Chapter 45
WES
I’d wanted to message or call Nova every day for the past seven weeks. No amount of building furniture for neighbors in crisis or meetings or talks with my sponsor or time with friends at Third House or music shows or books or anything else I could busy myself with could rid me of that urge.
But I rode it out, every single time, to protect her. From Roman and from myself.
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I arrived to Third House’s Friendsgiving with a homemade pumpkin lasagna and apple pie.
Half-way through cooking, I’d had to turn off my record player and cook in silence, because any music reminded me of her, and I was already a fucking wreck as it was. I caught myself staring at the empty barstools with levels of yearning and self-hatred that concerned me.
Ruby and Sienna greeted me with big smiles that were quick to fall.
“Oh, Wes,” Ruby said, quickly pulling me into a hug as Sienna gingerly took the pie and lasagna to place on a nearby table. The other three baristas, Ralph, Jenni, and Camellia, joined the huddle.
“She should be here,” I said softly, my voice on the verge of cracking. “She should fucking be here. But she can’t be, so she’s going to spend the holiday alone instead.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish she was here too,” Ruby said.
“Come on, let me give you a reading,” Sienna offered. “Everyone else won’t start arriving for at least another hour.”
“No, let me help you all set up—”
“You’ve done enough for us, Wes,” Ruby said. “Sit down.”
I smiled sadly, unable to say no to her. The café had gone through a rough patch its third year in business, and I’d helped out. I couldn’t let something this special die and allow another build-your-own salad bowl chain to be erected in its place.
I sat with Sienna at a small table while the others busied themselves creating a mega table by pushing the other tables together, along with continuing to prep food in the back.
Stars by Nina Simone played softly through the speakers.
A slight drizzle fell outside the shop windows, and the various mismatched lamps inside were warm and dim.
Third House was a holy space, a sanctuary, a magical hub.
I’d watched people stumble inside the shop on a random weekday, perplexed and dazed, as if they had no idea why or how they’d been led here.
But everyone found Third House for a reason, even if that reason was simply community, the most basic human need of all.
Sienna placed a cloth on the table and a collection of crystals in a grid before she gave her tarot deck three knocks. “Before I draw cards, I need to ask you this again, and I promise it will be the last time.”
“Go ahead,” I said with a sigh, knowing what was coming.
“Are you sure you can’t just talk to her, Wes?”
I paused. I thought of Roman’s bloody, psychopathic smile. I thought of the day I found Kallie in her apartment, lifeless.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “I wish things were different, but they aren’t. I have to accept life on life’s terms.”
My closest friends, Ruby and the baristas included, knew about my past and my family.
They vaguely understood I was protecting Nova from them, and just like my sponsor Will, they disagreed with my approach.
I wish I’d just been honest with Nova too.
Will thought it was self-sabotage, and maybe he was right.
But at least this way, Roman would stop seeing Nova as a shiny object that meant something to me.
He wouldn’t know Nova still meant everything to me.
I didn’t feel entirely good about this, but I’d even messaged Nova’s grumpy roommate in the aftermath.
He’d given me his number when we’d chatted at Third House’s anniversary party so I could send him an article about film theory I mentioned.
After I got home from the Hudson Valley trip from hell, I texted him, Nova doesn’t want to hear from me again, and I will respect her wishes.
But if you could please call me if she’s ever in trouble, if the cult contacts her, or if anything else seems off, I would deeply appreciate it.
I’d expected him to respond with claws out, but he hadn’t.
He’d replied, Okay.
“Something’s bothering me about all this,” I said to Sienna, leaning back in my chair as I shook my head. “It’s been bothering me for a while. It feels like I’ve misplaced something, and I need to find it. Quickly.”
“Something other than the woman you’re in love with?” Sienna asked, brow raised.
“Yes,” I said gruffly. “Something else.”
Sienna frowned. “Yeah, I’m feeling it now too.” She clutched her onyx pendant resting on her brown sweaterdress. “It’s heavy. Phew. Hold on.”
She reached into her bag for a bottle labeled protection spray. I closed my eyes a moment before essential oil mist cascaded around me. I coughed, and Sienna chuckled.
