“You alright, child?”
I blinked at her, not quite ready to speak. Did she own this alleyway? Was she about to tell me to get lost? Was I not allowed to sit here and take a break?
“You have the fear with you,” she said.
I was still exhausted from the attack, so all I could do was stare at her.
Her face was as cold and severe as the New York weather.
She examined me for a moment; those green eyes quietly sussing me out. Then to my surprise, she extended one of her hands in a purple mitten.
I took it graciously, and she helped pull me to my feet.
Even though she was small, she was surprisingly strong.
I was still working on taking slower and slower breaths, a small inkling in the back of my mind embarrassed that I’d let a stranger see me in this sorry state. Like most people with anxiety, I felt shame about my mental illness, guilt that I allowed my real self escape through the layers of false confidence I could hide beneath most of the time.
“Thanks,” I said, brushing myself off. I was kicking myself for touching anything in this dirty alley, wondering if the back of my trench coat had gotten any nastiness on it.
I expected the woman to return to the street, rejoin the moving masses flowing down the sidewalk, but she stood in front of me, looking me up and down.
“You are the one with the fear,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s called anxiety,” I said, feeling the tiniest flutter of annoyance flare within me. One of the hallmark signs of my condition and the cocktail of disorders that came with it was wanting to be alone, but at the same time wanting to be around people. I couldn’t be happy. Whenever I was around people, I craved alone time. Whenever I was alone, I felt an all-consuming urge to be around others, so that I wouldn’t sink into the depths of my torturous mind.
You can’t win when your own brain is the enemy.
Her face softened the tiniest bit, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes deepening.
“I own shop over here,” she said, gesturing to a nearly invisible door at the mouth of the alley. “You come inside for tea.”
I was about to refuse; to tell her that I had to make it to an appointment or something. Part of me wanted to run, but the excuses didn’t make it past my lips. The cold was biting me, and I was exhausted from the anxiety attack. All I wanted to do was sit down in a warm place.
And this woman… she seemed to emanate an aura of calmness. Something about her reminded me of my grandmother when she was still alive, like nothing in the world could shake her.
So, I followed her down the alley and through the small brown door.
As she turned the knob and pushed her way inside, the hinges squeaked in greeting.
I was grateful for the warmth that enveloped me, falling over my skin like a gentle hug from Adam.
Glancing at my phone again, I frowned when the screen still showed up blank.
That familiar sensation of the stomach drop poked me, and I had to cling onto the thought, He’s just working, he’s just working, to keep my mind above water.
“He is fine,” the woman said as she hung her coat on a spindly coat rack nearby.
My eyebrows came together. “Who?”
“Your lover,” she said as she made her way through the shop.
I quirked my eyebrow, feeling like this was starting to get a little too weird for me. But I wasn’t ready to face the cold and the noise outside yet, and Vikka seemed harmless enough.
I followed her through a small shop, dim light flooding through skylight windows and illuminating the bright green plants stacked on the shelves. There was shabby furniture around the space, salt lamps emitting soft orange light every few feet, and some kind of trickling water noise coming from a fountain that was just out of sight.
The ambiance of the space was hippy witch-doctor-like, and I couldn’t deny that it was soothing. It reminded me of my grandmother’s house.
“What kind of shop is this?” I asked, my voice automatically getting softer in this magical, sacred space.
“I am a florist,” she said, reaching for a nearby bouquet of Lillies and fluffing it a bit. “But also tea and tarot.”
Of course it was a tarot shop, too. That kind of thing was getting so popular nowadays. Internally I rolled my eyes.
“Thank you for inviting me in,” I said softly, checking out the plants hanging off the walls. It occurred to me that I could buy Adam some flowers in here.
I followed her to the back of the shop, where she pressed a button on her automatic tea kettle. A gentle gurgling filled the space as it quietly bubbled to life.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing to a dingy table nearby.
I followed her command, grateful for a place to finish off the rest of my recuperation.
She took the seat across from me and fixed me with those knowing green eyes.
“What’s your name?” I asked, suddenly feeling very awkward.
“I am Vikka,” she answered. “And you are…?”
“Luke,” I said, grateful that she didn’t know my name already. I was getting serious witch vibes from this woman.
There was a soft click behind her, and she got up to pour the hot water into a pair of ancient-looking teacups. When she returned to the table, she set one of the cups in front of me, a cute little cage of potpourri-looking stuff locked inside. It was slowly bleeding pink into the water.
“Steep for four minutes,” she said, taking her place at the table across from me.
“Thank you,” I said, eyeing the liquid under the soft morning light pouring in through the skylight.
Mentally, I ran through a check as one of my past therapists advised me
