Chapter 22 #3
I pulled the card for the Past and slowly placed it down before her.
The Lovers.
I studied the card, two mirrored figures standing beneath a golden sky, reaching for one another but not quite touching. Not quite able to make it. The card breathed of something unfinished. Something yearning.
I cleared my throat.
“This card speaks to connection,” I said.
“To love, but also to choices. It talks about the way people’s lives become entwined in ways that shape everything that follows.
Looking at this card,” I added thickly, avoiding her gaze, “in the position of the past… it tells me there was a relationship—an important one—that fractured before your life ended.”
Liv yelped, so softly it was nothing more than a whisper.
“Someone you loved,” I continued, “or needed to love, maybe. You felt pulled toward them but could never quite reach them. Or maybe you walked away from them, but the connection never got closure.”
A frown knitted at my brow as a headache bloomed behind my eyes.
“This card isn’t always about romance,” I said carefully. “It can mean family, too. A bond. Even a part of yourself you pulled away from, but that still has a hold over you.”
Liv’s jaw clenched, and she shook her head.
“Enough of that one,” she said tightly. “Next.”
I didn’t argue. This was her reading. If she wanted to move on, that was her prerogative. I pulled the next card for the Future and placed it down.
The Hanged One.
“Well,” Liv said on a low whistle, shifting her seating position before flopping onto her stomach. “That’s fucking ominous.”
A grin stretched across my face, but I watched her. She was deflecting now—retreating into humor. Into nonchalance. The Lovers had shaken her. I’d hit something deep.
“It’s not a bad card,” I assured her, as Ellis stifled a laugh beside me. Some of the tension in the room lifted. I traced a finger down the faded figure, suspended upside down by one foot, showing no signs of struggle—just peaceful surrender.
“This card isn’t negative,” I said. “It’s not punishment. It’s more about letting go.”
Liv’s brow furrowed, some of the cheeky twinkle in her eye fizzling out.
“It’s kind of like the moment before a breakthrough,” I told her, swiping a loose strand of hair up and around one of my space buns. “It’s that space between holding on and stepping forward. It’s uncomfortable. It’s retrospective. But it’s necessary.”
My words came slower now, filled with more purpose. I looked from the card to her.
“You, Liv, are coming to a crossroads, and it’s one where you’re going to have to release whatever it is you’ve been holding on to. It’s not instant resolution, but it’s transformation. And it’s about being brave enough to wait through the hard part—the part where it’s still and silent.”
Liv blinked and frowned. “That’s my future, then? I’m stuck?”
“No,” I murmured, my voice firm as I shook my head. “No, you’re in motion. Even when things are still, you pause with purpose. You’re not stuck, Liv. You never have been. You’re just… you’re just suspended. But nothing stays still forever.”
Liv said nothing, her lips pressed into a thin line.
I shrugged and turned over the next card, my eyes feeling heavy as I took a breath. I gently laid the card down—the Above in her spread. Her conscious goal. The thing she thought she wanted.
“The Chariot,” I announced on a blink.
My fingers rested against the edge of the card as I studied the image, a figure poised between two forces, not being carried but commanding. Their expression was focused and determined, eyes locked on the path ahead.
“This card is about control. Charging forward. The drive, momentum, and intention behind your actions.” I paused and scratched my temple.
“I mean, this card is you in a nutshell. Or the version of you we know—the version that got us on this trip. The one who decided that Ellis and I were going to help, whether we liked it or not.”
Ellis let out a soft laugh beside me, and I could feel the warmth of her gaze on me.
“You’ve held the reins tightly on this one,” I said.
“Clinging to a drive and a purpose—because if you don’t keep moving, then what?
It might all fall apart. You might be stuck here forever.
You’ve come so far, driven by love or sheer desperation or fear that if you stop to feel any of it for even a second—if you loosen that grip—it might all disappear. ”
Liv said nothing. And the silence that followed was thick. Any of the lightness we’d had before had vanished, as the energy around Liv seemed to pulse at my words. She bit her lip and reached out, tracing the card with a clouded look in her eyes, before she huffed.
“Next.”
I flipped the card without thinking, but my fingers stiffened as I dropped it onto the bed, eyeing the rusty stain that always caught me whenever this card fell from the deck. I paused.
Judgement.
Ellis shifted beside me, as if sensing the change, and Liv blinked rapidly, staring at the card before she got up, clambered off the bed, and stood beside it.
“Why the fuck does that card look so scary?” she demanded.
I glanced back at it—at the figures rising from their graves, arms stretched to the sky as if some higher power were calling to them.
“It feels weird,” Liv hissed, rubbing her arms. “In my chest.”
I blinked at her, unsure what to do with that information.
“I—well, this is your subconscious card,” I said, stumbling over the words. “Judgement is reckoning, but it’s more about truth. Facing what’s been buried deep and stepping out of denial. It’s clarity, and it’s about choosing to rise from it.”
Liv let out a loud growl and stomped her feet, startling me.
“It’s always me,” she snapped. “I’m always in denial. All these cards are saying is I’ve basically fucked up. That I’m a control freak who’s in denial. In denial about what exactly? I can’t even remember how I died—I only remember the events before… before I…”
She ran a hand through her pink hair and shot me a wild, frayed look.
“Glitter in my hair,” she choked. “Bri and me getting ready. My mom. The car. The club. People everywhere… running.”
Ellis clutched my hand.
Without another word, Liv turned on her heel and stormed out of the teepee, walking straight through the wall and into the night.
“We aren’t finished!” I called after her, my eyes dropping back to the card with the stain—the one Margaret always said was blood. “We weren’t done,” I muttered.
“She definitely was,” Ellis said beside me, squeezing my hand.
I sucked in a breath and scooped the cards up unceremoniously, tucking them back into the velvet pouch. Silence settled thick in the teepee, and I shot Ellis a weak smile. The desert wind howled softly outside, carrying sounds and thoughts I was sure only I could hear.
I glanced down at the pouch in my hands, which now felt a million times heavier than it ever had before.