Magic Tricks
April
I
t was his birthday today. He was probably celebrating with the friends he promised to introduce her to, in his house she’d never seen, with the new girl he was hooking up with. It was his birthday and she was in her room, scream-crying into her pillow.
Why do movies never realistically portray women going through a break-up? It’s always girls in oversized shirts and messy buns with tissues shoved up their noses, crying into the laps of their consoling friends, oversleeping in their queen-sized beds. Their sadness is fleeting to benefit the plot; soon they are getting revenge or looking hotter than realistically possible or getting bangs or riding a man with bigger biceps. They never show the snot bubbles and the gummy, contorted mouth, the puffy, blood-red eyes that look like you went three rounds with a professional boxer, never tell you that you can pee yourself a little from crying.
No, in real life, where there are real fucking women, heartbreak was hideous, an excruciating—and frankly, overrated—bodily response to the ending of a relationship. It felt like every cell, every fibre of her miserable being was just… sad. Her lungs felt crushed by wailing, her ribs sore from hyperventilating. Her heart felt like a window shattered by a wrapped fist. Her brain felt stuffy and sluggish, like she was walking through sand on a hot, humid day. The pain was always there, so oppressive and all-consuming that no prayer or breathwork or distraction in vain could take it away. The few moments she did escape, dare to think about something else, all it took was a smell or a joke he would like or a glimpse of a man who looked like him and it came back like a rapidly rising gradient of dread.
Turns out heartbreak wasn’t overrated.
She had been in love before (or at least she thought), felt broken, then angry, cut her hair short as a defiant, feminist act of moving on. But this was different. She’d take anger and a busted haircut any day over being a sad, sulking fuck.
How could a man do that to her? A man she wasn’t even dating? Well, they were dating—sort of. They were together. No, they were seeing each other. Or is seeing each other more serious than together?
Maybe it was just sex. So, hooking up? It had been eight months of dates. Of non-stop texting each other, calling each other baby. Of talking about music and politics and art and life. She had never met a man so cultured, so able to talk about everything. He showed her things she didn’t know, films she hadn’t seen, places she hadn’t been, foods she hadn’t eaten. No man had ever been able to teach her things. He could keep up with her, with her friends. He could talk about the wars in Sudan and Ukraine, the environmental cost of AI, how many husbands JLo has had. He was fascinated that she worked at a publishing house, even though she told him marketing was nothing exciting. She was hoping to move up the ladder and pitch them a novel one day. She was a writer, mostly for herself. He wanted to read everything she was working on. That was the hardest thing to come to terms with, that at 25, it had taken all these years to find someone like him. And that was without the sex.
Undressing him was like unveiling a new statue of a worshipped God. Bronze, tall, slender legs on a stacked ass. A tattoo of Che Guevara on his ankle. She couldn’t believe she had been so lucky.
When she thinks about him now, the first thing that she sees are his incisors, large and pointy, like vampire fangs, piled in his crowded mouth. That mouth. Deliciously pillowy and full, that knew how to kiss every part of her slow and sensually, and that tongue—which wasn’t really the best at flicking her clitoris—but that didn’t matter. It got her off more to see it slither around the curves of an S, buck up against his overbite. And my God, that deep voice, dripping and oozing on every word and every syllable, over sounds not made in English. But it was nothing compared to hearing him say her name. She hated the sound of her name in other people’s mouths, even her own. But when he said it, the sound of it wrapped around his nicotine and beer-stained tongue, humming like hallelujah in his deep voice, her knees weakened and her mouth trembled. No sound had ever made her so ready and desperate to fuck like it was her last day on earth.
This was a deep gaping wound from childhood, a grade four tear right to the heart. Her abandonment issues made her a vortex for men just looking for a ride.
Now there was only teeth and voice and Che left. She desperately clung to these sounds and sights, to his small acts of tenderness and deep gazes of admiration that said I love you even if the words were never uttered out loud.
