Fire Away

Constance's Home
June 8th, 2019

There was something bothering her, and she didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t put her finger on it. But something was wrong. And the witch knew that that wasn’t terribly specific. But she thought that there was something to be said for Mother’s Intuition. And something was wrong. Somewhere. It wasn’t Ella. And it wasn’t Tempe. She had the most contact with those two of her older children. She had dropped by the Hall on the way home from the Ministry this afternoon, and it hadn’t been Philip, or Thea. And so that only left one option.

She had apparated to Flint Manor, kissed Arista’s cheek in greeting, and promptly headed out of the main house and to her daughter’s front door. She was moving too fast for Kamil and Vlasta to keep up, and the look that she had earned from Kamil when he had finally appeared at her shoulder was one that had made her smirk. She hadn’t meant to out apparate them, but she just had a feeling. And the little kids were with their father. She knew that they were well taken care of. But something was bothering her, and that had only left Constance.

Knocking rapidly on the door Anička tapped her foot in impatience. There was always the chance that Constance wasn’t even here. And still, she had to wonder if she was actually just imaging all of this. That was always a possibility. That Constance was fine too, and that she didn’t need to be worrying about anything. But she couldn’t shake it. And so, she rapped on the door again. “Constance Mountbatten, open this door this instant.” Anička could very well let herself in, but she was trying her best not to invade her daughter’s home.

She had already let herself into Ella’s house earlier this week and walked in on Delilah in her underwear. She didn’t want to repeat that experience any time soon. Taking a breath, she stepped back and let a wave of heat roll off of her before she worked herself up into smoking again. She had been having issues with that the last couple of days. Smoking when she got worked up. Singeing the ends of her curls when someone made her mad. She really needed to go and see Zyra.

But she didn’t have time for that right now. She had two jobs to do. She had a family to take care of. And she was trying her damnedest to make sure that things weren’t falling too far through all of the cracks. There was a list on her phone of all of the things that she needed to do. And this afternoon had been set aside for running home and picking up Pippa, and taking her to get new summer sandals, because she had outgrown her old ones, but then she hadn’t been able to shake this. And sandals had gotten bumped to tomorrow after church.

Rapping her knuckles on the door again, she raised her voice a little bit, “You have until the count of five before I let myself in this door. One…” Part of her didn’t even care that she was treating her nearly twenty-three year old like a child. She had checked on everyone else, she wasn’t leaving until she had seen Constance too. “Two…”

Constance Leysa Mountbatten • 555 • anička's outfit

She was incredibly glad that school was out for the summer. At least, she thought she was. Constance thought she’d be relieved for a week or two, and then realize that she had given herself a chunk of free time this summer that she did not know what to do with. Free time was not necessarily a bad thing, but when she had a lot on her mind, she definitely took it to be. She liked having her mind occupied. It had made things easier as of late. And that had helped, because when she slowed down enough to think, she did not like where her mind started to wander. Not in the slightest.

But that was what had happened today. It had been an uneventful weekend. She’d been into Avalon the day before, but she hadn’t needed to go in today. She’d had a lesson with her piano instructor the day before. She had no wedding plans to make, no meetings with caterers that would inevitably go nowhere. There had been nothing to fill her day, and that just didn’t help. Constance didn’t like having nothing to do. At least if she had done summer classes, she could be worrying about assignments already. Or at least, starting to worry. She supposed that the summer term hadn’t even officially started yet. But she could have been thinking about it, at least. She could have been preparing for her courses.

Instead, she was sitting around getting far too lost in her thoughts for her own good. There was so much going on that just didn’t feel right anymore. She had moved in with Liam, and that was good. She had thought that it was good, anyway. She loved him and being with him made her happy. But from the moment that she’d moved in here, she felt entirely unattached from her family. She felt like she had no idea what was going on with them anymore and she felt that space widening by the day. The only reason that she felt like they talked to her at all was because she made a point to visit them. If she didn’t, how long would it be until they came over to specifically see her? Christmas?

