Stiletto Sisterhood

Original Edition: Isobel| *pop* that's the sound of your bubble bursting

Standing over the sink, Isobel Morgan frowned down at the list on her phone, her fingers flying over the touch screen as she typed out notes.

The wedding was still three months away and though she'd gone to considerable lengths to keep everything fairly simple, even with the hired coordinator and a ruthlessly planned checklist to keep on schedule, there was still so much left to do.

Seating plan revisions – 5.0, remember to email Kyle's additions to Nina.

Confirm dress fitting.

Cake Tasting on Tuesday at 4pm. Confirm attendance with Kyle and Nina.

Call Sisters re: vintage BM dresses – final measurements and colour preferences.

And call Priya, she added quickly, smiling in memory over the interesting exchange she'd woken up to. God, it had been so long since she'd made a trip down to New York to visit. Even though she lived the closest of all her Sisters, they'd both been far busier in the last few months than Isobel cared to think about.

School was officially over. They'd crossed the finish-line—signifying an end to the gruelling marathon only to discover they'd been thrust immediately into another without a moment to catch their breaths. This one longer and seemingly endless, with more obstacles, higher hurdles called life and responsibility. Where the training wheels were cast off and you were expected to stand on your own two feet, though, Isobel supposed she'd cast hers off years ago and without much choice after the accident.

Some mornings she found herself waking up and longing for the simpler days of essays and exams...

"There's my best girl."

Isobel turned at the sound of her father's voice as Angus Morgan toddled into the kitchen, his glowing smile marred by the shadow of a grimace. Deep grooves of chronic pain slashed between his brows, furrowed around his mouth. Aging him well beyond his stout forty-seven years. Robbing him of vitality.

They'd been faint at first—two years ago after he'd plummeted near thirty feet in the faulty scaffolding accident, but with the passing days and countless surgeries, she watched them sink deeper. She hated that there was nothing she could do to stop the erosion. A hopeless sense of impotency.

So Isobel made a concerted effort to be his constant source of joy. Of happiness and hope where he had always endeavoured to be hers.

"Morning, Da," she said, setting down her phone to pluck up her steaming cup of steeped green tea, sweetened with a hint of agave syrup. A healthy sugar the body could metabolise without the crashes or calories. "Did you sleep well?"

"Like the dead," he barked a dry laugh and pressed a kiss to her cheek. It was always the same answer. It was always the same lie. She knew he slept poorly. She saw it in the weary bend of his back and the heaviness of his steps. Even with the painkillers and prescribed meds, her father hadn't had a good night's sleep in almost three years.

"Where is you're off to so early on a Sunday?" She watched as he reached for the chair at the breakfast nook, a little half-moon shaped table with two mismatched wooden chairs they'd both sat at just about every morning as far back as she could remember. The task of dragging the chair out shouldn't have been a trying one, but for him it was.

Growing up he'd seemed invincible in her eyes. Broad shouldered and barrel-chested as a Superhero with his strong arms, rough hands and a big heart.

They'd become each other's whole world after she'd left them. Mom.

Isobel swallowed the knot of betrayal and fear. She would not think of her mother, not now and certainly not in front of him. It was too beautiful a day for her to be sad, and like a bloodhound, her father would sniff out the cause. She didn't want to upset him, either.