"I was sick of letting the world run me so I decided to run the world."
~~~
Isabelle Cane was taken from her family at 6 months old, leaving behind 7 older brothers and a twin sister. In the 12 years she's been away, Izzy has faced hardships no chi...
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It all feels too much. Or maybe too little. My heart feels heavy in my chest and yet it's not even there. My lungs pump quickly inside my body and yet they remain practically motionless when I try to feel them rise. In the last few days, I have found myself entirely fixated on these small things inside my body. My heart. My lungs. My stomach. My chest. It seems to be the only thing I can focus on. Every breath feels like a chore.
Every moment feels like a job. It started when we got back from Brinley. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe it wasn't. It was hard to tell with things like this. Especially when I felt so empty. So undoubtedly unfocused and blurry in every way humanly possible. We'd been home for two days.
Tyler had promised me I would start to feel better again soon. He said the shock would wear off. That I would readjust. Re-align. And go back to the way I was. I wasn't sure who he'd been trying to reassure when he said that, but it hadn't made me feel any better.
Mostly because I didn't believe it. And if the way the rest of my family had been treating me was anything to go by, neither did they.
Two days. That's all the time that I'd been given to grieve all this new information before he'd dragged me here. He said he wanted me to talk to someone. To work through it and find some 'peace' with it all. I didn't know what he'd meant by that. I didn't ask. I hadn't argued when Tyler told me he'd scheduled an appointment with Daphne for today. Nor when he told me he expected me to talk.
But now, sitting in the office waiting room, trying to catch a bubble of air into my deflated lungs, I couldn't help but wish I had. In all likelihood, arguing wouldn't do me any good. It never did with people like Tyler. But at least, if I had argued, I might not have felt like the weak, spineless, pushover Marley had always hated me for being. She said it was my deadliest quality. A danger to myself. And I hadn't argued with that either.
"How are you feeling?" Tyler asked for the 10th time since we'd arrived here as he put a gentle hand on my upper arm. I swallowed once but didn't look at him. If I did, I was sure I would have lost it. My lungs ached. It was hard to breathe in a comfortable way when my lungs felt so heavy inside my chest. I nodded slowly bringing my hands up so he could see my sign.
"I'm alright."
Tyler hummed doubtfully beside me but didn't call me on my lie. "Daph should be out here soon." He said softly. The thought made the pit in my stomach turn heavy. By the time she did get here, I would be well and anchored to my seat. But maybe that wasn't the worst thing to happen. "I'm sure she has a lot to ask you about,"
I wasn't sure why Tyler was making so much conversation with me. We hadn't talked much in the last few days. No one had. After Tyler and Logan told the rest of our brothers about Marley, the house had quickly fallen into an unnatural, unprecedented state of discomfort and avoidance.
Understandably, my brothers were heartbroken. They had cared for Marley. Loved her at some point in time and welcomed her into their home with open arms, just for her to walk out one day and never come back. It would have broken a piece of even the most stable person's soul.
