By the time that I woke up again, the sun sat high in the sky. Ned was gone; he'd probably gotten up at his usual time, regardless of the interruption of his sleep. He'd let me sleep on, though.

I dragged myself to the side of my bed, letting my legs fall heavily to the floor. Reaching up, I could feel that my hair had become a rat's nest, and I hauled myself to my feet to confront my face in the mirror.

Crying always made my eyes swollen the next day, and this was no exception: bluish-purple dark circles sagged underneath white bags. I blinked, rubbing my eyes, feeling the grit left behind. Short of avoiding all human contact, there was nothing I could do to make my eyes look better, and as tempting as that sounded, I had to be ready. Ned was home. I was going to have to fight to be heard.

My hair, at least, I could do something about. I picked up my hair brush and pulled it through from the top to the bottom, mercilessly dragging on the snarls and knots until the brush ran through clean. I know, now, that you should start at the bottom when brushing hair, but that was not the way I'd learned. My scalp smarting, I replaced my hairbrush on my bureau with a kind of ceremonial reverence, then took a look at my clothes.

I hadn't changed into pajamas last night, and Ned had not insisted. My jeans were rumpled and had been worn a few days too many, while my shirt was hopelessly wrinkled. I sniffed myself experimentally and wrinkled my nose at how stale I smelled. Ned had slept next to me when I smelled like this? Humiliation burned a hollow in my stomach. I checked myself in the mirror. No blush. Well, at least I still had that.

I cast about for something to wear that would help me. Mireille's impeccable wardrobe had struck fear into my heart for as long as I could remember-could a dress and a high bun do the same for me, regardless of my tear-dried face? The dress that I had worn to Mireille's own wedding, the one Mary had bought for me, hung in my closet, next to the remnants of my ballgown. I slipped it over my head, feeling the silky lining slither over my bare skin. I gazed longingly at my old, rumpled clothes for a moment, before lacing a pair of flats on my feet, turning toward the mirror to approximate the high, sleek bun I had seen Mary, Mireille, and Julia sport from time to time.

I stepped back, taking in the effect. I thought I looked like a child, like myself as a child, pale and serious. My cheekbones stood out more than they had ever done before, probably a testament to my anxiety of late. I had never been kind to myself, though. Henry found something in me that attracted him, Billy and Ned found something here to love. Maybe I wasn't what they thought I was, but so, too, could I be more than I assumed I had always been.

I would bank on that, then, to make my case. Henry had said, once, that Dr Bertram loved me. Ned had said something similar, come to that. I would need his latent good will, then, because Dr Bertram was none too pleased with me.

I steeled myself for the rest of the world, taking one, two, three breaths before opening the door. If Ned had not been there, I probably would still be in the closet, refusing to come out. As it was, the prospect of seeing his face in the daylight, of having his support, carried me down the stairs and into the quiet living room, where he stood stock still in front of the wall of my paintings.

I watched him, not speaking. He had one arm folded across his chest, while his bracing right arm swept up so that his chin rested on his hand. From behind, he looked as serious as I felt. I shifted my weight to lean against the doorframe, and the floorboard squeaked beneath my feet.

His head turned, slowly, at we were eye to eye. He, too, had dark circles, though they did not seem as bad as mine. He, too, was ashen.

I waited for him to speak. He should have spoken, accused me, questioned me, demanded to know what I had thought I was doing, laughed at my poor skill, thrown himself down on the ground and begged for my mercy. He should have done something, rather than stand perfectly still, watching me watch him.

Finally, turning back to look at my work, he said, in a voice barely loud enough to hear, "Where did you get the paint?"

The clock in the dining room ticked a few times. "Mireille didn't end up using much of what she asked for. She never missed it."

He nodded, both arms folded across his chest, now. "Risky," was all he said.

I nodded, too, but he couldn't see me. He didn't turn around for reply.

"Mary found them," I said. "I didn't want her to."

"I know."

"And they went through my things to find them all. They didn't listen to me when I said no."

"I can imagine."

There wasn't much else to say, after that. I watched his back, waiting for him to say something, offer something, that let me know how he was feeling. It was a lot of information to take in, after no sleep.

