I had to hurry. Mom was in her room getting dressed and dealing with her hair and putting her face on so I had a few minutes.

The copy of the key I’d stolen months ago clicked in the lock and I slid inside the room both he and I hated.

My baby brother sat huddled in the corner, his face pale and tear-stained.

“Nicky.”

He flinched at the sound of my voice and I reminded myself it wasn’t me, but this room…and her.

Clutching the fistful of lilac magnolias that I’d grabbed from the garden, I eased closer. “I brought you some flowers, Nicky. Do you want them?”

A faint shudder racked him.

"Nicky, are you okay?"

Of course, he wasn't okay. How could he be okay? Mother had locked him in his so-called quiet room nearly an hour ago. He was trapped in this pristine white room, a room with no windows, no furniture except for a mattress thrown on the floor in one corner, no…nothing. It was enough to drive someone crazy. I should know. She’d locked me in here a time or two.

But I was more equipped to deal with it than my fragile brother.

He didn’t even understand why she did it.

How could you explain malice and meanness to my sweet brother?

She did it to keep him out of the way.

Under her control.

"It's for his safety," she used to say, but I knew it was a lie.

The quiet room was all about control and keeping him out of the way…and just pure meanness.

To keep him behind closed doors at times when she felt that letting him go free around the house was inconvenient to her. Usually, when guests were around, or like today, a Sunday, when she wanted to take me to church. The housekeeper would be ordered not to come into Nicky's room.

"Under no circumstances are you to go in there," Mother would instruct her. Then she’d purse her lips and add, “He needs the time to calm himself. It’s what’s best.”

It was all a lie, and Alice, the housekeeper, knew it.

I knew she’d check in on him at some point. She had her own copy of the room key. That was why I felt safe bringing the flowers. She’d take them with her when she left, so Mother would never know I’d been in here.

But Nicky would be locked up for a few more hours, at least.

I hated this room.

I hated her.

I hated how she treated Nicky.

Like he was an animal to be caged.

Like he was not her flesh and blood.

“Nicky, I brought you some flowers.”

He shuddered again, then slowly looked up at me through a tangle of messy blond hair. “You shouldn’t. She won’t like it, Thea.”

I knew that. My mother had a way of upping the ante to exert her influence.

"She won’t like it,” he said again, and I knew that somewhere in that simple, sweet mind of his, he was thinking about what had happened the last time he’d been put in the quiet room.

Mother had found me outside the door talking to him. I’d been about ready to go inside, but fortunately, I hadn’t pulled the key from my pocket yet. She’d dropped something when she’d been struggling to get him in the room, and she’d come back to look for it, and that was when she’d seen me, standing out there and trying to comfort my sobbing brother.

She’d locked me in the closet across the hall from his room.

“Since you can’t stand to be away from him, you can stay right here,” she’d told me.

Now Nicky was locked up, so she didn’t have to deal with him as we went to church. She could've taken him with us to church. But that would require her to be humane. To be kind. To have something in her heart for Nicky.

Mother did not.

She'd be the last to accept she had problems just like everyone else in the world. He was eleven, and Mother still couldn't admit to herself or anyone around that she had a special needs child. She treated him like the dirty little family secret. Hid him away.

And I hated her for it.

I pushed the flowers into Nicky’s hands and watched as he stroked them. He was a tactile creature, needing the sight and scent and touch of other people, of things around him. It was one of the reasons being in this room was so hard for him. So brutally cruel.

The terror was so vivid in his eyes. It was only when he drew in a breath and blew it out that his entire body seemed to relax. “I love flowers,” he whispered. Then he shot me a look. “She’ll be mad if she sees you.”

“Yeah.” I grinned at him. She’d probably punish me. Of course, she had already made it clear she was angry with me. The elbow-length sleeves of the Sunday dress I wore hid the angry marks on my right arm from where she’d grabbed me when I got between her and Nicky…again. As if those bruises were not bad enough, I had to deal with the dress. The dress… Looking down at the frilly, cotton candy disaster Mother had insisted I wear, I said, “Maybe if I get in trouble, I can skip going out and wearing this.”

"I don’t want to get you in trouble, Thea,” he said sadly. His eyes, so like mine, clouded as he looked up at me. “You have to leave before she finds out. But…can you tell me again?”

* * *

"Can’t Nicky come? He'll be good," I said in an imploring tone, making my last plea to her, begging for Nicky to come along. "He knows how to be good in church."

She whipped around and gave me a look that made me freeze in one spot. "Don't you dare speak out of turn. Don't…or you'll be in your own quiet room."

"Fine. Hide me away too!" I screamed in a rare burst of anger that even surprised Mother. "You can't do this to him. To us. Not forever."

"Dorothea Kent, you will compose yourself right this instant."

That was something else I hated about her.

Maybe a little about myself too.

How could her words alone hold such power over me?

Except for the bruises she often left on me when I distracted her from Nicky, Mother never hit us. Yet we feared her deeply. We were genuinely terrified of getting on her bad side. But who needed corporal punishment when verbal abuse did such damage? Words buried in deeper. Wedged themselves so deep into our minds that they could never leave.

At least bruises healed with time.

Mother's hurtful words never did.

Her cruelty was sure to last long after she was gone.

As she half dragged me to the car and put me in the back seat, I planned. At times like these, I wished the years would advance. I wished I’d get to age sixteen faster.

Or that I owned a gun.

I used to wish for a different mother, a different family for Nicky and me.

I used to pray too, until I realized that God never answered back.

That knowledge only made the verbal torture hurt more.

And we were off to church. To pray to God again, or at least act like it. Some Sundays, I could barely stand to step inside our church. Being there made me feel empty. Fake. That was why it had to end. We had to be free of this detestable existence eventually. I couldn't wait for the day I'd take Nicky away from this. The day we'd never ever have to think twice about Mother because we'd put her in our rearview mirror and never look back.

For now, I needed to be strong.

To plan.

To prepare.

To be ready.

And while she slowly snuffed out Nicky's spirit, all I could hope for was that by the time we were able to leave, there'd still be a little bit of him left to take with me. She never hit him, yet she was killing him day by day.

One unkind word after another.

Cruelty by cruelty.

Stripping away the perfect light that was in him.

At thirteen, even I could see it. The wonder in his eyes at the most banal things around us. The way he took in every moment. And his smile. When he smiled, everything around him looked brighter. But Mother was ready to steal every bit of his light if she could.

I needed to get him away.

As she helped me out of the car outside the church, Mother became someone different. People were around, so she became Mother of the Year. Her words oozed with sticky sweetness. Her irrational behavior turned overly kind for the sake of the eyes and ears around us.

I hated that too.

Because they’d never know the truth.

I sat in the pew beside Mother, wishing the service would end so all of this would be done with and I could go back to Nicky.

As I let my eyes roam around, I saw him.

The most beautiful boy in the town of St. Gabriel.

LeVan Vanderbilt.

Every girl my age in this church liked him.

Loved his face.

And those eyes.

I quickly glanced away because my life had no room for good things. Not if Mother got her way. She'd twist and corrupt the good until it was tainted and lifeless. For the rest of that service, I faced forward, played the role she made for me on the outside. And when it was over, I followed her to the car like a good little soldier.

This too shall pass.

Nicky and I would soon have her in our rearview mirror.

We just needed to put on a brave face for three more years.

Or so I thought.

But I was thirteen.

What the hell did I know about anything?