Page 68 of On the Way to You

The color drained from my face.

“Now, this can be read in many ways, of course,” she clarified. “Someone could be being deceitful to you, someone you feel you can trust when actually you can’t. Or, it could be that you are partaking in sneaky behavior, acting in a way that you know is wrong for personal gain.”

Emery’s hand left my knee, the spot where his skin touched me turning ice cold as he stood. “Okay, I think it’s time I remove myself from the equation before I start making rude, sarcastic remarks.” He smiled as if it were a joke, but his eyes were strained as he bent to kiss my forehead. “I’ll take Kalo down by the water, come meet us when you’re done?”

I nodded, but my eyes were still glued to the card, to The Seven of Swords. If Emery were paying attention, if he believed, he would have asked me what I was hiding.

And I could never tell him.

So, in a way, I was relieved as he took Kalo and crossed the sand down to the water, and Melina sensed it.

“It’s you who’s hiding something, isn’t it?” she asked, though she didn’t wait for my response as she flipped three more cards and spread them out below the present ones. “It’s unlike you. You wear your guilt like a scarlet letter.”

I just swallowed, eyes scanning the new cards.

“Your future,” she said, setting the rest of the deck to the side. “The Lovers.”

Her finger tapped the first card, her long, pointy black nail resting there as she lifted her eyes to mine.

“This card can be taken in many ways, and most of us want to believe it means true love, that it symbolizes that fairytale romance we often dream of. However, this card is reverse for you, which shows me that, perhaps as a result of your present deceitfulness, you will quarrel with a loved one over an imbalance — different values, different beliefs.”

My focus stayed on the card, but I was all too aware of Emery on the beach, though he was the opposite — blissfully unaware, his shoes in his hands as he kicked through the edge of the water with Kalo barking and nipping at his ankles.

My heart ached.

“This next card, The Nine of Wands, again tied to fire. You will be tested, Cooper,” she said, and my eyes flicked to hers then. She seemed to be looking right through me, to my innermost self. “You must come into this test with persistence and determination to gain the outcome you desire, and it will not be easy. You may have to come to terms with a loss you didn’t foresee, one you can’t imagine, in order to move forward and emerge on the other side of this test.”

My heart raced under my ribcage, thoughts dizzying as I wondered what the test could be. My first thought was that it tied to Emery, to our time together. We hadn’t discussed what would happen when we reached Washington. In fact, I still didn’t even know where he was going, or if he’d stay. Was that my test? Would I have to give him up? Or was it the test of a new life, of Bastyr and a new job and a new home?

“This last card,” she said, sliding it just a little closer to me. “Is Death.”

My eyes jolted to hers, wide and no doubt showing the fear I felt at the indication, but she laid her hand over mine in reassurance.

“Calm down, it doesn’t mean a physical death,” she said, her voice low and kind. “But it does symbolize the end of an era, the death of a chapter, and perhaps even the death of who you once were. Something tells me that this test, whatever it is, will change you indefinitely. You’re on the brink of a new start, and how you begin this next part of your journey will depend greatly on how you walk into this test, and even more so, how you emerge on the other side of it.”

I scanned the cards again, heart in my throat, unable to do or say anything. My hands deftly reached into my back pocket and I pulled out the twenty-dollar bill I’d stuffed in there after purchasing our pizzas. I slid it over the table toward her, still in a daze. “Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t be scared, okay?” she said, ignoring the cash and squeezing my hand still in hers. She leaned down to catch my eyes. “Without the cards, I can still see your strength, your spirit, your light. Hold onto that, onto the person you are inside, and you’ll be okay.”

I nodded, a faint smile finding my lips as I squeezed her hand in return before standing. She watched me as I crossed the beach to Emery, and even when he turned to me with a goofy grin, Kalo covered in sand and water by his feet, I felt Melina’s eyes on me.

“Well, how does your future look? Are we going to drive off a cliff on the PCH and fall to a terrible death?”

I laughed, but it was dry and short. “Probably,” I joked, because it was easier than trying to explain the truth, to tell him the weight I felt on my shoulders after the reading.

I wanted to ask him right then what we would do once we hit our final destination. I wanted to know where we would go from there. But we hadn’t even discussed what we were, or what we would be. All I’d asked of him — all Icouldask of him — was that he try. And in order to let him try, I had to give him room to fail, space to succeed, air to breathe.

I needed to have patience.

But I was finding out very quickly that patience was a virtue I did not possess. At least, not anymore.

We checked into a room right on the beach, our patio overlooking the water, and I took the first shower before joining Emery where he sat outside. The wind whipped his hair as he wrote in his journal by the small porch light, and I took the seat next to him, crossing my prosthetic over my right leg.

“She’s all yours.”

Emery finished his thought, dropping his journal on the table between us with a thud. “Good. I smell like wet dog and Vegas.”

“You should bottle that,” I joked, and he ruffled the fur on top of Kalo’s head as he squeezed past, heading inside.