They hadn’t been exclusive. They spent a lot of time together, sure (mostly forced by her), but he agreed to meet her, so he wanted, to, right? Everybody could see the way he looked at her, like she was the only woman in the galaxy. She used that to gain the upper hand she knew she didn’t have.
But love? No, this wasn’t love.
This was a deep gaping wound from childhood, a grade four tear right to the heart. Her abandonment issues made her a vortex for men just looking for a ride. Guys liked her mind, but it was her body, her mouth that they wanted. But when they stayed too long, past the initial fuck, past the initial use of her mouth, what then came out of her lips turned them soft. She was too smart. Too opinionated. No man wanted that.
But he did. He was the first one to really see her for who she was—not a sex object, or a wounded animal. He saw her brilliance. He saw her as an equal. Someone to walk through niche museums with and sit on grassy knolls reading Dostoevsky and de Beauvoir, someone to share an AirPod with playing Armstrong and Simone.
It turns out he was no different, though. He may have found her intriguing, rare (his words), an enigma, but it wasn’t enough to make it official. He never said what they were, wouldn’t commit when she asked. And yet he asked to meet her friends. Her mother. Her roommate. His sister knew about her. How could something as serious as meeting each other’s loved ones could be undercut by not wanting to be serious at all?
The last time she had heard from him was now 18 days ago. What a fucking journey she had been through. The first two days she played it cool, refusing to be needy. By day three, she texted to see if he was okay. By that evening she hadn’t heard back, and she called and texted for several more days with no reply. She even sent a follow request on Instagram that went unanswered. By day seven, after endless walks in the rising spring heat, crying in the grocery store, and nursing the gnawing in her stomach, she asked her friend to call him private number, just to see if he’d pick up. He did. That initiated a 48-hour breakdown, where she cried non-stop, hyperventilating, vomiting, her hair matted to her face in her sweltering apartment, and wishing she could just die.
It was bad. So bad that her therapist cancelled her other patients’ appointments and begged her to come in immediately.
So bad that her mother drove an hour and a half to the city to check on her, only to yell at her and ask why she was letting some guy she barely knew affect her like this. It wasn’t even that serious.
She knew it was stupid. Who cries for days on end and can’t shower or brush their teeth or even breathe over some guy they never even dated? It was fucking embarrassing. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t turn it off, like her body was in mourning, even if her mind was trying to move on. She couldn’t fathom why he’d do this to her, just ignore her as what they shared wasn’t profound, transcendental and transformative, like their bodies—their souls—weren’t meant for each other. She felt hurt, so abandoned and betrayed by his voluntary absence, like he was digging his finger in the barely healed bullet hole in her chest, the one that her father had made all those years ago.
It was serious. It was life changing. You couldn’t tell her that it wasn’t meant to be.
May
Since she’s open to humiliation these days, she learns how to run. She gasps as her lungs constrict, blinks sweat out of her eyes. She feels sweat dripping down her scalp, watering her gelled down roots, turning her curls into a field of frizz.
Running gives her structure, discipline. She starts to feel lighter, more like herself. That fleeting feeling of euphoria shakes her out of her despair, and so she commits to turning this act of curiosity into a habit. She wakes up, goes for a run, eats breakfast, logs on for work. Sometimes in the evenings, she goes for another run so that her endorphins will work overtime to battle her nightmares.
Running is a more welcomed kind of discomfort. Cramping calves, stomach pain, burning lungs. She likes putting her body through a different kind of torment, one that will at least benefit her. While running, she can’t think about the fact that it’s been 39 days since she last heard from him. While running, she can’t think about the dreams.
Every night he visits her in his skinny black jeans, with his sharp teeth and pointed tongue, though he never speaks. He stares at her with that blank, empty look he gave her the last time she saw him, like the trance was broken and he could see who she really was. Someone once told her that souls travel during sleep. Was his soul trying to find hers?
