Page 9 of Can't Help Falling

She knew better than to indulge him with a reply and instead shook her head at him, frowning. She picked up the pace, left him in her dust, and was practically panting with exertion by the time she made it to up to her apartment ten blocks later.

Fin didn’t even have to step inside to feel the vibes peacefully spiraling out toward her. Her foster sister had an extremely recognizable energy. Calm, a little worried, openhearted, homebody energy. There wasn’t a more comforting flavor that Fin had ever encountered. Via often used her key to drop in on Fin.

Fin pushed through her front door and into the welcome embrace of her private space. She closed New York out and flipped the lock.

“I love you, Fin,” Via said, not even bothering with a hello as she came to stand in the doorway between Fin’s kitchen and living room. “But your kitchen makes me cringe.”

Fin laughed, hung up her coat and came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Via, surveying the mess.

Even she could admit that things were a little more tornadoish than usual today. Herb trimmings were on the floor beneath where Fin had hung them up to dry the night before. A rather pungent new poultice recipe was simmering in her slow cooker, the steam from the pot humidifying the air and making her eyes sting. On the far countertop sat the remnants of yesterday’s geode excavation. A gorgeous amethyst geode sat broken into three pieces, its craggy, dinosaur-like exterior belying the sparkling purple crystal on the inside. The hammer that Serafine had used to crack it open still laid haphazardly on the counter and a fine coating of rock dust stubbornly covered everything within a two-foot radius.

Two years ago, the two women had shared this kitchen and this apartment. Two years ago, this kitchen would have been startlingly spick-and-span and there would have been chili percolating in the slow cooker, not a fresh batch of burn poultice. When Via had lived here, she’d firmly limited the amount of non-food-related interests Fin was allowed to pursue in the kitchen.

But now, Fin lived alone and she was living her life in pursuit of mindfulness and magic.

“If it makes you feel better, sister, don’t think of this as my kitchen. Think of it as my laboratory.”

“There’s a fridge,” Via pointed out stubbornly. “Ergo, a kitchen.” Via picked her way around the fallen herbs and poked her head into said fridge. “Have you used this kitchen to, I don’t know, prepare any food today?”

Fin restrained a smile. If Fin spoke the language of magic, then Violetta DeRosa spoke the language of food. Food was the way in which Via measured her days, her weeks. Food was her way of telling someone she loved them. The woman was a true artist when it came to the kitchen. Nothing extremely fancy or gourmet, but everything was fresh and made with love and care. There was simply no other magic like a Via meal.

“I had lunch at that very kitchen table not three hours ago, I’ll have you know.”

Via closed the fridge and raised an eyebrow. It was like staring down a cross little cat. “Microwave popcorn and turkey roll-ups does not a lunch make.” She raised a stern finger. “Even if you took a multivitamin with it.”

Serafine laughed and marveled how it could feel equally gratifying and annoying to be so well-known by another.

“You’re gonna need to take some serious cooking classes before you become a foster parent,” Via said, settling herself at the kitchen table.

Fin felt her smile freeze in place. How to tell Via that her unflagging optimism sometimes hurt more than negativity might have?

“I’ve...decided to take a break from that. For now.”

It was a miracle Via didn’t strain an eyelid with how round her deep brown eyes became all at once. “What? You’re—Wow. What do you mean ‘a break’?”

She understood why this news was hard for Via to reconcile. It was no secret between them that practically since the day she was born, Fin had longed to belong to a unit. She had Via, of course. The two women had known and loved one another since they were preteens. Via had been shuffled into Fin’s aunt’s house as a foster kid. Fin had been shuffled into her aunt’s house as a lost kid whose mother no longer was able to take care of her.

They’d become sisters before they’d become friends. Even as they aged and changed, they seemed to do so as halves of one organism, developing and altering in relation to one another.

And now Seb and Matty were becoming part of that relationship little by little. But Fin wanted a unit in her daily life.

The thing you want the most in the world...

Fin sighed. She felt prickly and vulnerable and sad but there was no way she would have folded herself into a kitchen chair and plopped her chin on one hand if it were any other person on the entire earth. But this was Via. So, she did just that.

“I’ve been trying and trying for a few years now, and always the answer from the state is the same. I’ve changed my house to suit them, revamped my business, prepped for weeks for the interviews, had countless people look over my applications and still, it’s nothing but no, no, no.” Fin dropped her eyes and fiddled with her rings for a moment. “I don’t understand why there’s this wall up between me and the foster system. But maybe it’s time that I listened.”

For better or worse, the universe had bricked off access to the foster system for Fin. She figured it might be time for her to stop beating her head against the bricks, trying to get to the other side. Brute force had never been her style, and she worried that the rejection and disappointment was warping her.

For the second time that day, she got a flash of Tyler’s face from the baseball game.

“A break means that you’ll try again, though, right?” Via asked, her eyes still round. “You’re not giving up?”

Fin sighed. “No. I just need...to try something else. Whatever energy I’ve been bringing hasn’t been working. I can’t walk the same road a hundred times and expect it to bring me someplace new, you know?”

“That makes sense,” Via agreed slowly.

Via was going to continue, Fin could tell. Optimistic, unbridled love and support were about to spew all over the conversation. Fin didn’t think her heart could take it right now. She straightened up in her chair and interrupted.

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