She was questioning her position in her family so firmly these days that she was nearly certain that her birthday would pass by next week without so much as a visit. Liam would do something. She had no doubt that her fiancée would do something. What she did doubt was if anyone would even bother to send a letter, even her twin. She felt entirely out of that family unit. She had always been closest to Ella, but she didn’t know when that had fallen to the wayside. Her matka had always said how much she was like her, but where had she been?

The only person that was around her for any extended period of time these days was Ludvík. It felt like he knew what was going on in her life better than her family did. She had thought that she might do some yoga or something—maybe even meditate to try to put her mind at ease, when she heard a knock at the door. She headed in that direction, in no hurry, until she heard her matka’s voice. Then she was tempted not to answer it at all. As if Ludvík had sensed her train of thought—or maybe had seen her tempted glance to go right back out the back door, he spoke. “Musíš na to odpovědět, Princezna¹.” She cast a look back over at him and shook her head. “Ne, já ne².” She just did not think she was in the mood for whatever this was.

Instead of answering her, Ludvík went open to the door himself and pulled it open. “Dobrý den, Princezna³.”

643 | outfit
¹ - You have to answer that, Princess.
² - No, I don't.
³ - Good day, Princess.

Anička knew that she was busy. She knew that they were all busy. And it had been easier, she could admit, when they were all closer to her. But Ella, Elliot and Delilah were right down the road. And the other three were all together in the Hall. It was just Constance that was separate. And she knew that coming all the way out here was something that she hadn’t made time for. But with the amount of time that they all spent in London, it would have been simpler to meet there. To have lunch, to spend more than five minutes in each other’s company.

But between her two daughters scheduling her entire day from nine, because she had set limits of some sort and three kids under the age of ten meant that she was not presentable and ready to work at either of her offices until nine am at the earliest, until whenever she was done for the day. This week had been different. This week had thrown her off kilter. And she knew that if she was off balance for too long, she would get dangerous. But she didn’t exactly have the time to deal with that right now.

There were too many things that she had to keep up in the air. And she thought that at this rate she was going to just explode before January got here. She wouldn’t disobey. She honestly didn’t know how to disobey him. And that was part of the problem. But the other part was simply how deeply that she cared for her country and her people. She knew that she had been away for a long time. That she had done things her way. Become very separate from her family. But it was time to go back to that now.

The presence of her bratr could be felt all around. And she knew that it was as much in her head as it was because of the men in smart black suits that followed her around all day. What she thought was ironic, was the fact that she alone was just as deadly as a group of them. One thought, and a building could go up in flames. One well placed glare, and something nearby could combust. She didn’t need guards, or their weapons. You didn’t need protection, when you were the weapon. But all the same, she didn’t refuse it.

She kept up as best as she could, but she knew that it was hectic. Everything about their lives had been kicked into overdrive since that boat had arrived. And she had gone out to meet it. She had come in every bit the Princezna that morning. And that was a role that she had had a hard time breaking out of since then. Political climates being what they were, she knew just how careful they had to be. Just how much they needed to keep their distance from the darker attachments to their name.

Both of her names. Wentzell has come – in England anyway – to be attached to Ares’s downfall. And Nott… Well there had been a Nott in the Dark Lord’s original circle.

Anička was about to count again when the door swung open in front of her and she smiled at the young man. “Dobrý den, Ludvík.” Her dcera was certainly home if the guard was opening the door. She didn’t wait for an invitation before she stepped over the threshold and into the house.

She could hear Kamil and Vlasta talking to the younger guardsman and she tuned them out as she listened for what direction her dcera could be found in. Heading for the sitting room on a hunch she raised her eyebrows when she finally landed eyes on Constance. “Na někoho, kdo nechtěl stráže, teď otevírá dveře?” There was a hint of laughter in her voice, but her eyes did not match the tone. Instead they were filled with worry, and concern. She had been right. Stepping a little further into the room, she softened her tone even more before she spoke again, though when she did it wasn’t a question. She didn’t have to ask. She already knew. “Něco je špatně.”

