Chapter 20: Chapter 18: Carefree

Once Susan Dudley and Isla Prescott finished cleaning the kitchen, Shane Sterling bid Susan farewell, saying he wouldn’t impose any longer and it was time for him to head back.

“How could this be a bother? You should come for dinner again whenever you’re free!”

“Okay. Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be going now. You should get some rest.”

“Isla, go see Sean out,” Susan Dudley told Isla Prescott.

“Okay.”

Isla Prescott walked Shane Sterling out of the lane.

Night had fallen. A lone streetlight at the mouth of the lane stretched their shadows out long.

“Sean, thank you for today,” said Isla Prescott.

Shane Sterling chuckled. “I came to your house for a free meal, and you’re thanking me for it?”

“You made my mom really happy. She hasn’t been this happy in a very long time.”

“Don’t say that. I wasn’t trying to flatter her. I meant every word I said.”

Isla Prescott smiled. “In any case, thank you again for today.”

After she spoke, she suddenly realized that she herself had let her guard down and smiled openly several times today, more than any day before this.

Shane Sterling got into his car, turned it around, and drove out of North Lane.

Isla Prescott turned to head home. Just as she reached the mouth of the lane, she saw her younger sister, Sienna Prescott, coming out wearing a medical brace.

“Sienna, why are you out here?” Isla Prescott walked over and steadied her. “I told you to stay in bed and rest.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Isla Prescott understood what Sienna Prescott meant. The rental apartment was small, and with their mother home, there were some things that were difficult to discuss in front of her.

“Alright, I’ll go get you a chair.”

“Don’t bother. It’s more uncomfortable to sit.”

“If you’re not feeling well, then you should get some proper rest. We can talk later.”

Isla Prescott tried to lead Sienna Prescott back inside, but Sienna stood rooted to the spot, refusing to move.

“Who was that man we ran into at the hospital today?” Sienna Prescott asked.

Isla Prescott knew she was asking about Julian Finch.

“He’s no one. Just an insignificant person not worth wasting our time on. Let’s go.”

“I heard everything he said.” Sienna Prescott squeezed Isla Prescott’s hand. “So your life with the Lockwood family… it hasn’t been good at all, has it?”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m doing just fine.”

“Right.” Sienna Prescott’s eyes reddened. “You’d better be doing ’just fine.’ That’s the only way to justify leaving Mom and me to go live with the Lockwood family by yourself.”

“Sienna…”

“You know, ever since you moved in with the Lockwood family, I’ve hated you. I hated you for abandoning Mom and me to go live a life of luxury. I could never understand it. Could money and possessions really bring you more happiness than family? I wanted so badly to experience the kind of life you were enjoying. That’s why, when that man started spending a fortune to chase me, I accepted him, even though I knew a man his age claiming to be single was suspicious. I even fell in love with him.” Large tears streamed down Sienna Prescott’s face. “I was wrong… I was so, so wrong… I should have understood from the beginning. You were living under their roof, at their mercy. How could you possibly have been comfortable? How could you have been happy? If I’d known this was how it would be, I would never have let you go to the Lockwood family!”

Sienna Prescott’s body trembled as she cried. Julian Finch’s words from that day were like invisible threads buried deep in her heart; recalling them made them twist so painfully it felt like her heart was about to shatter.

’Her beautiful sister, in Mrs. Lockwood’s eyes, was nothing more than a toy to be casually sent to another man’s bed.’

Isla Prescott took a step forward and gently put an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“Sienna, when Mom fled the mountains with us in the middle of the night, we couldn’t even scrape together five hundred yuan. She gambled her own future so that you and I could have a better one. Of course I had to go to the Lockwood family. Even after everything that’s happened in the past ten years, even after hearing what was said today, if I could go back and choose again, I would still go to the Lockwood family. Because, back then, it was the only opportunity I could grasp.”

“But Mrs. Lockwood…”

“It doesn’t matter how she treats me. I didn’t go to the Lockwood family for a life of luxury, and I wasn’t there to win anyone’s affection. As long as I could dance and get an education, nothing else mattered.”

Isla Prescott’s eyes were filled with determination.

’In truth, she had always been a person with clear goals. She wanted to dance, and she wanted to succeed. Her relationship with Silas Lockwood was just a temporary derailment, but she had now found her way back and was on the right path again.’

“I’m sorry, Sister.”

Sienna Prescott hadn’t called Isla Prescott “Sister” in many years. That single word seemed to transport Isla back to their childhood.

She remembered the day the Lockwood family’s driver picked her up. Her younger sister had shoved her own favorite lollipop into her hand and chased after the car for several hundred meters, crying the whole time.

In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.

Isla Prescott patted Sienna Prescott’s head. “You have nothing to apologize to me for. But I want you to know this: it’s okay, Sienna. Life is very forgiving. You’re still so young. As long as you cut your losses now and don’t make the same mistake again, loving the wrong person will end up being one of the most insignificant errors in the long course of your life.”

’And loving Silas Lockwood, she thought, would also be one of the most insignificant errors in the long course of her life.’

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