Her best friend, who is into crystals and tarot and chakras suggests she do a cord cutting, a ceremony involving intention and rope and fire to sever one’s psychic and emotional connection to someone. She swears by SereneAngel, who, for $15 dollars, claims to break even the most toxic bonds. Her best friend sends her a link to an outdated website with a grainy avatar of a pale-skinned fairy whose face is pasted onto a translucent moon. She pays and waits.
Three days later, she awakes feeling much lighter, as if all the pain that had swelled up in her body had finally drained out. She gets a message from SereneAngel saying she just completed the cord cutting. She shares affirmations to practice daily and a seven-day ritual that involves writing her wishes on a piece of paper and placing it under her pillow, burying it at the end of the week. She does neither.
During a two-hour Zoom work meeting that could’ve been an email, she swipes on men, though each is less attractive, less articulate, more forward than the last.
When she tries to brood, to summon those feelings of despair, she is numb to them. When she thinks of him, she feels like an impenetrable fortress, the dark thoughts unable to attack. She isn’t sure if it’s the cord cutting or her endorphins running through her body from her daily runs, but she is just relieved to not feel miserable. She stops dreaming about him—stops dreaming at all (that’s probably the good sleep she’s getting after her runs!).
She takes advantage of her freedom by downloading the suite of dating apps. During a two-hour Zoom work meeting that could’ve been an email, she swipes on men, though each is less attractive, less articulate, more forward than the last. She imagines herself on their arm, knowing that none of them could inspire the level of jealousy of strangers on the street like when she was with him. She was unconventionally beautiful, he was objectivity gorgeous; together they were stunning, the kind of couple you imagine in bed and wished you were in the room. When she was with him, she loved how both women and men eye-fucked him with a feral glint in their eyes. She liked how their eyes then shifted to meet hers, with a look and a smirk as if to say, good for you, girl. She loved watching insecure women who would never have a chance with him stumble over their words, flushed. She loved watching confident women desperately try to lock eyes with him, pull his attention away from her, just to prove they could. They never succeeded.
The memories just sting, but do not devastate. It’s the best $15 she’s ever spent.
She matches with one guy—not as tall, not as handsome, but there’s something about him that seems… normal? He works at the bank. He has no pets. He solo travels. He has a lot of photos camping and holding fish. She hates nature, but she’s in her era of trying new things. When he asks her out on a date, she agrees.
She wonders what he’d think of her moving on. Would he be jealous? If he knew, would that make him call? Maybe he’s already dating, already inside someone else. Whoever she was, he was wasting his time. She’d never compare. Not with her new body (now down ten pounds!) and her newfound confidence and her normal guy with a good job who can actually take her somewhere nice.
The date goes well. They talk all night. He doesn’t wear tight pants or ripped denim jackets, doesn’t smell like cigarettes and beer. Instead, he wears white slacks and a black linen shirt, loafers and ankle socks, and a cologne reserved for men hotter than he is. The more she studies his face, the more she realizes he actually is handsome. He talks about stocks and finance, not art and novels, and she tries to keep her disinterest at bay. He’s receptive to her impassioned talk about the state of the world, reproductive rights, racism. He agrees with her views, engages with her, though she can tell he is slightly uncomfortable. When the bill comes, he slides it towards him, pulls out his wallet. Her initial lukewarm attraction becomes a warm flood between her legs.
He asks for a second date. She agrees.
She continues to text the new guy for the next week. They send each other memes and photos of their mundane lives. He sends a selfie of himself at his desk; she zooms into the reflection of his bulge. She sends a full body selfie on the track before she begins her run. She is disappointed when all he says is, Nice! Still, he grows on her slowly, like a pot trying to boil on low heat.
A few days later, while showering after her run, she combs her conditioner through her thick hair and something drops from her body. She looks down and finds herself surrounded by clumps of her curls, all around her like little black snakes. She holds up her comb; it is thick with strands, follicle to end.
