Page 45 of Between Hello and Goodbye

“Oh dear, would you like to sit for a minute?”

“I’d love that, thank you.”

The shop was dim and full of glass displays of rings, bracelets, and loose gemstones. Necklaces hung from branch-like stands, some with intricate pendants of gems and pearls, others with huge, raw stones. Smooth wood carvings lined the shelves on the wall, and soft, New Age-y music laced the air along with incense.

“You have a beautiful shop,” I said and sank gratefully onto the little foldout chair the woman brought me.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“A new ankle?” I said with a tired smile.

She nodded seriously and turned to a tall glass display near me with four shelves of crystals, some in raw clusters, some smoothed into rounded stones, some set into earrings and necklaces. “Amethyst is strong in healing energy,” she said, touching a purple shard, then took up a smooth egg of green. “Bloodstone, too.”

“I imagined bloodstone would be…bloodier.”

“Green jasper with red inclusions of hematite,” she explained, showing me the specks of red. “Good for the circulation. But I think you need something stronger.”

“Oh, I don’t actually need—”

“Here we are.” She pulled a necklace off a display, letting the delicate silver chain fall over the back of her hand. The pendant was a two-inch carved shard of clear crystal with a row of seven colored gems set in silver along its front. “Quartz is the most powerful healing stone of them all.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “What are the other stones?”

“They represent the chakras. The energy centers within us. Are you familiar?”

“No, and I’m not sure I believe in that stuff,” I said apologetically. “Or that crystals hold healing powers in the first place.”

“That’s the beauty of the world’s energies,” the woman said. “They work whether you believe in them or not.”

I laughed a little. “Okay.”

She shot me an indulgent smile. “Why do you think so many people come to the islands every year? I’m not speaking of the tourists of Waikiki, mind you, though I wouldn’t write them off either. I mean those who come with pain in their hearts and minds and are seeking relief? They are drawn to Hawaii because Hawaii itself has healing properties.”

“I get that,” I said. “That’s actually why I came, even though I’ve been…distracted.”

A strange little pang of pain flickered in my chest with thoughts of Asher. Or more specifically, how I wasn’t going to see him again. I had to put him away, put him out of my mind, out of my thoughts, and out of other places (in the vicinity of my heart) he kept busting into.

“Do you have anything that’ll help me stop thinking about a certain sexy man with whom it would be a terrible idea to get involved?”

The woman smiled. “Quartz is the master healer of all maladies, physical and spiritual.” She took the necklace and moved behind me to fasten it. “This crystal will help keep your mind pure.”

“Pure? Let’s not go that far.”

She laughed. “I don’t mean pure in the sense of innocence but in the ability to think more clearly. Rationally.”

“That’s exactly what I need,” I said. “There is nothing less sexy than being rational.”

She finished fastening the clasp. The crystal with its seven smaller stones sat against my skin, cool and a little heavy. “It sits right over the heart, doesn’t it?” She held a small mirror to me. “Lovely.”

I touched the pendant. Like sitting with Asher in front of the ocean, I felt no great epiphany, but I wondered how many of life’s mysteries we write off immediately due to cynicism. How many avenues of healing or growth do we shut the door on because we think they’re not for us?

What if this is for me?

Not that I believed this crystal was going to magically heal my ankle, much less sort out my tangled thoughts about Asher, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to keep my mind—and heart—open to the possibility.

Leave the door unlocked…

I smiled in the mirror. “I’ll take it.”