A moment of breath-held silence. Then Kacey exhaled and sat back, her eyes shining. “Thank you.”
We left the shop after I slipped Olivia $20. Five bucks for each card, another ten as a tip for how Kacey hugged the woman, declaring howrelievedshe felt.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” Kacey said, her arm tucked in mine. “I mean, you can chalk it all up to coincidence, but I felt some real truth there.” She looked up at me. “Did you?”
“A little,” I said slowly. I’d felt hope as well as truth. Hope that the new chapter in Kacey’s life might include me in a meaningful way.
So much for putting self-interests aside.
“The big decision you’ve been putting off must mean the tattoo shop, right?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“How come you haven’t bought your own place yet, Teddy?”
I could’ve told her I was in the process of getting a business degree, but that would only make her feel like shit if she knew I’d missed my exams to be here.
I shrugged again. “Haven’t found the right place yet.”
Kacey frowned, then shivered a little, even though the night was warm. “I’m getting a little tired. I’d like to go home.”
By the time we reached Kacey’s house, I was regretting tipping Olivia or even stepping foot inside that psychic shop. Instead of lying down for a nap, Kacey curled up on the chair in the living room. Hugging the pillow tight and staring at nothing.
I sat on the couch and reached over to tap her knee. “You okay?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Look, these so-called psychics—”
“She was exactly right,” Kacey said.
“About what?”
She looked up at me, her eyes drowning in tears. “I can’t let go of Jonah.”
I sat back, nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“Sometimes, when I’d come home drunk,” she said. “I’d fall into bed, and just before I passed out, I swear I could hear his voice. Telling me to let go. And I’d wake up feeling so guilty. Like maybe Jonah can’t live in the stars until I let him go.” She plucked at a stray thread on her pillow, the tears dropping onto the orange fabric. “I always brush it off as a dream. I’m not ready to let him go, and it doesn’t feel like a choice anyway. It feels…impossible.”
I wished I knew how to talk to her, to make her feel better. But I was struck mute, my own grief trying to rise up and swamp me.
“And how can I ever let go when there was still so much I didn’t do?” she demanded with sudden fire “Because I could have done more. Ishouldhave done more. I should’ve married him. Did he want that? A wedding? Or I could have had his baby. So he could know that a part of him would go on forever.”
“Kacey—”
“I could’ve done it,” she said fiercely. “How can I let go when I didn’t do enough?”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Was Jonah ever not honest with you about what he wanted? Ever?”
She sniffed and shrugged.
“He wouldn’t ask you for those things,” I said. “He wouldn’t legally bind you for the sake of a stupid ceremony. He wouldn’t ask you to have a kid and leave you to raise it on your own.”
“I know he wouldn’t, but…”
“No regrets, right? Isn’t that what you told him?”
Kacey nodded. “It is. And it’s true. Except the regret I didn’t do enough. The regret I couldn’t….”