She nearly slips as she dashes out of the shower, tilting her head toward the mirror and raking her shaky hands over the crown of her head, searching. Her throat tastes acidic. There is a shiny bald patch.
June
The heaviness returns to her like a meteor crashing into a field of flowers.
It is unrelenting. It punishes her for thinking she could escape it. The feeling of slowly dying returns. So does the hyperventilating. The dreams. The inescapable dread. She doesn’t know why—she had been having mundane, distracting chats with the guy from the date. What happened? She buys another cord cutting with SereneAngel and waits, but this time, nothing changes. The guy she’s been texting asks again where she’d like go for their second date. She reads it then turns off her phone.
Her mother is worried, but she convinces her that it’s work stress; she just needs some quiet time alone. She doesn’t tell her she’s been written up for logging on late three times in the past week, and twice the week before. Her best friend is concerned too—she’s been over a few times, a listening ear to the same story. She brings her tarot cards. She pulls a Ten of Swords and tells her, with a wide-eyed look of concern she doesn’t appreciate, that she needs to relax.
Her therapist gives her the same look as she explains that stress-induced alopecia is very serious. She asks what she has been doing for self-regulation, for coping strategies. She lies and says meditation and exercise (which was technically true until the bald spot). The therapist asks if this stress is related to him. She lies and says no, she is over it, that she is just struggling with finishing her novel (which technically isn’t a lie). She knows her therapist doesn’t believe her; still, she recommends breathwork exercises.
Instead, she scours the internet for an answer to why she feels so haunted by this non-break-up break-up. She comes across a blog post written by PsychicSpirita about Twin Flames, an intense soul connection—a "mirror soul"—where one soul splits across two bodies and tries to find one another in this current life.
She reads on:
Twin flames have passionate, spiritually and sexually profound relationships. Challenging, emotional, and volatile, the twin flame connection is a pact made in a past life to help each soul ascend and awaken to full personal growth. As such, the twin flame connection triggers deep unresolved trauma. They follow a cycle where one partner is the pursuer/chaser and the other is the runner. This results in a pattern chasing and pulling away, then separation, before they reunite—until it begins again.
A wave of validation runs through her. Could he be her twin flame? He had brought out the most uncontrolled, animalistic pleasure and grief in her. She had this indescribable feeling of being tethered, connected even in absence, like she knew he was thinking of her, like she could feel his regret.
Under the post is a link to PsychicSpirita’s readings, with cover images of AI generated witches, candles and angels.
How do they feel about you? No sugarcoating
Is he thinking about you? In-depth love reading
Words from your person of interest. 100% accurate or your money back!
She sees love spells too (Make him fall in love with you FAST!) but she draws the line at dark magic.
She clicks on a photo of a candle with a description that says, Same day love reading: 1 question.
She carefully reads the description: Please share your name, DOB, the DOB of your person of interest and your question. Sending photos also helps me connect to your energies.
Only $10? She adds the reading to her cart and uploads two separate photos—one of each of them (his, taken his Facebook page, which hasn’t been active in three years). In the text box, she asks, Will he ever reach out to me again? Her cheeks glow at the sight of her own desperation.
She puts in her credit card information and saves it for next time. She hits send, leaving it up to the universe.
Normally she can tune out her mother’s endless gabbing about a pebble in her shoe, a colleague clearing their throat too often, a slow driver who wouldn’t get out of the fast lane. But today she is agitated by the sound of her voice, finds her complaining (this time about not being able to find a ripe pear at the grocery store) a waste of her time. She puts her mother on speakerphone and refreshes her inbox for the dozenth time in 15 minutes.
The reading promised same day electronic delivery, though after she bought it she realizes that was only if the order was made before 7 p.m. PsychicSpirita didn’t say what time customers could expect it after that (unprofessional, she thinks), so she continues to refresh her email, wondering if her question wasn’t clear enough, if the website glitched and her order didn’t go through, if the photo of him was too old, or if the answer was so savage that PsychicSpirita was trying to find a nice way to tell her she is a loser.
