“This woman is too rational,” she said, pointing to the card. It didn’t sound like she was talking about me. “The Daughter of Swords thinks too much, she cuts away any emotion in her life. She’s afraid to let her feelings control her.”
“But all I do is chase my feelings,” I said.
“Maybe what you are doing is running from the real ones,” she said.
Jenny delicately touched each card before flipping it over. I felt ashamed and jealous that she could know so much about me when I didn’t understand why I was doing what I did at all.
On top of the Daughter of Swords was a card with an image of the Baphomet, the same one I saw on the Satanic Bible. In the card, the Baphomet’s hands were pointed in the same way—as above, so below, solve et coagula.
“This card is about your own bondage,” Jenny said. “You’re letting yourself get trapped in a place you don’t need to be trapped.”
“Are you sure?” I looked at the image of the card, the way it covered the Daughter of Swords. The Devil, was he smothering me? Or was it a sign that Matt and I would be together?
The light of the candles moved shadows across Jenny’s face, her bangs in her eyes. She looked concerned. She pointed to a picture of three people holding three cups, but the card was upside down, all the shit spilling out of the cards.
“This card says there’s a third person involved,” she said.
“No shit,” I said. “Frankie?”
Jenny picked the card up and stared intently. She took a sip of her own drink and scanned the rest of the reading.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Not sure.”
I never told Matt or Frankie that Patrick had asked me out. There were already too many complicated things going on. I didn’t want anything to change just yet. Whenever I saw him and they were around, I’d pretended nothing happened, and he did the same.
Jenny moved her hand across a card at the top of the pillar. Her fingers stopped at an image of the Tower of Babel. A crown on top of the tower was being struck by lightning.
“This is the final outcome,” she said. “Whoever that third person is, it’s not a good idea to keep pursuing this thing with Matt.”
I took another drink. Fire billowed out of the windows of the tower. Two people were falling to their deaths. One person in the card seemed to stare at me, their hands up in surrender, accepting their fate.
I woke up that morning in Jenny’s bed to six missed phone calls. My mouth had that candy vomit hangover taste.
“Fuck,” I said. 11:34 a.m. “Fuuuuuuuck.”
I was late to work.
Jenny stirred, wiping the sleep from her eyes, her hair poking up in cute ways. I wished I could look as good as her in the morning.
“What’s up?” she said.
“Gotta fucking go,” I said. I slid out of bed and threw on a dirty pair of jeans. “Mind if I borrow a work shirt?”
She shook her head and pointed to her laundry hamper. I rummaged through and pulled out a black polo, a little old-smelling. I slid it over my head anyway, too impatient to throw on a bra first.
As I ran up the stairs, I checked the missed calls.
Frances
Frances
Frances
Frances
Frances
Frances
I hopped in my car and stuck the key in the ignition. The air was crisp but warming up a little. I called Frankie back, but no one answered. I didn’t leave a voicemail.
•
The store was busy when I showed up. I got through the first four hours of my shift without stopping, keeping my head down, hoping Sam wouldn’t say anything. I kept checking my phone for Frankie’s call, but no one called me back. Around four, I saw Matt walk up to the store through the glass. He pulled the door open, hands in his hoodie pockets, looking down at his boots. From behind the counter, Sam said, “Can I help you?”
“I got it,” I said, walking over. “What’s up?”
It’d been at least two weeks since I’d seen him at the grocery store and a week since we’d last talked. My body burned at the sight of him, and my hands shook, though lately they were always shaking. I spent so much time waiting to hear from him that the lack of him made me crazy. He was the one with all the control, the one with the secret to keep. When I looked in his eyes, I saw something different this time, a kind of sadness, I guess. Some guilt. A strange kind of anger. He didn’t put his hand out or on me like we knew each other.
“What’s wrong?” I said. I put down the games I had been organizing.
Matt shook his head, this tiny little shake, and looked down. Sam stood at the counter and looked at Matt with one eyebrow raised.
“I’m gonna take my fifteen,” I said. “Be back in a sec.”
I led Matt outside and around the corner, just to the point where Sam couldn’t see anymore. The sun was setting over the mountains. We were in the same spot we stood when he first told me he loved me. It made it all a little romantic. But Matt wasn’t feeling romantic. He looked tense, like somebody had died.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, impatient. My stomach turned and I felt a little nauseous.
Matt leaned against the wall and didn’t say anything. He pulled out a cigarette, his hand cupping as he lit. He let it go, handed it to me, and pulled out another one.
“Frankie’s breaking up with you,” he said.
“Just Frankie?” I said. I almost laughed at that. “Like, for both of you?”
He nodded his head, eyes closed, like he couldn’t look at me when he said it.
“Patrick was missing last night, you know,” he said.
“The fuck?” I said. “Missing? Where was he?”
“Look, I’m not good at this shit,” he said. “I know