The clock ticked a minute away, then he turned his head back to me, a small smile fighting its way across his face. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He clamped his lips over more. I waited for my heart to return to its normal place.

"Why didn't you ever tell me what you were writing in your books?" It wasn't meant to be accusatory, but he reared back ever so slightly, and I knew I had to explain the question rather than let it hang. "Because it was personal, Ned. And not the kind of personal that I can share with you. The other kind. What you write in your notebooks is none of my business unless you wanted it to be. This is the same for me." For me, that was a whole stump speech. Not bad under the circumstances.

He nodded in understanding, but his face looked anything but pleased. He turned, slightly, looking at the same picture he had been staring at when I'd arrived, and pointed a finger at it.

"What happened here?" I thought, for a moment, that he meant a defect in the paint of some kind, and I took a step or two forward before I realized his real question. Not what went wrong with the painting. He meant, what had happened to me that made me paint it in the first place. He face was full to me, now, deadly serious.

I stared at the painting for a moment, trying to remember. It had yellow in it, and a kind of strange blue-green, with some red. When had I had those colors?

It dawned on me, and I shivered slightly, resisting the urge to rub my hands up and down my arms for warmth. "That was right after you left for college," I said, not daring to look at his face. "Nola decided to tell me about my mother. All about her. And she thought it would be nice to tell me exactly where I was the same as my mother, which was most everywhere. Excepting that my mother was just a whore, whereas I'm a freak."

If possible, his face grew even paler, and he turned a little away from me.

"And why didn't you tell me that?"

I looked up at him, then in consternation. "I just told you."

He had his hands on his hips, now, his head bent. He was taking deep breaths. When he spoke, it was quietly, though it was in a tone he had never directed at me- clear and detached, a little aloof.

"You told me that your paintings are private, which I understand. Or will understand. But what you just told me is that Nola abused you. Why didn't you tell me that?" He stared resolutely at the wall behind my work, his eyes blinking rapidly.

A bubble seemed to rise up in me, something from a place so dark and brutal it was no wonder I had sought to hide it so long. Maybe, if I, the freak, had been the same as my mother, the whore, I would have hit Ned where he stood, knocking him to the ground. But Billy had raised me, and so had Ned, and so had I, and so instead it was my voice that was violent, not my words, and not my hands.

"You didn't know? How could you not know?"

He turned to stare at me, then, and the look that he gave me, the horror in his eyes, was too much for me to bear, and yet still I didn't look away.

"How many of these are there?" He whispered, swallowing, glancing around the room before locking eyes with me again.

"Over two hundred, I think. Something like two-twenty."

He closed his eyes, head bowing slightly, then brought his hands up to rub his face and hair, sending the latter up into spikes and curls on the top of his head. He turned away from me again, presumably to look out the window. I could see the rise and fall of his breath, but my inability to see his face made me nervous.

I cleared my throat to rid it of my earlier brutality. "Ned?"

He turned his head slightly to indicate that he was listening, but made no move otherwise.

"Ned, I need your help. These are..." I bit my lip, fumbling, "they're not for anyone. Not for just anyone, anyway. I can't show them to other people. Please help me."

Back stiff, Ned spoke over his shoulder, "But do you realize that if you sold them, you would have enough money to never need to see any of us ever again?" He turned around to look at me. "You could get out of here and never, ever have to come back."

I gaped at him, and something hit me. "Did your father talk to you?"

He didn't move.

"Did he? Did he ask you to talk to me about this?" I gestured at the paintings that stared down at us, accusing.

Ned sighed. "He did."

If had woken up sooner. If I'd only not slept. If I'd taken the time to explain on the phone. If I'd told him years beforehand, this wouldn't be happening.

Ned went on, "He did ask me, order me, really," the displeasure in his voice was obvious, "but I wasn't going to tell you to do something you shouldn't do. I would never do that. Knowingly," he added, finally turning to glare at my art, the walls, the carpet, his shoes, everything but me.

"But you think I should, don't you?" Maybe I had no more tears. Maybe I was dry, wrung out, and clean. There was certainly a feeling in my lungs that was akin to being scrubbed fiercely with a brillo pad.