Finally, at 12:01p.m., she gets a notification that her reading is ready. She tells her mom she’s late for a meeting and hangs up.
Hello lovely!
I have connected with my spirit guide on your behalf and have received a clear vision for you regarding your question.
He does want to come back into your life and has the right intentions! He wants you to be part of his future and I feel he definitely wants the deep committed relationship with you.
When I connect to the energies, I see this is a twin flame connection. He’s thinking of you too. You’re both deeply, spiritually, sexually connected. You guys never cut the cord. His energy is so strong BECAUSE he is your twin flame, you both equally are still holding onto a connection that came from a previous life.
What I see here is that yes, he will reach out to you again and I see you both talking things over. You both still have a strong connection to each other! He can feel this but he doesn't understand it yet. He will reach out to you next month, many blessings xx
She steadies her shaking hands. A smile spreads across her face. She knew it. She knew she wasn’t crazy.
She sends her best friend the reading.
Shit!!! She replies.
I know, right???
Do you believe it?
Definitely. I had a feeling.
That’s crazy. Just be careful tho. Some of those psychics are scams.
She likes the text.
Her friend isn’t wrong, but she prides herself on knowing what’s real and what’s not, on being open to all kinds of knowledge.
She is high on his newfound source of information, of accessing life’s secrets through the spiritual world. She could have any answer she wanted to their relationship, find out what he was thinking at all times.
That knowledge was a slippery slope. It was dangerous to know so much, she knew that. But now that she knew, she needed to know more.
She finds a trove—hundreds if not thousands of readers just like PsychicSpirita—offering similar things, but with higher ratings and glowing reviews.
Thanks for the reading! Really resonated.
She told me he’d reach out in two weeks. Guess who called!
I was skeptical but bought a reading for fun. I was pleasantly surprised.
She chooses a $6 reading: SAME HOUR! What is he thinking about you right now? To her surprise, she gets it in 45 minutes.
I feel that he seems to feel a very strong connection to you and even right now, he thinks about you often. I feel that those times you are out of nowhere thinking of him is because he's thinking of you. I feel that he does want to reach out and will hope that you will agree to see where things go once he does. I do feel he has no intention of being "just friends" and he will make this clear. Love and light <3
Her eyes well as she re-reads it. She is so satisfied with her reading that she gives her a five-star rating and writes her back.
Thank you so much for this clarity!! This resonates so much! I look forward to it ☺
July
She prepares for his return. Two runs a day, protein and veggies only, and a well-rehearsed response for when he inevitably texts her—one that will strike the right balance between displeasure at his absence and restrained delight at his reappearance.
She apologizes to the guy for the delay in getting back to him about the date, tells him she’s been on an emergency trip due to a family issue. She feels bad, especially since he’s so understanding, but she knows she’s settling. Plus, what would he think if he found out she was dating someone else? Men don’t like knowing another man has had you so soon after them.
She daydreams about where their reunion will take place. At the bar, for sure, the one they used to go to with the dim lighting and loud music and extra crispy fries and smell of bleach and booze. Those nights, after several pitchers of beers (which she only drank so he’d think she was low maintenance), he’d reach over the table and grab her face, their tongues a clash of drunken, lusty desperation. Those nights, she rode him hard until she was slick with their sweat, her body still twitching even hours after.
But that was then. Now, would she give in just because he apologized? No, she would need to scold him first. He would need to understand how hurtful his actions were. She would need to know why he did it, need to admit that she was everything he wanted but he was too scared/dumb/stubborn/afraid. Was it cruel to want him to grovel? Was it psychopathic that the thought sparked a bolt of lightning between her legs?
Instead of writing her novel, she writes down what she would say to him when she finally sees him again.
