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“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.