"I would never have...I just…" he ran his hand over his hair again, then took a deep breath. "Fawn, in this room right now, we have about five million dollars worth of art."

I stared at him for a second before I started to giggle hysterically.

"It's true! Each one of these...you earned it, that money. You deserve it. If you showed your work, you'd sell it, and once you've sold it, you can do anything, go anywhere-"

"College?"

He blanched, his faced reddening. "College. Or anywhere."

"I can barely read, Ned." The admission, when it came, was not as hard as I thought it would be. I remembered Henry telling me that the only time I spoke to him was when I was angry at him. Maybe that was the case here, too, though the rush that went through me now was not much like the anger I'd experienced in my life. "I can barely read, and my handwriting is like a child's handwriting, and I haven't done any schoolwork or been taught anything of much value since I was fourteen, when Nola decided she had done what we was obligated to do, and didn't want to babysit me anymore."

"Babysit-" he bit of the end of the word in a breathless halt.

"Ned, I haven't been in school since I was fourteen. I don't know anything. Even if I had seven million dollars, who the hell would take me?"

"Most people," he said, lifting a sardonic eyebrow to himself before realizing how inappropriate his comment seemed.

"I need you, Ned," I said then, not knowing how I dared put it into words. "I need you to help me, because I'm not going to sell this stuff. I'm going to burn it as soon as we're done talking, and nothing anyone can say can make me change my mind. I need you to support me, okay? Can you do that?" I was pleading now, but still no tears had come to my eyes.

He watched me, ashen face to ashen face, taking in my dress, the circles under my eyes, my hair, the desperate seriousness of my face, and slowly, very slowly, so that I couldn't mistake the movement, he shook his head.

"No. I'm sorry, Fawn, but I can't do that."

I stepped backward two, three paces, and he watched me go. I don't know if he was breathing. I know I wasn't.

I turned to run out the door, but something stopped me, something hard, and firm, and previously undiscovered. I turned, and seeing his eyes still on me, I raised my head the way I'd seen Mireille do when she was angry, and said, "My name is Flannery."

I was out of the door a second later, and outside on the grounds four seconds after that.

Henry found me shivering on a bench by the garden about twenty minutes later. He dropped beside me without being asked, and peeled off his jacket, offering it to me. When I made no move to take it, he placed it neatly around my shoulders before turning to kick his feet in the gravel.

"Heard you and Ned arguing," he said by way of introduction.

I nodded. I had no energy to be embarrassed or angry.

"Couldn't hear the actual words, with you two being so polite and all," he tilted his head at me, cocking a quick, sidelong grin at me, "but I got the general gist. He thinks you should show them, too, doesn't he?"

I said nothing, sighing as I stared out across the garden.

"Well, he would, smart guy like him. Not that you're not smart, Miss Price, but you're a little closer to this than any of us. I don't imagine anyone sees the art they create in a really objective kind of light."

There was a rosebush at the other end of the path. I tried counting how many leaves were on the branch closest to me.

"I've always been a little jealous of Ned, as long as we're being honest," Henry said quietly, picking at a stray thread in his jeans. "He always seemed to have it together, to have his life figured out, to have direction. I've always thought that was pretty cool. Plus he has someone like you to watch out for him and care about him, love him unconditionally." He trailed off, probably waiting for me to say something. I didn't.

"Of course, there's Mary," he said, as if I had, in fact, made a remark of some kind, "and she loves me, and supports me, too, and we're pretty much best friends, but somehow it's a different kind of thing with you and Ned. Not that I'd want a thing like that with Mary, something other than sisterly love, since, gross, but no, the two of you, Ned and you, you're different. You're always watching him. He's always watching you. It's pretty amazing. So yeah, I'm jealous of him."

I breathed in and out, in and out. Ned's finger was pointing at a picture I'd made, and he was asking, horrified, "What happened?"

Always watching me? Always?

"So I don't think you're right, Price, when you say that you shouldn't get whatever you can out of that talent of yours. Because that's the friendly concern, you understand. And I don't think you're right, either, when you say that what's private shouldn't be public, because you know, art imitates life imitates art, all that," he waved his hand in vague circles. "But that's not friendly concern, on my part. That's purely self-interested, you understand, because I'd very much like to tell you how I feel about you."