While she waits, she buys a tarot deck, selecting one card each day as a guidance message. She buys Florida Water to bathe in, puts amethyst and rose quartz by her bedside to attract his love, lights a clear quartz-infused candle for manifestation. She writes him letters then burns them in the sink. She follows Instagram psychics and watches monthly tarot readings for each of their astrological signs (the readers pick up that both signs are due for a reunion with a romantic partner).
Instead of writing her novel, she writes down what she would say to him when she finally sees him again. Nearing the end of the month, she buys another reading to make sure he’s still on track for reaching out.
Thank you for choosing me for your reading! I sense him thinking about you from afar and this has urged him to reach out in some way my dear.
She is disappointed by its brevity, but the listing did say short and sweet.
August
The psychics say look for the numbers 212 or a Yin and Yang sign. Open your third eye. Hone your intuition. Pay attention to dreams, continue to meditate, burn sage. He is on his way.
She buys another reading from PsychicSpirita, the first psychic who promised he’d be back by July. PsychicSpirita explains that it’s difficult to predict timelines—most psychics don’t do it because of free will. Every action and decision we make comes with a reaction. Free will can change the timeline. Free will can change everything.
What had he done to change the course of their reunion? She had literally been here waiting, delicately walking on the eggshells of her own life as to carefully avoid disrupting what was meant for them. Had he met someone else? Was there something she said in their text thread that could be misconstrued, months later?
Her date asks if she’s enjoying her meal. She feels oddly annoyed at the question, at the small dimple in his chin, the way he holds his knife like a toddler, the single, sharp hair poking out of his nose. She nods and offers a sugary smile, fixes her red ruffled dress. He would have loved her outfit. He would have ripped it right off her body.
She had finally agreed to date two. He had been messaging her to ask how her family was. She lied and said everything was stable now. She kept him on a text diet of scraps—a happy face emoji here, a question there, an exclamation mark. Waiting for her grand, destined reunion was becoming agonizing. Might as well spend it in someone’s company who wasn’t going to be creepy or murder her.
Her best friend was pushing her to give him a chance. He clearly liked her. That bored feeling was her nervous system not being in shambles like it was used to. At least he had a job and could take her out so she didn’t have to pay for everything, her friend said. She agreed. It was nice to not have to take care of a man for once, to not have to whip out her wallet the many times he accidentally left his at home. Her friend said she deserved to be treated like a lady, and that she needed to get her mind off him, live in the real world, lay off the readings. She found it condescending and hypocritical. She refrained from reminding her friend of the time she stayed silently supportive while her fragile mental state led her to obsessively apply essential oils to her whole body to the point of getting a yeast infection in her belly button and her face looking like an oil slick that smelled of geranium.
She had diffused her hair, applied plum lip liner and pink gloss, slathered shimmery body oil to her shoulders and chest. She wanted to watch him squirming and tormented in his seat, on the verge of imploding as he fought himself from slipping a hand under the table, inside her panties, like he would. She wanted to know that he could offer more than friendly banter and advice about bank stocks and a single compliment about how nice she looked.
But his eyes didn’t wander south of her contoured nose. He didn’t even comment on her dress or her shimmery skin or her chunky gold earrings or lacquered lips. She wonders if he’s one of those guys who just wants company or a cuddle buddy. She wonders if she’s even his type or if he too is buying time, waiting on a reunion of his own.
He asks her if everything is okay. Of course, she tells him with a tight, sugary smile. He says she looks preoccupied.
Not at all, she says. She’s just got a headache.
He looks defeated. She looks at her phone, then quickly excuses herself to the washroom, locking herself in a stall full of affirmation graffiti by heartbroken girls before her.
September
She takes a puff of her inhaler, breathes in deeply. The stale summer heat lingers into the early weeks of fall, making it hard to catch her breath. So hot she can’t complete her run. She grasps at her chest, sputtering mucus from her burning lungs.
