as possible, but that was remarkably hard to do given the constant surge of pain. No one seemed to notice, Father didn't even look up from his newspaper, so I slid into my chair with no comments.

"Good morning," Mother said, smiling at me. I tried to return the smile, but the pain had reached an unbearable level. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, just tired."

"You look like you barely slept last night. Perhaps you should go back to bed."

"I can't, I have the debate preparation to do. I doubt I'll be able to do anything tomorrow if we're moving out, which I still think is strange."

"You're not going to get too much work done if you're dead on your feet." She paused. "And regardless of whether or not you think there is something strange going on, we will still be leaving tomorrow."

"I never said we weren't. I just don't understand why everyone was so willing to accept something that odd. You were the ones who went storming into Uncle Christopher's office asking about fake wills and yet now you seem to have accepted it as fact."

Father closed his newspaper and looked at me. "There is no evidence to suggest that the will is not legitimate."

"But-"

"-That's enough, Isabel. Don't talk about things that you don't understand."

The room fell silent, the only noise being the ticking of the clock on the wall. Anger bubbles started to float up from my stomach and into my chest, one after another until it felt like I was going to explode. I clenched my hand into a fist in my lap, screwing up the bottom of my school dress between my fingers and squeezing as hard as I could. My nails dug into the palm of my hand through the fabric and joined the pain still radiating from my ankle.

My heart slammed against my chest repeatedly until I was sure it would explode out of my chest and fly across the room. My chest squeezed and tightened with every breath, to the point that it felt like someone had tied a rope around my chest and pulled it as hard as they could. No amount of scrunching and unscrunching my hands in the fabric of my dress can help the feeling bubbling up inside. Couple the anger with the pain in my ankle and I felt set to explode.

"I'll be waiting in the car," I said.

"Isabel-"

Mother went to speak but didn't make it past my name. I stood up, for a second forgetting the pain in my ankle as the anger consumed me. I made it as far as the door to the dining room before my ankle gave out and I fell against the doorframe.

"Have you hurt yourself?" Father asked, suddenly concerned. Odd that he couldn't show the same courtesy for me a few minutes before.

"Isabel?" Mother said. I heard her place her knife and fork onto the plate and the slight sound of chair legs scraping against the floor.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"Yes, I am." I straightened up but kept my grip on my door frame.

"Isabel, if you've hurt yourself, at least let me take a look."

"Why? So you can tell me that it's my own fault and that I need to think a bit more before doing something?" I turned around and raised an eyebrow at him, he looked down at the table. "Exactly. I'm fine."

Although I knew I was far from it and should have probably taken him up on the offer to look at my ankle, I didn't. I limped from the room, using the wall as a walking aid, and grabbed my satchel from the hallway, throwing it up onto my shoulder and stumbling out of the house. With my support gone, I stumbled from the house and towards the car with Marsh nowhere to be seen for a change.

I dropped my satchel onto the seat that would remain empty beside me and climbed into the chair, lightly resting my ankle on the ground and trying to ignore the pain that, by this point, has become impossible to ignore. A cold breeze whips around me, catching loose strands of hair and throwing them around my face. The breeze helped to cool the hot, prickling sensation on my skin and the longer I sat outside, the cooler I became and the faster the anger dissipated.

Pain continued to flow from my ankle and travel up and down my leg in a series of waves that felt unstoppable, like the waves at the seaside. I closed my eyes and just listened to the sound of the birds tweeting in the trees and the wind rustling the leaves. Small goosebumps form on my arm from the wind but I felt calm like I could breathe again. The rope loosens.

No one followed me from the house and I sat in the car by myself for several minutes just listening to the sound of the birds and fighting to ignore the pain. I heard the crunch of gravel under someone's foot and opened my eyes to see Marsh making his way out of the front door with something in hand. Usually, Marsh came from the small side door that led out of the kitchen rather than the main door. When he reached me, he handed me a cloth from the kitchen with pieces of ice placed inside of it.

"Your father thought you might need this," he said.

"Is he not coming with us?" I asked, accepting the ice since I didn't want to unleash my frustration on Marsh since he was just doing his job and didn't deserve to be caught up in it all.

"Not today. You can stay in the back if it will be easier on your ankle."

I nodded. Marsh watched me before climbing into the driver's seat but he didn't start the engine right away. Rather than say anything about potentially being late for school, I inched my boot from my foot and placed the ice against my ankle. The relief was almost instantaneous, a cooling sensation spreading across the side of my foot and helping to stop the pain although it still sat in the background.

"Might I say something, Miss Isabel?" Marsh asked, turning his head around to look at me.

"I suppose so."

"I can't pretend to understand what is going through your head or why you are behaving the way you are towards your parents, but I do know how your father is feeling. He would not have sought me in the kitchens to instruct me to bring you the ice if he did not care about you, regardless of what you might think. On a few of our earlier morning rides into the city, he has mentioned several times that he wants to understand you, but you aren't allowing them in.

"Perhaps it's just how you deal with your own emotion, but you're not just hurting yourself, Miss. Your actions are deeply affecting your father too."

"And what about the things he has said to me? Don't you think that they hurt too?"

"I imagine they do, but he doesn't know how to respond to your behaviour and is at a bit of a loss when it comes to knowing just what to do." He paused. "All I'm saying is that he wants to help and understand you, but you're the one refusing to let anyone get close."

I stared at him, blinking several times and trying to understand where his words were coming from. Marsh barely spoke more than a few words unless prompted on other car rides and yet he sat there, as bold as brass, telling me that I was the cause of all the troubles and difficulties at home and that I had been giving Father too much of a hard time. He didn't know anything about it.

Father was the one who moved on from Grandfather almost immediately, who ruined his memorial and let an old grudge get in the way of what should have been a beautiful day. He was the one who kept insulting me, degrading me and making me feel like a child in front of everyone. All I had done was respond to his actions, his comments. I hadn't started it. He had. Everything had been his fault.

Grandfather's death.

The memorial.

My actions over the past few days had been brought on by things he had done and yet everyone had decided to paint me as the villain, the enemy in the story. It had been him! It had all been him and yet everyone else seemed completely oblivious to it and the only one who saw the truth, who saw through the act, was me.

I saw right through him and he didn't like it.

Marsh didn't say anything, he just started the car and we pulled away from the house and towards the city. I kept the ice pressed against my ankle but purely for my own sake rather than to give Father the satisfaction of thinking I had mellowed towards him. If anything, Marsh's comments only worked to fuel my anger, to make it worse.

Father didn't have to respond to Grandmother when she arrived for the memorial. He could have asked her to leave and he didn't. He was the one refusing to see anything wrong with the contents of the will, to accept that it might be fake.

Why did I get the blame for what he did?

Why did I have to be punished for his actions?

How come I was the only one who could see it?

~~~

A/N - Welcome back! With the surprise update on Saturday, we only have 11 chapters left until the end of this story! As of right now, I have no plans for a sequel, but time can change!

Questions! Should Izzy have just told her father about her ankle? Is Marsh right? And do you think Izzy's anger towards Robert is justifed?

Comment below!

First Published - October 12th, 2021