Listening to Logan, passion explodes in me, shooting sparks across my mind.
“Easy,” I answer. “We would have learned about our deck at some point, given all the tarot shops we were planning to visit. The number four and the Prince of Wands hold significance to us we always would have emphasized, in any position. We got other suits and numbers, too, but you don’t see those as ‘signs.’ Because this is all just human synapse, us making meaning of coincidence as we decide where we really want to go.”
“You think this is all meaningless?” Logan pushes back. “That there’s no higher power at work? I’d think you of all people would understand the significance behind the tarot’s spiritual roots.”
You of all people. For some reason, it’s like invisible kerosene soaking my skin suddenly ignites. I become a woman inflamed, my words ready to burn.
“What I understand is that the human mind is powerful and that the tarot draws from its roots in psychology. So, yes, this is all deeply meaningful. But not because we’re trudging along some predestined plot penned by an omnipotent man in the sky.”
“That’s so reductive,” Logan counters sharply, “and not at all what—”
“Could it be both are true?” Chase interrupts. “That we choose our way walking down many planned paths? That it’s up to us to learn the right lessons?”
Chase is smart to try to defuse this conversation, even if I’d rather just have my best friend side with me. With literally just one moment to cool down, I realize Logan and I have been talking at each other instead of to each other. Still, the coded “Does God really exist?” debate has been bubbling below the surface between us for too long. We usually have the space to let it breathe, but today’s road tripping has pushed us together a little too tightly.
“Well, we can at least agree on one thing: we need to go stay at the Joshua Tree Inn tonight,” I say, standing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mother Nature now truly calls.”
Washing my hands in the sink, I try not to stare too hard at my reflection in this fluorescent-lit mirror. My earlier suspicions were correct—I look like a hot mess of a wreck.
Once my hands are dry, out of habit I pull back my wild tangle of curly hair to see if the stress spots are finally growing back. I inadvertently pulled out entire strands when my panic disorder got particularly bad last year, but now most of the visible patches have grown over. Once finished, I then press a pastel-nailed finger on the underside of my jaw, flattening out the layer of fat there. I’ve always had a double chin and I’ve always wanted to know what my face would look like without one.
“I don’t know why you do that,” Cleo says, suddenly beside me.
I nearly jump because I didn’t hear Cleo come in. She really can be as silent as a ghost when she wants to be.
“You’re an ancient Roman statue of freaking beauty.”
“Old habits die hard,” I sigh, very much wanting to get the focus off me. “Hey, you sure you’re cool being in here?”
Cleo takes her turn to sigh back at me.
“Before this road trip, I made peace with the fact we’d probably encounter very few gender-neutral bathrooms. I figured, while I’m sorting stuff out and sticking with female pronouns, I might as well use the women’s stalls, too. Besides, no part of my potentially nonbinary self is ready to learn what men’s restrooms smell like.”
I smile at Cleo. She may be uncomfortable in this predefined space, but no amount of bad lighting could make her cheekbones any less high, her skin any less flawless, or her short black hair any less glossy. How could she ever feel uncomfortable looking like that? Then I remind myself, we all have our own stuff, and my surface struggles have nothing to do with Cleo’s internal ones.
“Hey, I’ll still guard the bathroom door for you whenever you want, just like when we were kids,” I say.
Cleo laughs.
“Yes, we Yamashiro-Gustins were born with a deep fear of pooping. My sister still can only go in our own bathroom with the white noise machine cranked up to ten. I may take you up on that generous offer in the future, but I actually braved the bathroom to make sure you’re okay. Things got weirdly heated back there.”
“Yeah. Blame it on the mysterious excitement. And lack of sleep.”
“And the amount of sugar consumed. Do not forget the sugar consumed.”
“Quite right, quite right,” I say. “But sugar rushes aside, I’m jealous you can stay tuned out of this tarot stuff. It just means so much to me. Maybe too much?”
“There’s no such thing as caring too much,” Cleo replies. “And it’s not that I’m tuned out. It’s just, most spiritual systems don’t make space for people like me, so I don’t make space for them. But still, spirituality is really just trying to make sense of the questions we can’t answer yet. So I figure, for all we know, that means no one could be right, or everyone could be right? If you look at it that way, deciding what to believe only really matters because it drives our actions. So, then, what Logan believes really only matters for him, right? It doesn’t have to affect what you believe, or how it makes you act.”
Cleo shrugs her shoulders and stares back at me like she was just telling me about her day, not delivering a whopping dollop of wisdom. I could physically crush her with the hug I want to give her.
“You know, for a maybe-atheist, you can be pretty freaking profound.”
“Still waters run deep,” Cleo says, smiling. “But you shouldn’t be surprised. What Major Arcana weirdo are you always saying I am?”
“The High Priestess, a keeper of hidden knowledge.”
“Yeah, that. Minus the ‘ess’ part, maybe?” Cleo grins.
Then she gives me that look, the one that reminds me she might be the only person to really see me. The realest me, underneath all the emotion and the mess, the one not even Chase really sees.