She’s wasted a perfectly hot body and a revirginized vagina waiting for him all summer. She’s checked her spam inboxes, done her own tarot readings, meditated, manifested. She’s journaled, lit candles, cleansed herself in spiritual salt baths, whispered to guardian angels, to her dead grandmother. She even did the damn affirmations from SereneAngel. What she won’t do is text him, even though she re-reads their exchanges every few days. She even cancelled her follow request on Instagram, though she occasionally zooms in on his new avatar, a selfie somewhere beachy. Who did go on vacation with? He promised her they’d go to Costa Rica. Did he take his new girlfriend? Was she the one who took the photo?! A moment of reason comes over her hypertense body. Let him have his fun. He is the runner; he will come back when he’s ready. She won’t force it; she isn’t desperate (anymore).
She decides PsychicSpirta isn’t actually good at her job. She must have bought those reviews, like restaurants do. She leaves her a one-star review and finds another reader, this time with more reviews that promise she’s the real deal. She asks why she hasn’t heard from him when all the other readers promised he was coming back months ago.
I’m sensing many delays around your connection. I do sense his feelings have become stronger at times then he has pushed them down again which causes some conflict within him. This can cause things to be incomplete with any connections you currently have as you’re stuck waiting.
Through spirit and from what the tarot cards are showing it is revealing for there is intent to connect with you but not long-term. This would only be for short-term connection. You'll stay pretty busy dating in the meantime until he comes back.
I do see a long-term, secure connection for you, 2-3 years out. Take each day as it comes and try and focus on yourself and your hopes and dreams until you are able to let go fully. If you have any clarity questions about what has been said please feel free to ask!
Her stomach contorts at this new, confusing revelation. She once read online that readers connect to what the person is thinking right at that moment. Maybe he was temporarily confused, struggling.
What a shitty, patronizing reader.
This would only be for a short-term connection.
Fine, she thinks. That’s fine. As long as it’s something. As long as he comes back.
October
Up in her room, the sauna of summer air has turned into a crisp chill. She sits by her tiny altar and pulls out her tarot deck, shuffling for the card of the day. It flies out, sliding across the hardwood floor. Death.
She knows Death can be many things—patterns, cycles or habits that are ending, a literal conclusion. She thinks of her date, who messaged her after they last saw each other, asking if she was sure she was okay. She ignored the message. He never followed up.
She’s thought about going back on the apps, but there is no point. He was coming back any day now. She couldn’t explain the physiological feeling in her body, like she was swelling with anticipation. It lit her skin on fire. She had learned to trust her intuition, her body—and they were telling her he was close.
Death. She wonders how many of her cells have died and regenerated while she waits for him. How much of her hair has slithered out of her scalp? Her shiny bald patch has become a soft, spikey fuzzball like that of a newborn baby, which she’s been massaging with rosemary oil despite touching it making her want to throw up.
How much of herself has died over these past five months? Was she reincarnating into someone bolder? Someone less willing to take shit? She hoped so. Some of her was already gone: her hair, which has grown back white in certain spots; her melanin, which had disappeared into a heart-shaped patch of stress-induced vitiligo between her breasts; her faith in men, which was already shaky before him, and her best friend, who was no longer speaking to her. They had gotten into a text war last month after she had asked if she could spot her $100 until she got paid, to which her friend unleashed an essay about her worrying behaviour and that she could no longer support this addiction now that it was making her broke and isolated from the real world.
The real world. What did anyone know about the real world when there was a whole other universe that held secrets from beyond the earth? It was offensive to treat her like she had no impulse control, like she was crazy. She was simply a girl whose heart was broken. The real world was full of people like her, reeling from the actions of others, from people who disappeared from their life like they meant absolutely nothing. So what if she wanted to make herself feel better? Didn’t we all do that? Shop, therapize, drink, smoke, fuck until we felt alive again, until we no longer had death wishes, until the painful memories are sealed in a coffin, buried six feet under in the soft, delicate grounds of our minds?