I stopped, turning to look at him. He was serious, too. Everyone was so serious. I waited for him to smile foolishly, to make fun of me for believing him, but he considered me instead, leaning back on his hands.

"So, here's the deal: I'm in love with you. Have been for a while, probably will be for a while, though I've never done this before, so I'm not sure how I do it, exactly. I'm just straight up crazy in love with you. And so I want other people to see how talented you are, because I want them to be jealous of me, I guess," he smiled again, that self-deprecating grin, "because I'm lucky enough to be with you, and they're not."

There was a pause as I stared at him.

He looked at me then, his brows knit in a kind of smiling frown. "You had to have known. Mary told me she mentioned me to you. How could you not have known?"

I stared at him, the way Ned had stared at me.

"I thought...Never mind what I thought. You like me, too, don't you? Even if it's not love yet?"

Yet. So sure.

"I know you like me."

I shook my head, and his face fell, leaving the frown but taking everything else.

"No, you don't like me? Or no, you didn't know I liked you?"

Both. Neither.

"What is it?" He genuinely didn't know. He actually had no idea. "Is it Ned? Because he's with Mary, so it's not like that's going to happen." His voice, so soothing a minute ago, was growing caustic, and he realized it, too, because he paused and took a minute to collect himself. "Maybe this is all a little too much a little too quickly, and I'm sorry about that, but still, I need to know."

"You threw Mireille away like she was nothing."

Whatever he had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that.

"What?"

"You f-flirted with her and encouraged her to cheat on her fiance, then you threw her away w-when she bored you."

"Are you seriously going to tell me that you care about Mireille now? She's not your family."

"I grew up with her. I may not l-love her, but I owe her more than I owe you."

His mouth opened and closed it twice, at once lost for words.

"Are you serious?"

"You pretended to care about her and then you took that away."

"Because I was starting to fall in love with you! She doesn't mean anything to me." His ears were getting red now, something I'd never seen before in him. He was an actor, but he wasn't acting now, I didn't think.

My voice was calm, like Ned's had been. It was so easy to be calm, now that I'd offended everyone. I'd offended everyone and I was still alive. "That's never something you should say about anyone."

He rolled his eyes, heaving himself off the bench to pace in front of me.

"If you didn't c-care about M-Mireille, you could just as easily not c-care about me the next t-t-time you find someone you like. I've seen it happen before t-to s-someone else. Why wouldn't it happen to me, t-too?"

Henry, too, brought his hands into his hair, in a gesture of unmistakable distress. He didn't say anything to contradict me, though. Not yet.

"I m-may have b-been quiet, Henry. I wasn't b-blind."

He stopped in his tracks and whirled to look at me, then. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

I looked up at him, the sunlight shining into my swollen, gritty eyes. I didn't fight him.

He was trying to piece together what had just happened. I was right-he had never been rejected before. Not really. He had never known what it was like for someone to say no to him.

"You're young. You haven't been out much. You'll probably realize that it's pretty rare to have someone love you like I love you. It doesn't happen often."

I shrugged. "Maybe. I don't think that's it. I'm not holding out for anything better, Henry. I just don't want you."

I didn't realize how cruel the words would sound until they were out, but there was no taking them back, because they were true, or at least they were almost true.

"Bullshit," he fired back. He was right. At least, he was almost right.

I shrugged again, then took off his jacket, standing to give it back to him. He grabbed it and my hands for a moment, looking at me with what I assumed was desperation.

"Can I do anything to change your mind?"

I smiled at him and let go of the jacket, so that my arms fell to my sides.

"No."

I turned my back and walked back into the house, my decision made.

I found Dr Bertram in the living room with Ned. Ned has his back turned firmly toward the paintings so he wouldn't have to look at them, while Dr Bertram faced them head-on with a kind of feral pride. As such, it was Ned who saw me first, and he straightened up before looking resolutely away from me.

Dr Bertram saw the look on his younger son's face and then caught me from the corner of his eye.

"Ah, the reluctant artist at last."

I nodded politely. "Sir."

"Ned said he couldn't convince you. Is that right?" Ned shot a look of protest at his father, then looked back down at the coffee table, avoiding my eyes.

