The Forgotten Heiress novel Chapter 4

Half an hour later Jessica stepped out of the bathroom, feeling clean and refreshed for the first time in days. In the room she found the bottle of pain killers where she'd been told they would be. The sight of them made her apprehensive of what was to come.

Reluctantly she went to the dresser and picked up the bottle. Slowly she walked back to the bathroom; her heart picking up the pace with every step. She wasn't looking forward to this.

She walked into the bathroom closing the door behind her and sat down on the floor, her back against the door.

Jessica opened the pill container and upended it into her mouth. She chewed the pills, it tasted disgusting but she wanted the medication to take effect as soon as possible. She had no idea how she'd know when that would happen so she'd give it a couple of minutes.

From her backpack she pulled out her small first aid kit. There was nothing in there that helped to deal with broken body parts, but it was better than nothing. Although it did have an elastic band she could use to keep her bones in place while they healed.

Her two minutes were up and it was time to put her plans into action. She still had no idea how to go about breaking her own bone so she decided to just go for it.

"OK" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "on the count of three."

"One" she took a breath in...and she couldn't do it.

"This is going to hurt!" she wailed and banged her head against the door. She was so scared her hands were shaking, but she had to do it and that's what she kept telling herself. "Just do it."

So it went for half an hour. Each time, she twisted her ankle a little harder until finally she realized that she was only hurting herself more. No more deep breaths and no more counting, this last time she just snapped it. And screamed like a baby. It was a good thing she'd thought about stuffing her T-shirt into her mouth.

"I just want to go home." she whispered and allowed the tears she'd been trying to keep in check to fall.

Then the thought of home reminded her of one more thing she needed to do. She grabbed her back pack and carefully pulled herself up, making sure not to jar her fragile foot.

Slowly she made her way out of the bathroom, into the room and to the bed. Being extra careful she raised her injured foot up on to the bed and lay down. She was exhausted. If you asked her she would tell you that it had taken her the same amount of time to get to bed as it had taken to 'fix' her ankle.

It still hurt and she still wanted to cry. But she wouldn't, she gave into it once and once was her limit. She looked up at the ceiling for a long time, her mind running over the day's events. The pain from her ankle made it hard, but she finally managed to drift off into sleep.