She flips the present card over, and it’s the same. Death. She doesn’t hesitate and flips the future card over, and again its Death. She keeps her eyes glued on the cards like they are going to change. I give her a minute. “Are you finally going to admit to the trick deck?” I ask her.
“It’s not a trick deck, Azra. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but this isn’t a trick!” She exclaims. She looks distraught, like this means something.
“Nol, it’s just a fun thing we do sometimes. If you say it’s not a trick deck, I believe you — no need to get all serious on me. We have a night of debauchery awaiting us,” I declare. I’m trying to keep my voice light and upbeat for her. I don’t want her to be upset by a little game.
“You’re right. I’m sorry this keeps happening. I’m going to get to the bottom of it. Trust me,” she replies, looking at me with a bit of concern in her eyes.
I lean in and give her a quick squeeze before I grab my bag and walk toward the door. Noli leaves all the materials on the table and grabs her bag. Pete’s is only about a ten-minute walk up the road, so it doesn’t take us too long to get there. The place is packed with locals, as this is the only bar in town. The music is playing, and the crowd is having a good time. Noli and I walk up to the bar and order a couple of drinks. I get a Cosmo, and Noli gets a Sex on the Beach. Cosmo’s are so 2000’s, but they taste too damn good. I’m not ashamed to like a pink drink.
Walking over to the dance floor, we find a spot open enough to dance freely. The music is fast and every bit the modern dance mix from the radio. I don’t even know if Pete’s has a DJ, or if this is just some mix they got off of Spotify. Swaying my hips to the music, I feel the beat in my soul. I’ve always loved dancing and how my body responds so well to the notes. If I close my eyes, I could pretend I’m somewhere else and get lost in the sound. Noli busts out her sexy dance moves, and before long, two of the single guys in town are trying to dance with us. She makes all the right moves grinding against each of them. You can see there’s a bit of a competition brewing. They both look really into her and are vying for who will take her home. Little do they know, that disappointment awaits them because Noli doesn’t take anyone home. Not that she’s a prude, but small towns equal a lot of gossip, and gossip isn’t good for business. You can’t fuck one guy and then another, and expect their mothers to be ok with it, and mothers make up the bulk of Noli’s customers.
Noli isn’t the only one getting attention. I refuse the first couple of guys because it’s
weird for me to dance with customers from the diner, but then one guy catches my eye. You can tell he’s not from here. He’s tall and muscular like a football player, a quarterback though, not a linebacker. He has dark brown hair that’s a little too long in the front and looks like he missed his last cut. His face is strong and determined, and he’s staring at me like I’m the last glass of water in a drought. My pulse picks up, but I quickly turn around before he can notice my interest. I can’t allow myself to look at guys like this one. He screams heartbreaker.
My interest must have gone unnoticed because when I turn back around, he’s gone. I feel a sense of relief and then a pang of emptiness. I wonder if I will ever heal from New York and take a chance on love again. Two years is a long time to be bitter, but when your boyfriend of three years is banging some redhead over the coffee table you picked out together, a little piece of your soul dies. I trusted Sean with my whole everything. He saved me from a life of loneliness and grief. He showed me what it is to love and be loved. I could clearly picture our future together. We’d get married and have two kids. Maybe buy a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, and get a dog. We were good together; always finishing each other’s sentences, and knowing when the other needed a snuggle. He hurt me, broke me. It turns out that I was naive, and he was an asshole.
Coming home from the Winter Equestrian Festival early was a disappointment of a lifetime, but finding Sean with that girl was soul crushing. In New York, I was a champion show jumper. It’s what I lived and breathed for. My horse that year tore a ligament after the second month in Florida, so I flew back early. I was full of grief and sorrow because my one chance at showing the equestrian world what I was made of was blown. I needed Sean that day to comfort me, but he was too busy buried inside some
