“Not again!” she mumbled to herself, whilst partly recollecting the hellish dream she just had.
The room finally fell silent, interjected only by subtle sobs from Naomi who couldn’t hide her hurt and needed to let them out. Nora’s eyes burned with unshed tears, and her lips began to tremble as she took Daren’s hand into hers and felt his wrist. A soft pulse greeted her grasp and her heart gladden with joy as she felt it begin to beat in rising tempo.
“He is a pulse!” Nora cried excitedly. “Naomi!”
Her disheartened and fervently weeping fiend sniffed and wiped off some of the tears sheltering her from seeing properly as Nora slowly reached to place her hand on Daren’s chest. She looked to Naomi, happily and with some promise of hope lingering and shimmering in her eyes, when the sudden grasp around her wrist alerted her back to her hand on Daren’s chest.
Her heart skipped its beats, and her lungs fell flat as she exhaled in fright. His grip was cold and tightly wrapped around her wrist, causing her to squirm in discomfort and pain, and above all, unexpectedly.
“Boo!” he had screamed with an evil grin accompanying his face.
Naomi jumped backwards in shock, while Nora did the same but with much more flight response as she yanked her arm from his grasp and crawled away subsequently. The two girls stared at Daren as he burst out laughing and rolling on his side.
“You’re alive!” Naomi sniffed and joyfully wiped her face before rushing over to hug him.
She pulled him off shortly to take a good look into his eyes, before wrapping her arms around him once again, with her head well-cushioned against his chest, and gentle sobs of happiness following.
Bitter and enraged, Nora folded her arms across her chest and yelled. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
He frowned back at her while Naomi continued to tighten her arms around his neck. “You should have seen the look on your face! I was sure you were going to have a heart attack or something!”
Nora slowly crawled back up and looked down at him. ‘it wasn’t funny, Daren!”
Daren continued to laugh hard and mockingly, only pausing to catch his breath and to shoot Nora some more annoying grin.
“That’s what you get for wasting my stash of weed”, he replied. “But i got to tell you, it is the funniest shit I’ve pulled this week!”
Striking him hard with a kick to his chin while he groaned in pain, she muttered, “Asshole!”
Nora turned around immediately, wiping off the beads of tears finally unable to remain hanging in her eyes as they began to roll down her cheek. She couldn’t have the obnoxious boy understand what level of emotions she had for him, talk less of giving him the opportunity to see how well she was beginning to feel for him or like him.
More so, there was also the episode of Naomi, already beginning to fall helplessly for the boy whom they had agreed not to get overly involved with, or even permit themselves to feel anything for. He was beyond reckless and irresponsible and every single opportunity he had to show it, he leapt ahead and displayed it without refrain.
Nora sighed and sought something an alternate form of discussion for the evening. She figured something else would keep the annoying Daren off of his game or at least for the time being and without wasting much time and effort, her mind struck the perfect cause.
“Naomi!” she called out with a smile across her face.
Naomi took a break from hugging Daren, whose face folded slowly, but without Nora caring a single bit.
“Do you remember the tarot cards I told you about?’ Nora asked excitedly.
Naomi fegned temporary ignorance, rubbing her chin almost as though she had forgotten or never knew a thing of what Nora was speaking about.
“Come on!’ Nora pleaded, hoping her excitement wouldn’t get dashed to the ground.
Nora chuckled briefly. “Of course, I remember your sudden and new weird hubby”.
Nora smiled, choosing to let the cheeky remark slide, before clearing her throat and approaching her computer to pull out the chair before it. Daren fixated his gaze staunchly on her, while Naomi got to her feet and proceeded towards standing behind her friend.
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on them lately on how to use them, read them and a lot more”, Nora booted her computer excitedly and began to toggle through the interphase.
Naomi waited impatiently for the gist attached to what her friend intended telling her.
“It so happens that some tarot cards are centuries old, and I mean really old”, Nora continued, before abruptly halting herself from doing anything to turn around and look at her friend. “Do you know what that means?”
Naomi shrugged her shoulder, twitched her mouth and replied, “That my best friend is a lunatic who fancies crazy old cards laden with cobwebs and dust?”
Daren burst into laughter and immediately stopped upon noticing the stern gaze from Nora.
Nora shook her head willfully and turned back to her computer. “No, but the gist is, the fact they’re old, and I mean really old, means I can get them for knock-off price on EBay without having to drain myself financially”.
Naomi looked disinterested almost immediately, while Nora went about toggling through her browser until she found what she wanted. Satisfied by her pick from the list of old looking tarot cards on sale from very select few sellers, reached for her handbag just by the foot of her chair and took out her i-Pad.
Daren got to his feet immediately, while Nora walked past him as she scrolled through her screen. ‘What are you doing?”
His voice bore enough concern in it to alert Nora of his worries about her choices, while Naomi had joined the bandwagon as well, wearing a frightened expression on her face.
“You guys can chill”, Nora shook her head. ‘I’m not buying uranium or some secret government oil on the black
