I cradled my stinging cheek as I laughed at her. “I’ve only done coke one time, Mother, one time. Finn was the one who gave it to me. It’s his cocaine.”

I bent to pick up my phone and opened it with shaking hands. I found the hateful images stored there and shoved it in her face. Her skin whitened as she saw it. “Look, this is how your precious son posed me the last time he raped me. He got me high on cocaine, Mother. He took pictures of an innocent young girl like this! He used me and then let his friend from school have a turn! Is that brotherly love?” I said, my body shaking all over at admitting out loud what had happened to me.

She shook her head at me, “You’re a whore!”

I gave her a look of disgust and gathered up my purse, knife, and keys. There’s no reasoning with a mad woman. “Keep the coke. You might need it,” I said.

“You are not leaving this house, Nora!” She grabbed my shoulders, her nails digging into my skin. “If you walk out that door, I will never speak to you again,” she said. She meant it. Silence was her ultimate punishment for me.

I tore her fingers out of my arm and backed up from her, trying to get closer to the door, knowing to not turn my back. I knew her ways.

I said, “There was a time when I needed you. I came to you and told you what was happening, and you convinced yourself I was a liar, because you didn’t want to believe your son would be so twisted. Because what would your high society friends and Good Morning, Dallas fans think if they knew your precious son was touching your daughter? What if they found out he was my half-brother and didn’t belong to dad? What if he was arrested? No, Mother, you chose yourself over me and left me to suffer.”

She winced, like I’d struck a nerve.

“There were nights when I was alone, and I’d lay in bed with knives. I didn’t know if I wanted to kill myself, kill Finn, or kill you. I tried to become this perfect person, hoping you would love me. I got the best grades, I played the piano, I paraded myself around in stupid dresses, I won a national spelling bee,” I said.

She sighed. “You’re exaggerating as usual, Nora.”

“No,” I choked out, letting the tears pour down my face, not getting why she wouldn’t just love me. Why couldn’t anyone just love me.

She smirked. “God, do you need me here to cuddle you at night? Grow up. And don’t think I’ll give you a dime if you leave. You’ll get nothing from me, do you understand? You can forget piano lessons and going to Princeton.”

“All I ever needed was love,” I whispered.

She laughed. “Please. Stop with the drama.”

I walked over to stare down at the weight scale. She’d placed them next to the fridge years ago. “I am never getting on this scale again,” I said, picking it up. I slammed it down repeatedly against the marble floor until the face snapped off and bits of white enamel innards flew around the kitchen. Breathing heavily, I stood up and looked at Mother whose mouth gaped open in shock. If she thought that was bad, wait until she saw her china.

“Goodbye, Mother,” I said in a tired voice. I walked out the door, leaving the house of hell where I’d grown up.

As I drove away, I felt something new spark inside me, and I think it was hope, burning like a tiny flame, flickering back to life.

ACCEPTANCE SETTLED OVER me, wrapping around me like a warm blanket as I drove aimlessly around Dallas, not noticing or caring where my headlights led me. Tonight I’d stood up for myself; I’d confronted her with the truth. And in doing so, I’d released some of the darkness I’d carried around for so long. Oh, I wasn’t suddenly magically happy. I wasn’t going to bust out singing “Kumbaya.”

But something had altered within my sprit tonight.

I didn’t need a list. I didn’t need to be bad.

I needed to just be Nora.

I turned my car into Club Vita’s parking lot and sat there, looking up at the window that I knew was Leo’s room. He’d crushed the deepest part of me tonight by choosing Tiffani. How long would they be together? Would he dump her soon or eventually fall in love and commit to her? Whatever happened, I didn’t want to be the sad girl who waited in the wings for Leo’s relationships to combust.

I wanted to find my own happy moments.

I glanced up when I saw the first rays of the sunrise peeking over the horizon. It was a new beginning, the dawn of a new day, and I wanted to live it.

BY SEVEN THAT morning, Aunt Portia had pulled up at the bakery, so I moved my car over to her side of the street. When I walked in, she saw my face and wrapped me in her apron and hugged me hard. I let her hold me, inhaling the comforting scent of baked goods that lingered in the shop. She made me sit while she grabbed cinnamon rolls and two cups of hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream. We settled in at a table near the window. I told her about my fight with Mother; I told her about Finn.

She cried and told me she loved me.

Since her apartment was an hour from BA, we’d made a tentative plan for me to sleep in the attic space above the shop. She had an extra twin bed I could use, and the employee’s bathroom would be my bathroom. There wasn’t a shower, but when Mila dropped by for lunch that day, she said I could come to her house after school for showers.

And so the weekend passed slowly. I spent most of Sunday in my bed in the attic and on Monday, I went to school as if nothing had changed.

After school, Sebastian came in the shop with my shoes and my dress, which was covered in a local dry-cleaner’s plastic. He said Leo had had it dry-cleaned.

I got us coffees and two bear claws, watching in amusement as he devoured his and then the rest of mine. I told him about having a fight with my mom and leaving home to live at the shop. I didn’t say a word about Finn.

“Will it be hard not living in the lap of luxury anymore?” he asked.

“Luxury means nothing when you aren’t safe.”

“Whenever you want to talk about it, I’m here,” he said, eyeing me thoughtfully.

“Don’t get all serious on me. It’s like you’re Leo when you do it. I need my flirty Sebastian back.”

“Okay, how about this: you can shower at the gym anytime, sweet thing,” he said with a comical leer.

“And there he is!”

He laughed and gave my hand a squeeze.

Since it was after lunch, I was surprised to hear the door bell go off, signaling someone had come into the shop, so I looked over to see who it was.