"And I'm trying to talk to my Tía María de Salinas for the first time in, like, six months when this chick says, 'Excuse me, we don't allow spics in this privately owned cafe,' and as if my political science ass couldn't quote like five laws right back at her, I'm also like, '... I'm white? Shockers, I speak Spanish and I'm still white, cause my mom's from Spain'. But she lost interest after two minutes, and I was able to get back to Tía María…"
It's days after your cousin Mary's eighteenth birthday, and you're sitting on a bench, soft snow settling on your shoulders, chai lattes steaming from your hands. It could almost be like any other evening, if Mary were not talking just a touch too rapidly to cover the aching hollowness she must be feeling inside. The radio silence ever since her dad abruptly pulled her out of school back in August and decided to homeschool her - in her senior year, no less - and the havoc wreaked on her life by divorce and stepmothers and new half-sisters in the last three years. But Mary is an adult now and at midnight on the 18th of February, she had packed her bags, marched out the door, and taken the subway to her mother's apartment on the other side of the river, without fear of any lawyer or decree from family court.
She's been reconnecting with everyone she hasn't been able to see; this time around, Uncle Henry was so furious, he'd taken away her phone and laptop and hired servants specifically to monitor her movements so that she had not a hope of escape. There will be hell to pay in the days to come, you know, but right now, on the streets of New York, sipping too-sweet tea and trying to keep up with Mary's verbal stream of consciousness- God, you'd forgotten how she could talk - you feel nothing less than invincible.
A/N: Companion picture set for this fic on AO3. Ending notes from original Tumblr tags:
#the POV is frances brandon but you can headcanon it as anyone #and her tia maria is koa's closest friend from history #idk where it goes from here but modern au means more options for women and a happier ending for everyone who deserves it