February
Fresh snowfall blankets the city, the stillness a snapshot of time. Everyone is still nestled in their warm beds, dreaming of spring and all-inclusive vacations.
But she is up. She’s working on her novel. There’s something exclusive about choosing to be up in the dead of winter before everyone else. It makes her feel like a superior human.
She learns that motivation isn’t the secret to success, it’s discipline. One she unlocks this life skill, she can write every day. She writes from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., then goes to the gym, eats breakfast, and gets ready for work at her new job as a junior editor.
It turns out time does heal all. Well, the new job helps. She feels like she’s emerged from months of deep-sea diving. Now she’s back on land, grateful for the air and sun, and determined to never sink back down to those depths again.
She learns she is a chaser who dates runners. Here she thought she had been going through a temporary bout of psychosis. Turns out, she was just triggered and had a shit attachment style.
After committing to resolve her daddy issues—a gruelling, three-month process of psychotherapy—her therapist finally suggests she start dating again. She’s currently seeing a teacher, an artist, a construction worker, and an “entrepreneur.” It’s going okay, nothing that inspires blinding chemistry. Her heart is still tender, especially when her head tries to make comparisons to him and the guys she is dating. But then she hears her therapist’s voice and remembers that the level of intensity she experienced with him was a nervous system response, a cyclical pattern of behaviour based on her abandonment issues. It was unhealthy, toxic.
Her therapist said he activated her father wound. This makes her feel better about herself, knowing it was something out of her control. She learns she is a chaser who dates runners. Here she thought she had been going through a temporary bout of psychosis. Turns out, she was just triggered and had a shit attachment style.
She wishes she could call her best friend, tell her about her mental health glow up. She’d even admit she had, in fact, not been living in reality, that she had been, simply put, a clown. She wished her happy birthday last week, told her she would love to take her out for dinner, that she missed her. She replied with sounds good but no follow-up, which was progress from being left on read, which was progress from getting a thumbs up emoji (in the default yellow colour. Rude!).
There are now days where she forgets about him entirely, which is freeing. But other days, she’s overcome with an insatiable need to know what he’s doing and thinking. Some days she’s chomping at the bit to be destructive, to blow her life up. She never told her therapist she used to buy readings—hundreds of dollars’ worth—that would be too embarrassing. Instead, she made herself a promise: when she is restless and romanticizing the past, which is less and less, she flips to a doggy-eared page in her notebook where, in a moment of clarity, she wrote: He was only here to teach you a lesson. His only purpose was to help you grow. He was not meant forever. YOU DESERVE MORE!
His brief involvement in her life had helped her blossom. She now had a new job, a draft of her novel almost complete, her bald spot growing out, and a pending application to adopt an elder Scottish Terrier. She had even joined CrossFit and made some new friends. She was hot! Accomplished! Driven! Mentally well! She deserved someone who could see that. Not some emotionally stunted guy who couldn’t communicate how he felt, pretended to be smarter than he was, made women pay for dinner, drank too much beer, and frankly, needed to wash his clothes more.
And who knows, maybe in a few years that long-term connection one of the psychics sensed will end up being The One. But she wasn’t holding her breath.
She shuts her laptop and goes to her bedroom to put on her workout attire. She is now the girl who wears leggings and only a sports bra to the gym.
She puts on her winter boots and sherpa jacket, grabs her keys, and slings her heavy gym bag over her shoulder to make the first footsteps in the latest snowfall.
Ding!
Her phone vibrates in her pocket.
She pulls it out. Her mother always checked on her on her way to the gym, still not convinced she was no longer in crisis. She always answers because she knows that otherwise she’ll think she’s killed herself, and the last thing she needs is her neighbours gossiping about a wellness check.
She pulls it out and frowns. It’s a number she doesn’t recognize.
At least not at first.
Then it comes back to her. Che. Her name on his tongue. Those incisors, sharp and devastating, cutting right through her heart.
Hey ☺
