Page 107 of Seduced

But something had changed inside her, and she was done with being silent.

“I found out what’s wrong with me: it’s you,” she said simply. “You are the reason.”

And the mere telling of it was the greatest freedom she had ever known.

She had done it. Just like that, she had made herself free.

No one had rescued her this time; no one but herself. It was the most powerful, the best feeling in the world. Freedom.

I did it. My God, I did it.

“The reason for what?” Her brother was all surprise and patience. Well, he pretended. Once she knew how to look for the lies, they were so easy to spot.

“You are the reason I am terrified of loving anyone, most of all myself,” she told him. “You are the reason why the very idea of having a family disgusts and repels me. Terrifies me. It’s because of you.”

“W-w…” he sputtered.

“You have done your best to make me feel unworthy,” Poppy said. “And I may be imperfect or sinful sometimes—Ihave sworn rather profusely within the last few weeks, and I know you consider that a deadly sin—but one thing I am not, is unworthy. I am worthy of love, of God’s love, of a good man’s love, and of your love. If you do not want to give it to me, or rather, if you are incapable of doing so, then that is your own problem.”

She looked him up and down, and discovered that there was nothing left for him in her heart except pity.

“I daresay,” she added more softly, “that it is your own sin.”

Her brother inhaled sharply, turning puce. He made as if to get up, but Poppy lifted a hand to stop him.

“Do not speak, brother,” she said. “I can tell you now, it stops today. The torture, the abuse, the cruelty. You can starve me all you like, but if you want to hurt me, you shall have to do it with your own two hands. I won’t kneel anymore, not on the rice or the seeds, not for anyone. I may kneel in front of God, if I so choose, but that will be left entirely up to me and Him. There shall be no more interference from you.”

“Poppy,” he stuttered, “you are out of control. You are hysterical. You don’t—”

Poppy interrupted him once more, mostly because he was boring her more than anything. She was quickly realizing something which made her heart ache with regret. She had spent all these years under her brother’s thumb, and all the while she should have realized it: He was nothing but a coward and a bully.

He was weaker than the weak.

He would never have the strength to fall into a river instead of betraying his friend. To lean over the Thames to save a stupid boy and a stray cat. To wipe the blood from a girl’s lips. To hide a broken boy, a lost girl, a wanted princeand a haunted dancer inside his house. To allow himself to feel pain.

He wasn’t even brave enough to smile every once in a while.

He was so easy to interrupt, to talk over.

He was standing in front of her, quaking in fear of her newfound courage.

He was just…small. A prisoner to his own desires, fears and passions. He tried to control everyone around him—her, most of all. Most easily of all.

But it stopped now.

Poppy was already turning to leave, but she stopped by the door.

“And if all you can say in reply is that you are going to starve me until I obey you,” she told her brother, “then I can tell you this: Go ahead. I would rather die.”

…

She did not see or hear from her brother the rest of the day.

When she got hungry, she went down to the kitchen and fixed tea and bread with jam by herself. No one stopped her. The next morning, she went to her neglected garden and started uprooting the weeds. She had been banned from it since she had arrived from the Hell Club, and most of the winter roses were frozen, but some of the plants could still be salvaged.

To her surprise, no one came to tell her she could not be there.

So she worked with her hands, and the work quieted the frenzied workings of her mind and kept her safe from ugly thoughts.

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