I snub her.
I snub the gentle call of my name, the sigh she gives as I stalk through the foyer for the main door.
No one stops me.
Father and Oliver are nowhere in sight.
Mr Younge is gone, too.
Just two servants in the foyer, both trailing me with their gazes, but no order barked to stop me—and so I leave with only Mother’s echoed sigh, my voice, a plea.
I leave it all behind and storm out into the rain. It is quick to pummel me.
A mist when we pulled up into the driveway, a mist with a drizzle and a stagnant dampness in the air, but now rainfall is battering me, striking the grass, and coming down on the driveway like bullets.
It’s suddenly all I hear.
But it doesn’t stop me.
My steps are quick with purpose, thudding on the eternal driveway that stretches all the way through the grounds, the gardens, past the barns, for the whole mile it takes for the driveway to end in arched iron gates.
I am soaked through to my prickling skin by the time I leave the grounds and turn left for the main countryside road, the one that has maybe a dozen cars on it in a busy day, sometimes cattle just hanging out—but most importantly, it’s the road with the bus that comes through the village.
I march for the bus stop, like I’ve done so many times before.
But this is it.
The last time.
The moment I reach it, my fatigued steps swiftly pick up, and I duck under the arched plastic roof that’s cloudy and scratched.
A breath fogs at my face as I drop onto the metal bench. My backside is quick to ache.
I hug the overnight bag to my middle.
And I wait.
Rain pelts down all around me, unrelenting. Puddles swell over the dark road, splashes splintering off with enough force to wet my loafers.
The pillow is soft on my sopping wet lap, the bag on top of it, and my arms hugged tight.
I rest my chin on a hard angle of the bag, and just wait.
The rain doesn’t let up.
It batters the roof of the shelter.
Beneath the soggy cotton of my sweater, my skin is dewy and pebbled. The cold is starting to knit into my bones, set against the whistle of the wind.
Should’ve brought a jacket.
Now that I think on it, I’m not even sure I packed one.
But I can’t go back, not for a jacket, not for anything. I might miss the bus if I do.
That’s what I am waiting for, isn’t it?
The bus to come through—and I just step on, maybe I have to pay some money, I don’t know.
