particular someone. A someone who doesn’t want to be with me.
Fuck. Fate.
I sigh, squirming on the pillows on the floor and breathing in the burning incense as I look up through the makeshift skylight. When I feel tears hitting my cheeks, I brush them away angrily. You’d think after three weeks, I’d be done crying, but apparently, this particularly physical gesture can linger forever.
It comes on suddenly, too. One second I can be sitting there, and the next, I’ll see something that reminds me of Warren, and I’ll start bawling like a baby.
Heartache fricken sucks.
The door to the meditation retreat suddenly opens, causing my legs to fall down, since my feet were propped up on it.
I look up at Hum Judy, and when her eyes land on me, her lips purse. She comes inside, knocking my legs aside so that she can tug the door closed behind her. Then she sits down across from me, spreading her legs out beside mine.
“You have tissues stuffed up your nostrils,” she points out unhelpfully.
“This is more efficient,” I say, pointing at my nose. “The tissues catch my snot every time I cry, so I don’t have to keep blowing it. My nose was getting chafed.”
Hum Judy does not look impressed with my ingenuity. “You gonna wear that thing every day?”
I look down at Warren’s suit jacket that’s wrapped around me. I know, I know. I’m pathetic. But it still smells like him, and I miss him, dammit.
“I was thinking about it, yeah,” I answer honestly.
She straightens her long skirt that she opted to wear today around her ankles before leveling me with a look. “Your aura is sick.”
I blink at her and then tug out the tissues from my nose so that I can talk to her without it sounding like I’ve sucked on helium. “Why do you say that?” I ask.
Hum Judy’s bright eyes travel over me. “When I first met you, it shone like a million prisms. So many colors. So much reach,” she says with a flourish, causing her bracelets to jingle on her wrist. “And you got brighter and brighter every day. Until…” she trails off at my flinch, and she gives me a look of understanding. “These past few weeks, you’ve been waning. I can barely see it anymore,” she finishes sadly.
I swallow around a dry, rough tongue and pick at the fabric of my jeans. “Yeah. I’m kind of...broken. In more ways than one,” I confess quietly.
Hum Judy shakes her head, causing her puffy gray hair to shake with it, the feathers and beads getting tangled in the strands. “You’re not broken, girl. You just lost your thrive.”
I tilt my head and dry my eyes. “My thrive?”
Hum Judy nods. “It happens. And it can be different for everyone. For me, my thrive is this place,” she confesses, waving a hand towards the door. “It’s Hale and Rob. It’s this community I live in. But for some people, it could be their children. Their pets. Their jobs. It could be something as simple as reading or singing or painting. It could be a person. A place. It could be a feeling. We all have a thrive. And when we have it...life is good. We shine. We feel full. But when we lose it…”
Emotion coats my lashes. “We dim.”
She nods slowly, her eyes never leaving my face. “Go find your thrive, girl.” I watch her as she stands up, her knees popping as she straightens. “These old bones aren’t what they used to be,” she says with a smile. “Life goes by too fast, you know?”
Yeah. I know.
After Hum Judy leaves me, I peel myself off the floor and go back to Blue and Bea’s house. I trudge inside the bathroom and shower, letting the cool water ease my puffy eyes. When I come back out, dressed in some jeans and a t-shirt, Bea and Blue peer over at me from the loft railing, looking surprised to see me showered.
“How you doing, Trix?” Blue calls down.
I feel guilty and embarrassed for making her worry about me lately, so I try to plaster on a smile. “I’m good. Great. Two thumbs up,” I lie, popping both thumbs up to help sell it.
She just continues to look at me. Okay, so I guess I didn’t sell it.
“I’m going to head out for a little while.”
Blue and Bea share a look. Probably speaking telepathically with their twin powers or something, because then they both look back at me at the same time