Aunt Jezel was furious. For the first time since she'd locked me up, she opened the door and stormed toward me. She grabbed my hair and dragged me outside.
I was almost blinded when the light hit my eyes; I hadn't seen sunlight for days. She dragged me to the stables. The horses neighed as Aunt Jezel pushed me into a pile of horse manure. My face was covered in it, and I could even taste it. I wanted to cry, but I controlled myself.
"That's what you deserve for being ungrateful to us. You want to be free, right? Well, then, go. No one would accept you, anyway. You'll come back here again, and you'll be cleaning horse shit again."
That night, after cleaning myself, I decided to follow my plan to leave the house for good. Even though my body ached from Aunt Jezel and her daughters' slaps and kicks, I packed my clothes and left my father's house, poisoned by her.
I walked past Henry's house and cried. Afterward, I wiped my tears and straightened my posture. I picked up the love letters he'd sent me before from my bag and threw them in their mailbox, along with a new letter for him that said: I loved you, but you treated me like an animal. Now, you will all regret what you did to me.