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“Dobrý den, Ludvík.” - Hello, Ludvík.
“Na někoho, kdo nechtěl stráže, teď otevírá dveře?” - For someone that didn't want guards, now he's opening the door?
“Něco je špatně.” - Something's wrong

Maybe it wasn’t too late to take some summer courses. If she did, then she could finish up her second year coursework and start her third year for autumn term. She had thought that she could use the break from her normally hectic schedule, but it had only been days since her final exams had come to an end, and already she thought that she had too much free time. Constance was relatively used to going from one thing to another all day long. Avalon and Lufkin would have been enough to keep her busy—but throw in her other obligations and she was usually out of the house all day and occasionally well into the night depending on rehearsals.

She tried to make time for her family. Desperately. But it never seemed to do her much good. The space between them had been growing since she had moved out. Constance didn’t think that things had ever fully gotten back to where they should have been after she had run off. She had made a mess of things that night, and it felt like the hits had just kept coming since then. She felt like there were people in her family that still thought about that night and the choices that she’d made even now. That they could use it as a reason why she was constantly disappointing them in one way or another.

But the last time that she had seen her twin had not gone all that well. She knew that it was partially her fault for thinking that surprising her at work was a good idea, but she had been a little desperate for company. Desperate to convince herself that all the problems that she conjured up were in her head. It hadn’t done much good. It felt like it had only proven her right, actually.

That was why she had gone to one of Tempe’s performances in the park by herself. Well, with Ludvík, of course. But alone. She had not told anybody that she was going. She had not even told Tempe that she had been there. She had just gone to listen to her on her own. And that was where she had met Jarred, who had presented to her yet another problem. Constance did not think that there was anything wrong or sneaky with having a conversation with a man also watching the performances—and she didn’t even think there was anything wrong with getting a drink with him afterwards when he had offered. It had been entirely innocent. Nothing had happened. Nothing would, because she loved Liam and she was going to marry him.

But it had been nice to talk to someone that listened. Somebody who had seemed to care what she had to say. It had gotten her mind off of things for a little while. But it was all racing back to her now. And as much as she longed for the time when spending time with her matka made her happy, right now it only made her feel worse.

The moment that Ludvík headed to the door, she retreated back into the sitting room. There was little point delaying the inevitable. She could slip outside and into the main house, feign wanting a visit with Arista, but what could would that do? “Trval na tom¹.” It was the nice way of putting it, since he had only insisted on opening the door when she had decided she wasn’t even going to answer at all, but still. “Co? Nic není špatně².” She didn’t think there was much of a point in trying to explain how she was feeling. They all likely considered her the high-maintenance one anyway. The last thing that she wanted to do was add more fuel to that fire.

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¹ - He insisted.
² - What? Nothing is wrong.

If there was some way to make this all easier, she would have taken it. But there wasn’t. Life wasn’t easy, and it didn’t slow down, and they had to make the best of things the way that they were. They had to do something. They had to take control of things, and they couldn’t. Sometimes it simply didn’t work that way. And Anička had learned that the hard way. You could try, and try, and try, and sometimes the things that you wanted most were always going to be just that far out of reach.

You could watch someone fix you, and hurt you, and fix you again, and it could go on for years. A series of train wrecks, and car crashes. And all you could do was survive. That’s all that any of them could do. They just had to survive. And she was carrying that with her now. She was carrying the fact that she just had to survive. Because love and hate were two sides of the very same coin, and learning which side was showing was a matter of patience, not pride.

Destruction, in its purest form, would always come from love. It was toxic, and it was addicting, but it was honest. And somehow, she thought that was even more dangerous. The most dangerous thing in the world was someone that loved you and spoke honestly. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t abandonment. It wasn’t any of that that could take the most out of someone. It was love, and disappointment, that came as the simplest forms of destruction. It was love that could kill you faster than anything else.

