Chapter 11 #3
Jasper takes our empty coffee cups and sets them out of the way, then grabs his tarot cards from his bag and hops back onto his swing, already shuffling.
“Okay.” His cheery demeanor shifts and turns serious as he brushes his ringed forefinger lovingly over the deck.
“I just learned the past-present-future spread, so that’s what we’re doing.
The past first, because that one’s easy to verify. ”
“Sure.” I brace myself. “Hit me.”
He lifts the cards between us, right in front of my face, and slides his thumb down the shorter edge, bends them back, then lets go so the cards rattle against each other in a smooth cascade. “Say stop when you feel it.”
I watch the blur of images until my stomach does a weird little flip. “Stop.”
He stops immediately and pulls the top card, turning it over. “Oh.”
“What oh?”
“I’m… really sorry.”
Not helpful. “What does it say?”
Jasper turns the card toward me. It’s a tower split by lightning, fire everywhere, and people falling through the air. At the bottom, it says, The Tower.
“That card means that your past was…” he winces, “… kind of a nuclear implosion? Everything you thought was stable just…” he makes an exploding gesture with his hands, “… fell apart all at once.”
My eyes widen. Maybe this isn’t nonsense after all.
“I’m right?” he asks, studying my face.
“Unfortunately,” I say, exhaling. “Yeah.”
“I’m right.” A slow grin spreads across his face. “Oh my God, I’m right.” He laughs, startled and delighted at the same time. “Wow.”
“You need to work on your delivery.”
“Wait.” He starts shuffling again, way too eager for my liking. “Let me see if I can get more detail on that.”
“I don’t need to know the details, I lived—”
He shushes me and pulls two cards without waiting for me this time, laying each out on his knee.
“Oh. Okay. Yeah.” He nods sagely. “That tracks.”
“Can you maybe translate out loud?”
He turns the first card toward me. A cloaked figure stands hunched over three spilled cups with two still upright behind them. It says, Five of Cups.
“This one says you’ve lost something important, and that the grief is almost overwhelming.”
Shit.
“It wasn’t something.” I swallow. “It was someone. I lost my mom.”
“Damn.” He sobers instantly. “I’m so sorry.”
My vision blurs as my nose starts to sting. I rub at the bridge of it, willing the threat of tears away. “Can we just… not talk about that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He nods quickly, then straightens. “We can absolutely pivot.”
He taps the second card—three swords piercing a heart. Three of Swords.
“This one says your love life was absolute trash.” His eyebrow quirks beneath his curls as he looks up at me expectantly. “Am I right again?”
I sniff, then huff out a weak laugh. “Wow. Emotional whiplash.”
“What happened there?”
“It wasn’t even dramatic. Everything was fine, but then my mom got sick, and I quit my job to take care of her, and somewhere in those months, he just…
stopped showing up. Barely called. Only answered when I called first.” I shrug.
“But to be fair, I didn’t call much either. I was busy keeping my mom alive.”
Jasper’s mouth tightens, but he stays silent.
“And then,” I continue, surprised by how steady my voice sounds. “At her funeral, I thought things might finally get better. Instead, I overheard him and my friends talking. He told them he wasn’t into me anymore. So I left.”
It’s strange how little that part hurts now, compared to everything else.
Jasper scowls. “What’s his name?”
“Why?” I snicker. “Want to go teach him a lesson?”
“His name,” he says firmly. “And his birthday.”
“Spencer. June tenth.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Jasper says immediately. “Avoidant attachment and a Gemini man? That’s a double whammy.”
He taps his forehead with two fingers.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting a mental hex on him,” he says casually. “Go on.”
“Stop it.”
“I will not. And whenever I need to test a new one, he’s gonna be my guinea pig.”
I open my mouth to protest, then close it again.
I’m allowed to be a little petty.
“Still down to do the rest of the reading?” Jasper asks, and when I nod, he straightens. “Okay. Present.”
He shuffles again, then holds the deck up in front of my face, thumb gliding along the edges.
“Stop.”
He flips the deck where it stopped and groans. “Ugh. Yeah. We know that already.”
“What does it say?”
He turns the card so I can see it. A blindfolded figure, arms crossed around two swords, balanced on something that looks as if it could tip either way.
“The Two of Swords,” he says. “Which is basically tarot for stuck. Limbo.”
Those cards are just rude.
“That’s… once again, uncomfortably accurate,” I admit.
“Right? Ugh. Let’s see if we have more luck with your future.”
He gathers the deck, shuffles, then holds it out in front of me again. “Say stop.”
“Stop.”
He pulls the card his thumb lands on, and his body goes rigid, making my stomach drop.
“Jasper?”
He doesn’t answer right away, only studies the card intently, thumb worrying the edge before he swallows. “I don’t…” He exhales softly. “I don’t know what this means if it’s for the future.”
He turns the card around.
Death.