"Y-yes." I breathed, calm and deep. No one should be a hero.

"I suppose it's useless to tell you how talented you actually are again, or how proud of you I am." I bit my lip. I had always wanted him to say those things to me, and now I wished he would take them back.

"Useless, sir."

"I see. Well. Ned has been trying to impress upon me that we've been sitting around tell you what we want, when we should be asking what you want. I always thought I knew what you wanted, the way I knew what my other children wanted," he flicked his eyes to Ned, then to a spot in the air, clearly thinking about Tom and Mireille and even Julia. "But I suppose in this case I'm incorrect, is that right?" His voice was heavy with doubt and sarcasm.

"I don't want to sell my paintings, sir, that's all."

"And what do you want, then?"

I straightened my spine, taking a deep breath. "I want to go home, sir."

He blinked at me, seven or eight times. Ned was nodding, eyes fixed on the carpet.

Dr Bertram frowned, confused. "You are home. Or do you have a home of which I am unaware?"

"Boston. I want to go home."

"And live where? In a dingy apartment with your uncle, and brother, and sister? Have no future?"

"What kind of future does she have here?" Ned put in, quietly.

"And that's what you want?" Dr Bertram ignored Ned's question completely. "You want to go live in Dorchester and work at a Pizza Express for the rest of your life?"

"No, sir. I want to be an architect." I had never said it out loud before, and now I was, and I couldn't take it back.

Dr Bertram's laugh told me all I needed to know about his opinion on the subject. "An architect."

Ned was watching me now, eyes bright. Now it was me who couldn't look at him.

"Yes, sir. And if that's ever going to happen, I can't live here anymore."

He raised himself to his full height which, in my state, seemed to be about twice my own. He glared down his nose at me. "Then get out. And don't come back. But we're keeping these," he swung his hand back toward the wall of my paintings, "for when you change your mind and realize that in the real world you need money to live on."

"Dad-" Ned stood up.

"That's enough, Edward." His tone brooked no arguments. Ned turned his back.

"I'll call a cab to take you to the airport. I'll pay for your ticket, even give you a little to spend on lunch and such," Dr Bertram opened his wallet, grabbing a handful of bills and holding them out to me as if they were made of rotting meat. "Don't say I never did anything for you, Fawn."

"Flannery," Ned corrected, his back still turned.

Dr Bertram ignored that, too, fixing his eyes on me. "You have an hour to get ready. I never want to see you in this house unless it's to beg my forgiveness and to thank all of us for everything we've done for you. Do you understand me?"

I nodded. He glared down at me.

I took a deep breath. "I understand you, sir. Perfectly."

"Get out of my sight."

It took me ten minutes to pack everything I cared about into an old suitcase someone brought to my bedroom door. I left older clothes, worn-out shoes, books I'd never finished and, regretfully, the ruined pieces of my beautiful ballgown. I tried to spend the rest of the hour cleaning or straightening my room-the room- before I finally slipped Susie's photo into my jacket pocket, and rolled the suitcase out onto the landing, emerging at the top of the staircase to see the whole family arrayed near the front door.

I had never wanted attention, but I had it now. I forced myself to breathe and collapsed the long handles of the suitcase so I could carry it down the staircase with ease. Before I could start down, though, Ned's hand came and took the bag from me, and he walked with me, wordless, down the stairs and out the front door into the cool wetness of mid-November. If the Bertrams or the Crawfords, who were all watching me go, said anything to me, I don't remember it. Ned slammed the taxi trunk shut, then came around to open the door for me. We stood, frozen, undecided, for a moment before I got the courage to look him in the eye.

He searched my gaze miserably, looking for something. Blame, maybe, or forgiveness, I wasn't sure. Slowly, he brought his hands up to cup my face, and placed a kiss in the exact center of my forehead.

I had thought I was out of tears. I had been wrong. They came, then, boiled up over the rims of my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, tracing hot waves down my face. He kissed my cheek, then, too, and held me close to him, as I gripped his waist.

"I'm sorry." Then he broke from me abruptly, holding the door for me to get in. I watched him slam it, then turn around at stride straight back into the house.

He didn't watch me go.