Fear, and hate, and loathing. They were all there. They were all going to play a part in the dismantling of a life, but nothing… Absolutely nothing, would ever be as toxic as love. And that was a terrible thought, but she knew that it was true. Her matka had been the first one to leave. She had been the first one to hurt her, but she hadn’t been the last. And she knew that she had always said that she didn’t want to do that to her children. She didn’t want to abandon them in such a way. And she tried not to.

She loved them. But she knew just how dangerous loving them all unconditionally could be. They were her children. They were the most important people in the world. And she was still trying to figure out how to balance all of that now that they had their own lives. Growing, changing, she had to figure out how to still be their matka through all of that. How to parent twenty somethings was different than parenting sixteen-month olds. It was different than parenting an eight-and-a-half-year-old.

And she was learning, or she was trying to learn. She had realized that they were old enough now that it was okay to be their friend. That she didn’t have to parent so much, and she could speak to them as equals. As humans. She thought that that was important, especially with the girls. That she could be their friend, just as much as she could be their matka, and she thought that it was working. With three of them, anyway. She thought that the girls that she worked with every day got on better.

And that wasn’t fair of her, she knew that. It wasn’t fair that she got along better with the daughters that she worked with every day, but she did. And she knew that it was complicated. She knew that all of it was rather complicated. But she was going to do her best to at least talk to Constance. If there was some way to make this easier, she didn’t know what it was. And she didn’t really have anyone to ask. She didn’t get along well enough with her own mother. Talia had never had daughters… And she didn’t really have any friends she could ask. She didn’t really have any friends.

Her eyes narrowed a little bit when Constance claimed that nothing was wrong. She didn’t believe her for even a moment. The nagging at the back of her mind hadn’t gone away when she had walked in this room. Whatever it was that had told her to check, wasn’t going to let it go that easily. “Jsi si tím jistý?” It wasn’t an accusation, but there was a lit to Anička’s voice that suggested that she didn’t quite believe her dcera’s words.

755 • anička's outfit

“Jsi si tím jistý?” Are you sure about that?

She just thought that she needed to come to terms with the fact that nothing was ever going to be the way that it was before. The way that it had been when she was younger. The way that it had been when her otec was alive, when everything had just seemed so much easier. There was just no going back to that now. She could not undo what had happened in the past couple of years. Not her own actions and not the ones of others. She couldn’t change what people thought of her and she couldn’t change the reality of the situation.

And she knew what that reality was. Or at least, she thought that she did. Nothing had been the same since she had gotten engaged, but that hadn’t been the defining moment. It had felt like her relationship with her family had been changing for some time now. Ever since her otec had died, or maybe since Ella had gotten married. It wasn’t so easy for her to figure out just when that moment was, but it had happened nonetheless. Things had changed. Nothing was the same as it had been before.

Her family had always been more important to her than anything else or anyone else in her life. Ella had been her best friend, Ares had been her favorite uncle, and she had always felt close to her matka. They had been her rocks her entire life. They had been the people that she could count on more than anybody else. And she thought that she just needed to get used to the fact that it wasn’t like that anymore. They all had their own lives. She had hers too. It wasn’t as if she was sitting around with everything exactly the same as it always had been. She had changed. Her life had changed, and she had plenty going on in her own life that kept her busy. But that would never change how important her family was to her.

She just didn’t feel all that important in return. And maybe that was silly. Maybe she was being ridiculous. But in light of everything that was going on, and how confused she was, it would have been nice to have somebody to talk to. Somebody that actually cared. At this point, she felt like Ludvík was more qualified to give her advice than anyone in her family was. He was the only one that knew what was going on with her. He had been there when she had met Jarred too—had been witness to every second of that, every second of her failed wedding planning, and everything in between. With so much on her mind and nobody to talk to, she thought it was a wonder that she hadn’t had a complete meltdown by now.

