[ Toph's parents genuinely, sincerely love her and she's never doubted that. It's given her an appreciation that the form love can take isn't always good. It can be conditional; it can be oppressive. But she believes her parents do love her. What Ange is describing seems... different.

She has her own quiet pause before she responds, processing that. She can tell Ange feels sensitive about admitting it, and decides to deliberately tell some of the more sensitive details of her own story in exchange, to hopefully help her feel better about what she's shared. ]

I was born blind, and my parents thought they needed to protect me from everything. They didn't let me leave our estate and they didn't let me do anything strenuous. [ She trusts Ange knows her well enough by now to understand what a burden this was on Toph, how much it utterly smothered her personality. ] When I left, I ran away. They hired mercenaries to kidnap me and drag me back home. I had to invent metalbending to escape.

[ There's some evident pain in her voice, but also a wry understanding that she'd been lucky in a certain way. ]

But I did get to leave. I get it -- I get what that's like, at least a little. Feeling like I'm trapped still makes me want to crawl out of my skin.