Taking Rein

Chapter 20. Bad news

Chapter 20: Bad news

Sophie's POV

*****

My grandfather had always been a chirpy man, a smile seemingly permanently plastered on his face. It was rare for me to see him as anything else but happy, and so seeing him so distraught was worrisome. 

The last time I had ever seen him look like that was at my mother's funeral, and even there he tried to keep a smile on his face while he was talking about all of his fond memories of my mom.

That was why it hurt me to see him looking so down as he played with his food during breakfast. As soon as he saw Liam and I come in the house, he quickly tried to hide the fact that he was upset, doing so by sending us a fake smile as if we hadn't just seen what we saw. I wished that he would have let us in and told us what was going on instead of trying to hide behind a facade which was not fooling anybody. It was clear to me that he didn't want to talk about it, and I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable by asking, even if I wanted to be able to help him and bring back the usual smile on his face.

Worry gnawed on my insides as I thought that something horrible had happened to him which he didn't want to tell me about. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as I thought that maybe it had something to do with his health, and I couldn't stop myself from worrying about him. My father hadn't let me see my grandfather in years, and now that I was there with him, I couldn't imagine my life without him. He had helped me through so much, and he was also part of the reason I was near to finding myself.

"Hey, Soph, what's up?" Liam asked, looking at me with scrunched eyebrows as he tilted his head slightly sideways.

I shook the thoughts out of my head as I realised that I had been sweeping the same part of the horse's stall for five minutes straight as I let my mind wander to my grandfather. The worry I was feeling in that moment was making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything which I could have been doing.

"You saw him too didn't you?" I said with a sigh. "You saw him crying."

Grandpa was so good at trying to mask his feelings that I suddenly started wondering whether I was just imagining things. Nobody else seemed to have noticed that something was going on with him, or at least nobody wanted to mention anything.

"Everyone has a bad day, city girl, and so does he. You shouldn't overthink it too much," Liam said, making me let out an exasperated sigh.

"No, Liam, you don't get it. My grandpa is rarely upset. He's the kind of person to always look at the bright side of things. Trying to catch him crying is like trying to find a four leaf clover. It's very rare. Something must be happening, and I need to find out what it is."

Liam looked at me for a second without saying anything, seemingly deep in thought. "He was looking at something before we walked in. Maybe that can help us figure out what caused him to be upset."

A smile formed on my face as I realised that Liam was willing to help me to try and figure out what was wrong with my grandfather. I knew that I could be faced with bad news, news which I probably was not ready for, but I would have much rather preferred knowing what was going on than overthinking everything and making it worse for myself.

We waited a bit until my grandfather set off to town for his usual errands before deciding to quickly go and have a peak inside the house for whatever it was that made grandpa upset. It was not like we were doing anything illegal, but I could still feel my heartbeat quickening as we stepped foot inside, fearing that aunt Helen was going to catch us. It was nearly lunch time, which meant that she would be busy in the kitchen preparing food for everybody.