What doesn't kill you

makes you stronger

She was a fool and she knew it, but there was nothing that she could do about it now. She could no constantly tell her mother that she was right because by now Isolde knew exactly what she was talking about and Izzy just had to eat a lot of crow for the next few weeks. She didn't like it, she didn't want to, but it was life and it was where she was finding herself at that moment. Her mother had never liked Link, and now Izzy understood why, but it had been five months since they broke up and she was seeing less and less of the effects that it had on her. It did not mean that she felt any less stupid. He had come in and tossed her world around like it didn't even matter and then left her in pieces.

She was not sure if he cared or not, but it didn't matter to her anymore. Their son was the most important thing in the world to her and there was nothing more that she could do to change that. He would only be there for Mal if he wanted to be. She would not beg, she would not plead. He was not the only parent that Mal had, and she was doing everything in her power to make sure that he had the best like that he could have. That he was given everything that he could possibly want. She was young, and she had a long life before him, and even if it meant being single until her son was grown, then so be it. She was never, ever, going to let someone else into their lives who would treat that way, and Izzy was going to be better, stronger. Her heart was putting itself together again, and she was working more.

She had opened her business and took her son to work with her. She had a support system, she was not alone and she never would feel that way again. Izzy was helping people. She had made the choice, she had made a decision about her life and what she wanted and now she just had to do it. She just had to get up and make herself do it. She would wait for Mal to turn a year old, make sure that he was hitting ever milestone, make sure that she was doing good in business and then she was going back to school. Part time of course, it was going to take a long time to get to where she wanted to be but she was determined for what she wanted.

A stable life, a happy life. For herself, for her son. She would be a better mother, a better daughter, a better friend. That started in one place, the Anthenum. She had to check out some books and she had research to do. She wanted to learn, needed to. Criminology, cryptology, ballistics, they were fascinating and forensics was a good field. Even if she didn't keep the business open she could find a job somewhere with it, she was sure. Carrying her diaper bag on one shoulder she had the baby carrier in the other hand as she walked up and down the aisles, looking for something, anything that jumped out at her.

tag: words: 555 template by eliza @ tb & thq

Soon Tamara would be back from school, and he could spend some time with her, depending a little on what Astoria was planning. By now, writing to Astoria had become a normal thing, something he could do coolly and with no other intent but to discuss their daughter. At least that was what the end product looked like, precise and neutral. It was only afterwards that he had to stop himself from doing anything stupid, like adding a PS. He couldn’t ask. Not at all, let alone at the end of a letter. Unless Astoria said otherwise, it was over. They were divorced, so it didn’t matter that her husband was far away. He didn’t even know what it meant that Nott had left the country. He had been speculating about it, of course, and he had heard some things, but nothing was enough to determine what effect it had on Astoria. He could ask her, and maybe she would even answer him truthfully, but at the same time, it was impossible. What kind of excuse would he have to question her about her relationship with her husband? He had his preconceptions, and he neither wanted to test them nor even admit them, for if they were wrong… Astoria couldn’t really feel something for him, right? He really shouldn’t follow this train of thought. Anyway, Nott not being here was not making anything easier. There was still the baby that he was almost a hundred percent certain existed for hereditary reasons — which wasn’t a nice reason to be alive. But he didn’t have any right to think about the poor baby — or judge his mother — or her family. Her family, her sisters, were still there, and now that Astoria was back in their good graces, she would not want to lose them. Again. He had become her family when she had had absolutely none. And having anything but superficial contact with him would threaten her relationship with her family. If he knew anything of Daphne, she’d not hesitate a second to separate the baby from his mother if Astoria displeased her.

Maybe she wouldn’t have the power to do so, now that some decency seemed to be returning to England’s politics. But it was all speculations, and Astoria would still lose her sisters and… and why did he automatically assume that Astoria would want to be any closer to him than she was now? Just because he wished they could get back together didn’t mean Astoria would feel the same. Thinking about it also didn’t change a thing, and he supposed that his mother thought the same. At least he could think of no other reason why she kept asking him to fetch her things that she had never needed him for before. Her health certainly hadn’t deteriorated, so he was hardly wrong to suspect ulterior motives. Not that he was going to ask. He’d simply search for the book she had told him to get and pretend that he didn’t think it strange. He stopped in the middle of an aisle to decipher the instructions that his mother had written down for him only to move to the side again as someone approached. “Good afternoon,” he greeted the young mother, turning the sheet of parchment in his hand. It wouldn’t be the first time his mother’s handwriting was more readable upside down.