Round 2: Kirsch

Maxwell and Samuel Kirsch are Adults. Their daughters Felicitas (Liss) Kirsch, Caritas (Cari) Kirsch, and Iusticia (Izzy) Kirsch are Teens.

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With all the time they had been devoting to keeping their younger two daughters from ripping each other’s throats out, Maxwell and Samuel were beginning to realize that they hadn’t been taking nearly enough time for each other. They were starting to get out of the habit of spending time together, which had never been a problem in their family before. They vowed to take some time each day to just talk – as long as they weren’t talking about the kids.

And Maxwell finally convinced Samuel to take up chess. He had been trying to get him interested for years.

 

Liss barely noticed the trouble at home anymore. She didn’t have room to think about her squabbling sisters when there was Ellis. With Ellis, there was none of the ambivalence she had felt with Dmitri. In a lot of ways, she and Dmitri were kindred spirits – their minds worked on the same level. They could easily stay up all night dreaming up all kinds of crazy futuristic technologies or discussing world politics or planning out elaborate business ideas. But she had never been sure if she wanted that kind of intensity in a romantic relationship. Her relationship with Ellis was entirely different. With Ellis, things were simple and fun. He grounded her in a way Dmitri never could.

But their relationship had made things awkward between her and Dmitri. She had hoped it wouldn’t, but it had. Dmitri had said he was over his crush on her, and she knew he was trying to be, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you could put a stop to through sheer willpower alone.

Izzy was still doing her best to distract herself with Cornelius. It wasn’t working all that well. As it turned out, he just wasn’t that interesting – and meanwhile, Cari was just always there.

But she was trying. She really was. Even when Cari seemed to purposely be driving her crazy. Even when Cari sat there with that fake smile on her face and no one could see through her but Izzy.

Cari was trying too. And if the thought that made her start laughing under her breath during family TV time was the thought of finally punching Izzy in her obnoxious self-righteous face… well, no one had to know.

Now that both of her sisters were dating, Cari briefly considered finding a boyfriend herself, just for the sake of keeping up with them. But it wasn’t worth all the extra time dating would take. She would start dating when it looked like it would be useful. Right now she needed that time to keep up with her schoolwork. She was falling further behind every day, and she didn’t know why. Liss had always made schoolwork look easy, but these days Izzy never even started her homework and she was still doing better than Cari.

But Cari didn’t want her sisters having all the fun while she stayed at home doing nothing but studying. She resolved to do something fun for herself, too. She started going down to the gym every week for a couple of hours. Her family didn’t understand it, she knew, especially her dads, both of whom liked nothing better than spending all afternoon on the couch in front of the TV. But working out was the one time she felt relaxed. There was no one to pretend for, no one to impress. There was just her and her body.

She couldn’t help noticing that Dmitri Fish really liked watching her work out. His attention gave her a quiet thrill of pleasure. What would Liss say if she knew?

She couldn’t resist flirting with him just a little, just to prove she could get a reaction. Just to prove to herself that she could have him if she really wanted.