That should make her happy to see her matka. Relieved. It should mean that she finally did have somebody to talk to. But it all felt… sort of too little, too late at this point. The distance forming between her and her family had not happened overnight. It had taken time, and it couldn’t just be undone. Maybe she should just focus on the future now. She was going to be a Flint soon anyway. Maybe that was what she should be focusing on. Constance had always considered herself more Wentzell than Mountbatten, always leaning more into that side than to her English roots. But maybe that was wrong. Maybe that was what she should have been doing all along. It was at least what she could do now, just on the off chance that it would help things. She didn’t know.

Constance did know that it was too little, too late for her matka to want to come here and talk to her. Of course, something was wrong. Something had been wrong for months. There was no helping it now. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Princezna,” she answered, feigning disinterest as she looked back down at the wedding spread featured on the magazine still open on the coffee table.

685

There were times when she wished that Andrew were still alive. And she knew how terrible that sounded, because then she wouldn’t have Malcolm, or Pippa, or the little twins. But there were times when she didn’t know how to be the parent to her older children. She didn’t know what to say to Philip, and she didn’t know how to talk to Constance without exploding. Clearly. She clearly didn’t know how to talk to Constance without something happening. She had burnt half of a mansion to the ground last time they had disagreed about something.

She had wanted to go to Prague, and Anička hadn’t wanted her that close to Josef. She knew that her bratr wasn’t going to hurt her. He would never, but it was dangerous to be there anyway. It was dangerous to be that close to him, when she knew what he could do. When she knew just how manipulative he could be. That amount of distance would not have suited her, either. She didn’t like being that far away from them. It was why she had kept them all on that island last summer when she had gotten married. It was why they were safer, closer to her. And further from their strýc.

Ella was the exception, and she knew that she had to allow that. Now that Josef knew that Ella knew, there was very little reason that she could keep the two of them apart. But it was not only for their safety. It was for his. The world finding out about Ella would be a tidal wave that they were not ready for. And she knew that they had set themselves up for the disaster that it was going to cause. In their own family, and in the monarchy. Otče had forbidden them from telling the truth when he had found out. But he had kept their secret.

And that alone had always surprised her. That he had never used Ella against them. He had used them against one another. He had used Andrew, and Ares, and Josef… He had used every face that she knew would break her, and it had been Josef’s every time. It had been Josef saying her name. Touching her hip. Kissing her neck. Those had been the touches that could destroy her. Because no matter how much she had wanted them to be, they were never actually him. It had been Otče. It had been a manipulation. It was always just a manipulation.

Anička could feel the instability in her own body rear its head again at Constance’s words. But she bit it back. Turning over her shoulder she snapped at Kamil to take Ludvík and Vlasta outside. The embers in her normally ice blue eyes had them burning at a nearly sapphire hue, and she didn’t think that they needed witnesses. If she lost control, she was not going to do it in front of the guards.

The tips of her brown curls glowed just a bit as they warmed, and the tiny witch knew that she needed to go outside. She knew that she needed to run. She needed to get all of this out, and then she needed to go and talk to Zyra. But where was she supposed to fit that into her schedule? Before dinner with Marcus on Tuesday? Or after her meeting with Thea on Monday morning? Could she be an hour late going in one morning? Or an hour late coming home some night? Every second of her day was scheduled in some way or another, and Anička didn’t know who to ask to schedule her an appointment with her shrink, Ella, or Tempe?

“Co prosím?” Her hands were still at her sides, but her eyebrows raised a little bit in inflection with her question. If she didn’t want her here, that was fine, she could send her away, but if she sent her away, Anička didn’t want to hear a single word about no one making time for her. She had made the time today. She had made the time to come up here and check on her. Did it take more work than it used to? Yes. But she was not the same person that she had been before. They were all changing. Every single one of them. And she had come here, to talk to her. But a dismissal like that was nearly enough to have her turning around and leaving the same way that she had come in.

754 • anička's outfit

“Co prosím?” - Excuse me?