And for one perfect moment, I feel completely at ease.
I’m about to give Cleo that limb-busting hug when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I almost forgot I snuck it out of the shoebox when we sat down. When I pull my phone out, my eyes light up along with the screen.
“Ah. That’s your Anwar face,” Cleo says, frowning a little. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Anwar can wait. I give Cleo that hug before she can escape.
Click here
I smile at Cleo before crafting a response to Anwar’s latest DM.
Click here
“Hey, what’s this for?” Cleo asks, her words constricted by my mega-squeezing arms.
“For just being you.”
“Aw,” Cleo answers, hugging back.
Sometimes Chase and I spend so much time together, it’s easy to overlook how special Cleo is—and how much her friendship means to me. Or maybe it’s because Cleo and I are both going to colleges in New York. I know I’m going to see her more often, even if I’ll be downtown at NYU and she’ll be all the way uptown at Columbia. Either way, it’s no excuse to take Cleo for granted.
She must feel the love right now, though, because she nestles her face into my wild curls, squeezing me back.
“Hey, while I’ve got you alone, I have a new doodle for you,” Cleo says, reaching into her pocket.
She hands me a ripped-out piece of sketchbook paper. Looking down, I see it’s a flare pen doodle of Cleo and me inside Maggie’s shop. She has us drawn in simple black and white, but we then both wear jester hats striped with every color possible.
Cleo has drawn us to look like The Fool.
I couldn’t love it more.
“This is some of your finest work yet,” I say, hugging her again. “I’m obsessed.”
“What can I say?” Cleo replies. “We look good in silly hats.”
“That we do,” I laugh. “So good, I’m going to need to make a little album of all your doodles from this trip. Who needs phone cameras or photo albums when you have a resident Cleo?”
“You know, Amelia,” Cleo says as she hooks my arm to exit the bathroom together. “I ask myself
that same question nearly every day.”
Click here
“Thanks for checking on me, Cleo,” I say with a smile.
“Anytime,” she says, turning to leave.
The moment she does, I turn my eyes down to devour Anwar’s DMs.
So how far did you intrepid road-trippers end up making it?
Me, I haven’t left my couch. Watching a Brit Marling triple feature of Another Earth, Sound of My Voice, and The East.
I have seen exactly zero of those movies, but judging by Anwar’s taste so far, I imagine I’d love all three. I start tapping a response as quickly as my fingers will fly:
Must hear about those movies at some point, but I have a pressing update first.
You are NOT GOING TO BELIEVE what happened on our first tarot shop stop.
The three dots appear next to Anwar’s name until his responses appear.
You were chased by a serial killer.
You were cursed by an ancient psychic.
You learned your future self was going to hang with a very cool guy soon.
You joined an underground tarot coven.
Am I getting warm on any of these?
Smiling down at my phone, I cannot wait to tell Anwar how warm he’s getting.
Click here
CHAPTER FOUR
CHASE
AFTER FINISHING AT the diner, we drove over to the Joshua Tree Inn and decided to stay the night there. We realized we were going to need the time, since we still have no idea where to find the Prince of Wands on the grounds. We tried to eyeball the place as we checked into our rooms, but nothing in particular stood out amidst the kitschy decor. The inn is a one-story motel with a sidelong stretch of rooms colored mauve and terra-cotta against the desert sand and sky. Perilli’s Prince of Wands could really be hidden anywhere—in one of the maroon and stone rooms? Buried in the sand on the grounds? Placed near the cactus-lined pool?
Before we left the diner, we used the Perillian toolset to find the coordinates for the three other missing cards as well. These coordinates now point us to general locations all up the California coast. Unfortunately, I’ve had no luck finding any clues in the toolset or the deck about where each missing card is hidden at these locations. I should be rereading the booklet right now to see if I can find any hints I missed, but there’s one thing that can break my focus. Right now, he happens to be sitting cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed and his shirt off.
No matter how hard I try, my gaze will not budge from the sight of Logan’s stomach muscles crunched together or the curve of his biceps against his chest. The light shines across his brown skin with a warm glow, and his lips part just enough for him to breathe—just enough to drive me crazy. I pour my eyes over Logan St. Genstead and I want to tackle him where he sits. I want to rip off his gym shorts and press my skin against his until we both sweat through the sheets. Instead, I push my glasses farther up the bridge of my nose and try to take a deep breath.
“You’re staring again,” Logan says, peeking at me through one open eye.
“Was I?” My ears flash with heat.
“You know, it’s hard to meditate with an audience.”
“Then in the future you should be sure to meditate with a shirt on.”
Logan laughs, his white smile gleaming as brightly as his brown eyes. A small rocket ship blasts off somewhere deep inside of me, flooding my brain with thrust and smoke. I try breathing again.
“Well, I cleared my head enough to come up with some ideas on how to start searching for the Prince of Wands,” Logan says, standing from the bed to stretch.
