“I’ve heard that you guys are just people readers.”
“Yeah. But that’s what fate is, isn’t it?”
“Uh, fate’s what?”
She shrugs. “About people. It’s not something magical. Though there is some magic. But mostly, it’s about us, what we want.”
“Really?”
Smiling, she nods. “Yeah. Really. They say fate is unkind and cruel to them. But maybe fate’s just doing what they want it to do.”
Scoffing, I roll my eyes. “Are you saying that people want cruel things to happen to them?”
“No. But sometimes cruel things happen because you’re forging your way into something wonderful.”
Right.
It was a mistake. I’m stupid.
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I’m ready to leave but something makes me blurt out, “My parents died last year. I don’t know what could possibly come out of that that’s wonderful?”
She nods her head somberly. “Death’s cruel. No two ways about it. But with death, comes life. Maybe you’ll find life one day. Down the road, I mean.”
Life.
Something bitter rises up in me. I’m not proud of it but it’s there. I can’t ignore it.
The truth is that in the past few days, I’ve come to resent my job. I’ve come to resent my goal that I’ve been so passionate about.
And it scares me.
What do I have if I don’t have that goal? That was the one thing grounding me, the one thing keeping all the sorrow at bay.
“Life? What does that mean?”
She’s back to smiling. “Means something pulsing with too many heartbeats and too much breath. Something red hot and passionate.”
My mouth parts at red hot and passionate.
There’s only one person who makes me feel that way. Who’s always made me feel that way. And currently, he’s trying to win a giant alligator for a five-year-old kid.
“Looks like you already have it.”
I focus on the girl. “Now you just saw my face and read me.”
She shrugs, setting her elbows on the table full of crystal balls. “Guilty. But actually, I saw you with him.”
“With who?”
“That guy over there. In the black t-shirt with that kid on his shoulders.”
She’s pointing toward him at the next booth and my eyes follow.
Zach’s gaze turns at the same time and his eyes are hot. Blazing, even.
His eyes are hypnotic.
Somehow, I manage to wave at him and look back at the girl.
She’s smirking. “Told ya. You can’t keep your eyes off him. I saw you guys walk by.” Then she lowers her voice and it comes out like I imagine it must when she’s reading the palms of her customers. “You love him.”
The prediction or observation, whatever it is, hits me in the chest. I even take half a step back like I’ve been pushed.
Maybe by the invisible hands of the universe.
Such a fanciful thought and yet, it fills me with… life.
Too many heartbeats, too much air, red hot passion.
I shake my head instead. “I don’t… I can’t…” A deep breath. “I can’t love him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he, uh.” I sweep a few fly-away strands off my forehead. “Because I work for him. For his family.”
“So?”
“So it’s against the rules.”
“Love doesn’t care about rules.”
I shake my head. “He’s just visiting. And I don’t even know why. He’ll leave soon.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
I sigh with relief. She gets it now. She gets that I can’t love him. How unfair it would be.
“But that still doesn’t mean you can’t love him.”
Panic grips me for a second. That and anger, and I blurt out, “He doesn’t want to be loved.”
It’s true, isn’t it?
He hates love. Hates the very mention of it. I don’t even know if he can love.
Let me tell you something about love: it hurts.
I can’t love him. I’m not allowed to.
“Well, that’s not up to him, now, is it?”
“I’m sorry?”
The girl has a tender look on her face. “He owns your heart. He might even hold it in the palm of his hand. He might close that palm and crush it one day. But what he can’t do is force it to not beat for him. He doesn’t have that power. And neither do you, maybe. A heart can be a real pain in the ass. You never know where its loyalties lie. Hearts have their own kings and queens. Sorry. So, if your heart loves him, well then, it loves him. You can’t do anything about it. He definitely can’t do anything about it. You guys are just gonna have to suck it up.”
I emit a broken laugh.
I love him.
I love Zach.
That’s what this has been about, hasn’t it?
All this frustration and restlessness.
The fact that we’re a secret. The fact that he’ll leave me behind to rejoin his new life and I can’t go with him because I have a different goal. A goal I’m starting to resent more than anything in this world.
“Suck it up.” I look at the purple sky. “He’s not going to like it.”
“Big deal. Besides, he can’t take his eyes off you either. So I don’t know. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”