Nothing was ever simple. Constance thought that she had learned that a long time ago. Even when she had thought that life had been good, and easy, there were problems that had been going on that she had not even known about. A relationship between her parents that she had not even seen. Back then, everything had felt easy, but she knew that it had been anything but that to her matka. It had been complicated, even when she hadn’t known that it was.

Everything had changed when her otec had died. Everything had been different. And, in her mind, relationships with her family had not been the same since then. It hadn’t been the same since she had made her choices back then. They were ones that it had been hard for people to get past, even after her apologies. She’d found that hard. She had been a kid—it had been over two years ago now, she knew that, but she felt like she had been so much younger. She had been upset. Mourning her otec, mourning her strýc, and there were times when her magic just wanted to explode out of her. Times when she felt dangerous, just like her matka but obviously without the fire, and she had needed out of the house that night before she exploded on anyone.

That night had had a lasting impact, as had everything else that had happened that year. Everything that she had done since then had been her trying to make up for that night. For that entire quarter of a year, in all honesty. The night that she couldn’t remember, when Gwen had to check to see if she’d had sex with the man she’d woke up in bed with. Running off that night, with Ares and Aurora having to come find her in some alley in London. Even getting kidnapped. Even now, she blamed herself for that more than she should.

Then there had been Jules. Their failed relationship. The fact that she hadn’t been good enough—that she hadn’t been good enough. Most of the time, she could brush that off and call the Bulstrodes crazy. She was a Princess. Who was good enough, if she wasn’t? But other days, it was just another one of the many reasons why she was the disappointment in this family. Why she was the one that was never good enough. And now that she was going to be a Flint, it felt like… she didn’t know. It felt like she wasn’t a part of this family anymore. It didn’t make sense. Ella was married, and she didn’t think that her eldest sister felt that way. But somehow, it was different. Somehow, the close relationship that she’d had with her oldest sestra felt like it had disappeared, and she had gone to thinking that she could talk to her matka about anything to wondering if she could even begin to explain to her how she was feeling. Ludvík would have a better chance in understanding, at this point. The man she’d randomly met at Tempe’s performance seemed like he’d understand more than her family did.

Still, it had been harsh to call her matka by her title. It just got the point across, in her mind. Her matka had been her title far more than anything else recently. At least, in her opinion. Still, the glare she was presented with was enough to rebuff her. Chewing on her bottom lip, she shook her head. “Nic, matka. Je mi to líto¹.” She had learned by now that nothing good tended to come from her actually admitting to anything being wrong. Putting on a good face and pretending had done her well in the recent past.

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¹ - Nothing, mom. I'm sorry.

If she were being honest with herself, Anička didn’t know who she was anymore. Underneath. Not underneath everything that she had turned herself into. She had put on her title again, and that had changed her. She had morphed back into someone that she hadn’t seen in the mirror in a long time. And she knew what it did. She knew how out of control she felt, when she was wearing that title like a second skin. But she was too on edge to worry about it right now. The ICW had made her nervous. And she knew that it was foolish. She knew that no one cared what she had done two years ago.

She knew that if there had been a problem with it then, Otče had taken care of it, and they would not touch her. She was still the Princess Royal. Her diplomatic immunity in this country extended even that fair. She had never been touched. Even that mark on her arm had not been enough to condemn her after the war. Of course, she hadn’t actually participated in the war. Being sent home had prevented that. But it had protected even Andrew. He had never gone to jail. She had always had that immunity, and yet, Ares hadn’t.

Otče hadn’t protected Ares. And she knew that it was a matter of choice. He could have just as easily left her to the wolves. But he hadn’t. And she had been perfect. Until she had helped in that Diagon Alley attack, she hadn’t hurt anyone in years. And even then, she had set fire to the Minister in retaliation for what he had caused. For the fact that her husband was dead. Anička’s reactions to things were always volatile. But with how out of control she felt right now, she knew that she had to do better. Malcolm deserved better. Their little children deserved better. She had to get it together, before she went home.