He tosses down his fidget spinner, the one he carries with him everywhere as a reminder of his meditative practice. Logan’s parents passed down their tradition of Transcendental Meditation, which includes a secret mantra. Logan modified the practice by adding the fidget spinner, which physically represents his mantra. The spinner is actually quite pretty, a stainless silver triangle spinner inside a perfect golden circular base.
“Amelia’s going to love that,” I sigh.
“Yeah. We both got a little carried away back at the diner, didn’t we? She can just get so intense.”
“That’s Major Amelia for you.”
“Well, Magician Logan can stick to his guns, too. Especially since we’re starting this search in Wand territory.”
“Right. And actually, if we follow from there, next comes the Minor Arcana Cups suit, which is most related to The High Priestess, Cleo’s tarot expression,” I say, my brain ticking like clockwork. “Then there’s The Empress, Amelia’s expression, whose Mother Nature vibe relates to Pentacles. Then finally The Emperor, my expression, whose symbol is the Sword. I guess I never really considered how neatly all of that lines up in a row for us.”
“I suppose Amelia would want us to believe that’s also completely meaningless?” Logan sighs. “She’d argue the four of us are just drawn together because of our complementary personality types. And that making this connection is our minds telling a good story, spinning fiction from fact. But I don’t know. That seems so clinical. And unlikely. What do you think?”
“I think, if you can inspire all this insight after just ten minutes of meditation, I really should have let you be.”
“Well, I keep telling you how much you’d benefit from it,” Logan smiles, walking over to my chair. “You don’t even have to do TM.”
I smile at Logan in the absent way I always do when he tries to get me to meditate. The part I’ve never told him—or anyone, for that matter—is that I’ve developed my own practice. The first half of my journal is filled with the most meaningful quotes and wisdom I’ve come across. I copy this section and add to it in every iteration of my journal, like my own custom Bible. Most mornings, before I get out of bed, I make sure to read a portion to center myself.
“Well, I can think of a few mind-clearing ways to spend those last ten minutes,” I say, hooking my arm around Logan’s waist.
I know I should focus on finding clues for the missing Prince. I know I shouldn’t be purposefully dodging Logan’s spiritual-prodding question. However, I also know my time to spend uninterrupted with him is running out. So instead, I pull him close.
I just hold Logan for now. Being intimate doesn’t always have to mean sex.
Click here
I kiss Logan. We’re definitely putting those ten minutes to good use.
Click here
There would be nothing wrong about getting physical with my loving, committed boyfriend—I’ve untangled enough of my Catholic guilt to know that much. It’s just, every so often, I like reminding my body that my mind is the one really in charge. Besides, sometimes I feel closest to Logan when we’re doing nothing at all.
And sometimes delaying the things we want makes them so much better. Logan and I do have this room to ourselves all night, after all. Why spend ten minutes now on something that could take much longer later?
I stand and wrap my arms around Logan, my hands gripping the warm skin of his back. It still causes me physical pain, the thought of living across the country to go to Penn while Logan stays here to go to UCLA. At least I’ll be able to persuade my parents to cover some extra flights home during breaks so we can see each other, but every part of me is terrified of this looming separation.
I’m reminded of this as Logan nestles his face into my neck and takes a deep breath. He has never said it out loud, but I can tell he loves the way I smell. Sometimes it’s like he can’t get enough.
I know the feeling.
“Love you,” I whisper in his ear.
“Love you, too,” he says back.
For now, I try to let go of my future fear long enough to enjoy this present moment. For now, it’s so much more than enough.
Click here
I take a second to reflect that I’m in an empty room with my committed boyfriend of two years. How lucky am I to be here? There’s a reality where this privilege would never have existed for us. Hell, that rea
lity still exists in many places. There’s also a reality where my inherited Catholic guilt would make me feel ashamed of my body and my sexuality, but that’s one benefit of being queer—if you let yourself, you learn to throw away some of the old expectations earlier than most.
The way I see it, Logan and I are respectful and responsible. We are beyond lucky to have each other. Really, it’d be a sin not to be with each other, instead of the other way around.
Especially since it still causes me physical pain, the thought of moving three thousand miles away to go to Penn while Logan stays here to go to UCLA. At least I’ll be able to persuade my parents to cover some of the extra flights home during breaks so we can see each other, but every part of me is terrified of this looming separation.
I banish this thought as we make our way to the bed, leaving a trail of discarded clothes in our wake. I fall on top of Logan and feel myself tumble into wonderland, where suddenly everything else melts away. All I want to do is make him feel as good as I do. Luckily, I know all the right moves.
My hand travels up his abs and over his chest to grip his cheek while we kiss. Then I reach into the tight curls of his hair and pull slightly, breathing into the stretched curve of his neck. Logan moans and I fall deeper down in the swirling wonder, my every thought evaporating like raindrops on a summer sidewalk.
Steam fills my body as lips keep moving over skin, until time stands still and races by at the same moment. Some corner of my mind knows the real world will come rushing back soon, but until then, Logan and I sink deeper into this warmth, this fire burning out of control.
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