Prologue

We’re shaped by crucial events. They turn us into who we’re supposed to be. Or they destroy us.

        Constantina’s defining moment came three days before her eighteenth birthday.

        She spent her time getting ready for college, ready to leave her chaotic home life behind. Growing up, she lost count on how many times she wished for a different life. Daydreaming about having two parents that cared enough to make the relationship work. Parents that made an effort to succeed, or at the very least, put a roof over your kid's head and food on the table. Maybe I should have lowered my expectations?

        But what really annoyed her were the never-ending string of failed relationships her mother had. Most with married men. And that's what they're last argument was about. Yet another night of crying and desperate phone calls. 

    When Connie finally had enough, she lectured her mother.

    "You really need to be more careful. Did you actually believe he'd leave his wife for you?"

    “He didn’t tell me he was married.” Was her mother’s reason. “My muse decides who I date.”

        “Your muse is a moron.” Connie yelled at her mother before storming into her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

        She busied herself with folding clothes into the boxes, deciding what to take and what to leave. She worried about keeping her grades up, worried if her grants and stipends where enough and if she was smart enough to keep up with the demands of University life. She wondered if her mom would demand she’d come home every holiday. Would her mom ever stop complaining about her leaving? Was Portland, Maine, far enough to get away from her mother’s ever-present negativity?

        Connie sighed. Her tummy had growled for hours but she didn’t want to go into the kitchen. Her mother was there. And if her mom wasn't still mad at her, she'd be asking her why a local college wasn't good enough. She'd ask Connie if she no longer loved her mother. Her stomach growled, Connie gave in and walked toward the kitchen.

        It turned out it wouldn’t have mattered if Connie stayed in Boston. Instead of finding food in the kitchen, the lanky teenager with her light-brown hair and seductive green eyes, found her mother dead on the kitchen floor.

        “Aneurysm”. The coroner told her three weeks later. By that time, she was eighteen, legally an adult and responsible to dispose of her mother’s estate.

        Welcome to adulthood!