Page 78 of Just a Heartbeat Away

Fin rolled her lovely, dark eyes. “They weren’t easier, they were just more predictable. Why do you keep telling yourself these lies about Evan? I don’t get it.”

The answer floated up like ice in a glass being filled with water. Via clamped down on it, tested the strength of it. “There was very little danger of ever truly wounding Evan. And I really liked that. Depended on it, actually. Because I knew I was never in danger of dragging Evan down with me. He never cared enough to get dragged down.”

“Well,” Fin said, taking a small green crystal out of her pocket and laying it on her own forehead. “We’re just catching all the fish today.” She slid her eyes over to Via. “Don’t you see that the same thing that kept you with Evan is the same thing that’s gonna keep you from Seb?” She snatched the crystal off her forehead and sat up, her eyes blazing. “But let’s forget about the men for a second here, sister. The real issue is that you treat your whole life like a play you’re staging. You’re trying to get every set piece positioned just perfectly so that when the actors show up, everything goes according to plan.”

Via grimaced at how true that was. “But life’s not a play.”

“Nope. And there’s no script. And besides, a good actor doesn’t need a stage.”

“Ugh,” Via groaned, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Why is it so hard to ask for what you want?”

“Whatdoyou want?”

Via took a deep breath. “I just want a steady life. No more surprises. I want to be able to rely on someone besides myself. And you, of course. I don’t want to date a twerp who can’t keep a job or remember to pay his electricity bill. I don’t want to take care of everyone around me. I just want to feel safe. And secure. And somehow, I’m single again, crushing on a man who may or may not be crushing back. And even if he is crushing, who knows if he wants to date? And if he wants to date, who knows if he’s stable? I had everything nice and level, and then my idiot heart went and stomped on the other end of the seesaw.”

“Yes, that all makes perfect sense. Because Evan was such asteadypart of your life. That twenty-seven-year-old man-child sure wasreliable. He wasn’t flighty or forgetful. He knew exactly what he wanted out of life. He didn’t make you pay for shit all the time. And he sure was good at remembering your birthday.”

Via laughed at the list, even though it hurt a little bit to hear it, and then rolled to face her friend. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Fin.”

“Via, when you’re this gorgeous, everything suits you.”

They both laughed then, and it was loud and unladylike and deeply cathartic. Via took the crystal off her chest and handed it to her friend. “I’m nuts, Fin. Don’t mind me. I’m just coming loose at all the edges.” Via put a hand over her eyes and then propped her feet up on the railing with a deep breath. “All the edges I thought I’d already tucked in.”

“Yes, well, c’est la vie.”That’s life. “It has a way of untucking the blanket.”

They sat in silence for a minute, Fin studying the muddying blue of the night sky and Via studying Fin. “Everything all right? You seem tense, Finny.”

Fin looked affronted, like the idea of tension offended her. She sniffed, her dark eyes flashing obsidian in the dark. “I am not tense.”

Via swallowed her smile. Serafine St. Romain might have been mysterious and hard to read for many people. But Via wasn’t one of them “You sure are.”

Fin let out a long breath. The murky sky reflected in her big, light eyes. When she spoke, it was the flatness in her tone that immediately told Via just how hurt she really was. “My application got rejected again.”

“No!” Via immediately reached out and squeezed Fin’s hand.

“I don’t know what to do. Maybe get an office job?”

“Fin, no. You’d wither away in a corporate atmosphere.”

“But they keep saying that they don’t take applicants who make their money in cash. I guess they’ve been burned too many times by hustlers who are trying to make some extra money by taking in a foster kid.” Fin laughed humorlessly. “Can’t make enough money slinging on a street corner? Take in a stray child! The state pays your grocery bill.”

“If that,” Via muttered, remembering all the ways Jetty had had to make ends meet to raise two children at once. Via made a rare noise of frustration. “It’s just so backward. You’re the exact type of person they want fostering kids. You’re responsible and kind and intelligent and compassionate. Just because you tell fortunes for a living, they reject your application. Meanwhile, they’re just gonna keep on siphoning kids into overcrowded homes with overworked foster parents.”

“They don’t trust me. I go in for the interview with all this hair and all this jewelry and my spooky accent and they think,She must be on drugs.”

Except for this last time. It had been heartbreaking. Via had come over and dressed Fin in the most sedate outfit she had. Slacks and a blazer. She’d braided her wild hair back and limited her to three pieces of jewelry. And still, somehow, application rejected.

“It drives me nuts because I feel like the people in charge of the system have absolutely no idea what it feels like to be a foster kid.”

“Exactly.” Fin stood and paced from one side of the porch to the other. Fin had been in and out of the foster system in Louisiana before her mother finally got her shit together enough to sign over custody to her sister, Jetty. Fin and Via both knew exactly what it was to have nothing to hold onto but yourself. To store every other bite of food in your pocket because you didn’t know where your next meal might come from. To fall asleep with strange sheets on your cheek and strange smells in your nose. To be told that this new stranger was your brother now, or your sister. Or your mother.

Fin brushed tears from her eyes and rounded on Via. “I’ve seen too many kids run afoul of the system. Took me too many years to end up here. With you and Jetty. I’ve seen every kind of neglect under the sun. And now I just have to sit on my porch with you and know there are children out there who need me. Right this second.”

Via held out her arms, like she used to when they were skinny preteens, them against the world. Fin went immediately into the sweaty hug her sister offered and they snuggled together on the small porch chair. “Can you see what will happen to you, Fin? The way you do for other people?”

Via had asked this question before, and she knew the answer. Maybe it was her gentle way of reminding Fin what was what.

“Yes, I can see some of it, maybe one-eighth of the picture. Just like everyone else.”

---