Page 5

“Ay, Little Miss Hurricane,” Luis tsks. “Pick up the sunglasses, babe.”

Finally, she gets on, sunglasses in hand, and disappears toward the back.

“Perfect,” Luis supplies helpfully.

The show is over, and I look away before she can disappear entirely from view. Then I look down at my phone again and open the custom request.

“Hi,” the message begins. “I think I’m cursed, romantically.”

My mouth twitches.

The message spirals gradually from joking to painfully sincere in a way I recognize immediately. The emotional equivalent of someone trying to laugh while actively bleeding.

I shift against the counter. Most customers fall into predictable categories, and after three years of running my store, I think I have it all down.

People either want their ex back, revenge, reassurance, or permission to hope.

Usually, I can tell within the first sentence or two what they actually need.

Most reconciliation spell requests are grief in disguise. Most attraction spells are generally loneliness, and sometimes the need for someone, anyone, to give them permission to hope and dream that their happily ever after is right around the corner.

The crystals, and the candles and the lighting of them are rarely the point. People come to me because they want certainty.

I don’t believe in magic. Not really.

I believe in timing, proximity, choice, and the dangerous things people will confess when they think the universe is listening. Love, in my experience, isn’t fate. It’s attention.

And most people are terrible at paying attention.

Magic would definitely be easier. Less work, for sure.

Instead, all I can offer is intention and a place to put all that hoping. A reason to take a step forward.

This one, though⁠—

I skim part of the message, letting the general shape of it settle in my mind. She thinks she’s the issue, and whatever curse she’s picked up is only making things worse.

And I can read clearly how she’s made love the measure of herself. Like finding the right person would answer a question she’s been asking about her own worth. She sounds less like someone looking for love and more like someone convinced she can’t be happy until she finds it.

Something tightens unexpectedly in my chest.

Outside, rainwater streaks across the windows.

Inside, the espresso machine hisses to life.

Luis is chatting with an early customer picking up a mobile order.

I look back at the window. The bus is long gone now. But I can still picture her expression every time something small goes wrong. That complete inability to disguise what she’s feeling from the world around her.

I think she’s become the best part of my mornings because she’s open.

Meanwhile, I’ve built an entire side hustle around helping strangers articulate emotions indirectly through candles and rituals and carefully worded instructions, all because I don’t want to articulate my own.

I look back down at the message.

Then reread it from the beginning before the rush starts.

Slowly this time.