The Heiress They Exiled Chapter 03

The Heiress They Exiled Chapter 03

He slams his phone down.

“We’re just a family going on vacation. It’s only a plane ticket. Do you really have to make this so ugly?”

I freeze for a moment, my throat suddenly tight as though something is lodged there.

But I am not making a scene. I am only behaving the way they want me to.

Know my place. Learn to give in. Don’t touch the position that was never mine to begin with.

My father’s voice turns colder.

“Three years of schooling, and you’ve learned nothing. You’re still being unreasonable and making everyone miserable.”

My fingers curl tightly.

My old wounds feel as though someone has torn them open again, burning with pain.

I’m afraid he’ll make one phone call and send me back to Stonebridge, so I don’t dare say another word. I even quiet my breathing, terrified that I’ll do something wrong again.

A trace of pity flashes through my mother’s eyes.

“Harper, Lillian’s father helped our family years ago. Now that she’s all alone, it’s only right that we take a little more care of her. Why can’t you be more understanding? Why do you have to see everything as everyone else treating you unfairly?”

I look at her, my heart hollow.

When the car door opens, Weston comes to my side and says quietly, “Get in first.”

I say nothing. I bend down and get into the car without struggling, questioning them, or throwing the kind of tearful tantrum I used to.

Graham seems to be waiting for me to explode, but when I remain unnaturally quiet, his brows furrow instead.

My mother glances at me several times, as though she wants to say something, but the moment passes quickly.

The next second, Lillian softly asks if she has done something wrong, and everyone’s attention immediately shifts back to her.

When the yacht heads out toward Palm Beach, the sea breeze is strong.

Lillian sits between my parents, holding my mother’s arm and occasionally turning to talk to my father.

They gather around her naturally, as though they have been doing it for years.

I sit at the far end, keeping a careful distance from them.

My mother seems afraid I’ll feel left out, so she keeps turning around to call me over.

When she passes around drinks, she makes sure I get one. When she shares the desserts, she doesn’t leave me out either. Even when Lillian says she wants to go to the bow to take pictures, my mother looks at me first and asks if I want to come along.

She probably loves me.

But she doesn’t know that I stopped loving her a long time ago.

At school, the slightest trace of longing whenever they brought me pictures of my family was enough to make the current surge through my limbs without warning and stab into my mind, until even the thought of longing for them was burned away.

So every time my mother turns to me, I simply shake my head.

“I’m fine with anything. You guys go ahead.”

Once we reach the island, my mother falls a few steps behind and reaches out to take my arm. Almost instinctively, I move aside.

Her hand freezes in midair.

I lower my head and speak softly, “I want to stay on the beach for a while. I’ll catch up with you later.”

My mother immediately says, “How can you? We’re here as a family. You can’t stay by yourself.”

A family.

The words reach my ears, but they don’t bring me any warmth.

Because the school rules say that depending on your family is the most pathetic and useless thing a person can do.

Weston walks over at that moment, a camera in his hand.

He looks at me and keeps his voice gentle.

“Harper, didn’t you used to love taking pictures with your family? The view is beautiful today. Let me take a family picture for you.”

I freeze.

I really did love taking pictures before. Whenever we went somewhere, I always squeezed into the middle.

Back then, I thought every picture we took was proof that I was loved.

But later, at school, an instructor took the family photos I treasured from my wallet and tore them apart right in front of me.

I speak softly.

“No need. Stonebridge taught me that taking group photos is the clearest sign of having no sense of boundaries.”

The air goes completely still.

My mother’s face turns pale. My father frowns, and Graham’s expression darkens as well.

Lillian bites her lip, her voice trembling softly, “Harper, have you been blaming me this whole time?”

“From last night until now, you’ve been acting like this… Is it because as long as I’m here, you never want to stand with this family?”

“If that’s the case, I can leave. I don’t want to be the reason your family falls apart.”

She turns as if to leave, and Graham immediately reaches out to stop her, quietly reassuring her not to overthink it.

My mother hurriedly wipes away her tears and tells her it’s not her fault.

Weston lowers the camera, his brows tightly drawn together. There is more disappointment and reproach in his eyes when he looks at me.

My father looks the angriest of them all, “Harper, are you done?”

I stand there as my hands and feet slowly turn cold.

I’m not making a scene. I’m only doing what the school taught me.

Don’t get close. Don’t participate. Don’t cross the line.

So why is even this wrong?

My father looks at me coldly, as though I’m a problem he can never teach to behave.

“If you’re so determined to keep your boundaries, then stay here by yourself!”

With that, he turns and walks away.

Graham shields Lillian as they head back, while my mother hesitates before following them.

Weston looks at me for several seconds.

In the end, he says nothing and turns away too.

Soon, the group that had been so lively only moments ago is walking back toward the yacht.

I stand alone on the beach, watching them grow farther and farther away.

So after three years, I still haven’t learned what it takes to be good enough.