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I nodded and went to my bed. where I just

flopped on my back.

"At least none of us are as bad as Steven," Rose

said.

"He is going. to feel it more in the morning,"

Ice said. "I remember how my mother was sometimes,

many times. She would go drinking with her

girlfriends and suffer the next day, but it didn't stop

her," she pointed out.

"Your father let her?" Rose asked.

"He worked as a security guard, often at night,

and she just was frustrated. She's a beautiful woman,

and thinks she messed up her life by marrying and

having me."

"My mother went through something like that.

too." Rose said. "She wanted to regain her youth, but

she was being influenced, poisoned by someone else." She looked at us when we gave her expressions of

confusion.

"Who poisoned her?" Cinnamon asked. "The sister of the woman with whom my father

had his affair and other child. Her name is Charlotte

Alden Curtis. She's rich and has a house nearly as big

as this."

"Why did she do that to your mother?" Ice

asked.

"Her sister died in a terrible car accident on the

way to meet with my father. and Charlotte blamed

him and wanted to unload his sins on us. She trapped

us by inviting us to come live with her and help her

care for my half-brother Evan because he was

disabled and in a wheelchair. My mother was an easy