Going home less than put together was simply not an option. If she was going to do this, she was going to do this, and she wasn’t going to let those stressors show at home. She would have to find her footing before she got there. She could not afford cracks in the system. She could not afford to look anything less than perfect. And she knew that Malcolm didn’t expect perfection. He never had. But if she was going to prove that she could handle it all, she had to actually look like she could handle it all.

Handling Constance had never been her forte. She had always had the most trouble trying to handle an upset version of Constance. The rest of them she could talk to. She knew how to comfort Ella, and Thea. She knew how to help Tempe. But when it came to Connie, she found herself at odds. Too much alike. That’s what Andrew had always said when she had given up and gone storming into his study or their bedroom. They were too much alike. But being told that they were too much alike didn’t do her any good. She didn’t know anyone that was decent at handling her either.

Josef… Josef had always been decent at handling her. But shipping Constance to Josef had never been an option, and her bratr wasn’t the one that needed to parent her daughter anyway. She was. And she had been failing. Clearly, she was failing. If she was going to call her by her title, and not Mum. Something, somewhere, had gone horribly wrong. And she had become exactly what she had never wanted to be. She had become distant, and closed off, and she didn’t understand how that had only happened to one of them… That was what she didn’t understand. Because her relationship with the rest of her children seemed fine. And yet, here they were.

She didn’t believe her for a second that nothing was wrong. She didn’t know how to make her see that she didn’t want an apology for things being wrong. Simply for the way that she had spoken to her. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself before she caused an explosion. “I came to check on you. I don’t see you as much as your siblings, and the reception I’ve received clearly tells me something is more than a little wrong. Would you like to talk about it?” Her whole demeanor had shifted again. Back to motherly, and caring. The same way she had intended to come in here, until she hadn’t opened the door, and then had dismissed her. She had lost a little bit of her thinly veiled control. But she was working on it.

789 • anička's outfit

Things had been off for a while now, in her opinion. She had felt as if she was on the outskirts of her family for some time now. It had ebbed and flowed. There were times when things had felt okay, and other times where it felt like they were anything but. It hadn’t felt like too long ago she had been in the kitchen with her matka, while she gave her an incredibly embarrassing lesson involving a banana. Everything had been easy then. It had seemed simple. It had even seemed like things could be good. But then things had changed again, and it suddenly felt like there was nothing that she could do to feel a part of her family. They felt so, entirely far away from her.

She was starting to realize that that was just a thing that she needed to accept. That maybe she didn’t have a chance of her relationship with anyone in her family being the way that she wanted it to be. They were all drifting away from her and the closer that she came to becoming a Flint, the further she felt from them. She didn’t know how to feel anymore. She didn’t like that she felt that way, but she also knew that relationships were not one-sided. She couldn’t do all of the work. It hadn’t been too long ago that she’d visited Temperance at work only to feel like her sestra would prefer her to be anywhere else.

Her relationship with Ella used to be better than her relationship with any of her other siblings, and she had never felt further from her. She knew that her sister had a lot going on, that was understandable, but it still felt like their relationship had changed. Faded. Had turned into something else entirely. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but it didn’t change the fact that it had happened. It didn’t change the fact that she was not the person that her sestra confided in or talked to anymore.

She used to love every second that she got to spend with her strýc, but she couldn’t even recall the last time she’d spent a significant amount of time with him. It just felt like everything was changing, like they were moving forward and she was going in a completely different direction. At this point, it felt too late for her matka to come by and see if something was wrong, when it had been wrong. She had felt wrong—everything felt wrong, for quite some time. It was past fixing. At least, she thought that it was. It felt that way, anyway. It just felt like there was no coming back from this. It didn’t feel like things with her family were ever going to be okay again.

And she wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to her matka anymore. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to anybody about it. What was the point? It wasn’t going to change anything. It wasn’t going to make anything better, and she already knew that her matka would not understand or would turn it around on her. Constance just didn’t really think that anything positive would come of the conversation. “I just have a lot on my mind. It’s nothing.” There was no reason to bring up her wedding doubts, meeting Jarred, or anything else on her mind anyway.

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