“Much better. Let’s see if we can find what you’re looking for.” She shuffled the deck, and the first card shot out onto the floor beside us. She grabbed it and placed it in front of me.
“Seven of Swords,” she said. She clicked her tongue. “Whatever you’re missing was stolen from you.”
As Sienna shuffled, her forehead creased. My body started humming, the heaviness breaking into a sense of urgency and doom, like I was late for something but couldn’t remember what.
A second card flew out. Sienna caught it before it slid off the table. “Cards are jumpy today. There’s something they really need you to know.”
I wasn’t always so open to the mystical.
But something about having to face death, with my mom, with Kallie, and then with my own imminent demise in the depths of my rock bottom, forced me open, emotionally and spiritually.
I’d been humbled by my own undeserved salvation.
I had no explanation for my recovery other than that there were greater forces at play beyond my limited human understanding.
And after witnessing for myself the magic of Third House and its resident mystic baristas and owner, there was no doubt in my mind this world could be a much stranger, esoteric place than what could be perceived on the surface.
Sienna flipped the card over. “Six of cups reversed. We’re dealing with the past, maybe even childhood, or something connected to your childhood. Hmm.”
The next cards were The Devil and The Moon.
My first thought was Roman stealing my notebooks all those years ago. I voiced this to Sienna, but she shook her head.
“This was a far bigger betrayal.” She stared at The Devil card and thumbed her pendant necklace again. “The Moon rules secrets, the hidden, the shadow. The Devil represents addiction, abuse, but also the prison of illusion. Something has been hidden that needs to see the light of day.”
Ten of Swords appeared next. The imagery was self-explanatory. A man impaled by ten swords. A total surrender to grief, defeat, the dark night of the soul. I remembered that feeling well.
“Last card, let’s bring it home.”
The Lovers.
Sienna smiled sadly. “You need to form a new relationship with your past if you want to finally break free of its limitations on your present and future.” She thumbed The Lovers card.
“That’s where your answers lie. Where grief and addiction and love intersect, the point of convergence where everything connects.
You’re carrying a burden not entirely yours to carry. ”
Something rose to the forefront of my mind, the briefest flash of realization I couldn’t quite grasp in its completion. I couldn’t stop thinking about Roman breaking into my apartment. What else had I been too self-destructive to notice during that time? What the hell was I missing?
Ruby and Camellia were having a laughing fit in the kitchen, the sound of it a soothing source of lightness for this heavy reading.
“Wasn’t this supposed to cheer me up, Sienna?” I teased, shaking my head.
She shrugged, sheepish. “That was my intention, but the cards had other plans… Not all help is nice to hear.” She sighed. “You deserve a future full of love, Wes. You might just need to face yourself and all this darkness one last time first.”
As she said the words, she again thumbed The Lovers card, making her message clear. She was rooting for us. For me and the woman I could never have.
After another spray of protection mist, Sienna and I joined the others. The nagging feeling didn’t relent, a slow churn of my subconscious as it shifted for the information that felt only a hair out of reach.
But I still managed to stay present enough to join the laughter, to help the others cook and prep as more of our community started to arrive.
The music was perfect, the conversations raw and real.
Lola showed up with her kids, and we chatted about books for a while as Ruby ran next door to get the turkey out of her apartment.
A few of the older neighbors I’d built furniture for after an apartment fire came by.
Not everyone could fit at the table, so others gathered on the outskirts of the space or leaned over the bar counter.
Every time I caught myself laughing or connecting with someone new, it was bittersweet. I imagined Nova by my side—who she would’ve struck up conversations with and what she would’ve said, which songs and foods she would’ve loved most.
But as an addict, I had to live life on life’s terms. It was the only way I could survive. No matter what Will or Sienna or my other friends said, I saw what I deserved clearly.
I’d lost the privilege of romantic love when I let Kallie down and she took her own life because of it.
I really believed differently, ever so briefly, when I viewed myself reflected in Nova’s eyes—the man she saw before she knew who I really was.
I believed I might have been worthy of Nova’s love, of her sitting in the chair next to me at holidays, of a future with her that transcended the sins of my past.
I looked around at the smiling, animated faces as they discussed art and politics and the best Polish food in the neighborhood.