Looking over at Tibby and Seth, I could see both of them nodding, and a look of pity on Seth’s face.
“I know where it came from. I don’t know why you don’t, but I do.”
“Okay, wise-ass, where’s it from?” I sat back.
“It’s from a djinn—a genie,” Tibby said, seeing my eyebrows go up. “His name is Dhameer, and he grants wishes. But only wishes he wants to grant—he’s free. Doesn’t live in a lamp, or anything. I think. Anyway,” she waved her hand, as though talk of lamps wasn’t important. “He gave me three wishes, a long time ago. But not normal wishes. He told me he could hear me regretting some of my past choices, and he offered me the chance to go back and make a different choice. I could choose three times in my life where I wished I’d done something different, and then I could see what door number two held.” She smiled at Seth, and he lifted her hand up to his mouth and kissed it.
Then she looked back at me. “I went back, and I did things differently three times. The catch for agreeing to this, for letting Dhameer give this to me, was that he got to determine where I ended up. In the life he found me in, I was pathetic, and working for you. It’s why I don’t kill you with your nagging about the web shit.”
“Hold it,” I held up my hands. “Where does Seth come in, since he obviously knows all this nonsense and didn’t commit you?”
“Seth was wish number two. I met him in college, and I didn’t call him back. I should have.”
“So how did you end up with him?”
“Because in wish number three, I ran into Seth again, and when he hinted that he remembered wish number two, Dhameer yanked me from the third wish. He ended up letting me stay there, and Seth and I worked through the things from wish number two.”
“He knew about it?”
Seth nodded. “Dhameer came to me after I was divorced, and I was thinking about Tibby. He said I could go back, and see what happened. Then I woke up one day, and I was back in my own life. I was furious. He said I needed to be patient, to wait. It was over a year, but I met her again. And we’ve been together ever since.”
They beamed at one another.
I nearly threw up.
But I was too confused to take the time to vomit.
“I’m missing something here.”
Tibby waved. “It doesn’t make sense, I know. The point is, I know that you’ve seen Dhameer at some point in time. I don’t know why you don’t remember. But he’s been here,” she looked at her hand. “Tell me how you met Olivia again.
I went through the plane meeting.
“That was totally him,” Tibby said, looking at Seth. “Don’t you think?”
“You think some glitter guy set me up?” I asked. I was having a hard time with this.
“Yep. Have you made any wishes, to yourself, lately?” Tibby asked. “Not stupid shit, but something big, something really important to you?”
I was about to say no when I remembered their wedding. “Ah, yeah. I did. I was at your wedding, and I wished that I had someone who looked at me like you guys looked at each other.”
“I knew it,” Seth said.
“Yep, the glitter.” Tibby nodded.
“What the hell am I missing here?” I threw up my hands.
“You’ve been visited by our fave djinn. He helped me and Seth find each other again. He must have come to see you. You don’t remember? Dude, you wouldn’t forget. He floats,” Tibby said.
“No,” I said. “No—wait…” I stopped. Something, I wasn’t sure what—it was just out of reach in my memory— “I can’t remember shit. This is all well and good because at least I know the cleaning crew isn’t having a raver, but what does that have to do with Olivia?”
“I bet it has everything to do with her. Dhameer is a sucker for love stories,” Tibby smiled at Seth.
“You’re saying a floating glitter guy sent me Olivia?”
“No, not directly. Just that he made sure your paths would cross. I mean, if she’s the real deal. Like, thunderbolts and lightning?” Seth asked.
“Uh…” I didn’t want to say it, but…fuck it. What do I have to lose? “Yeah, I knew she was special the minute I met her. I didn’t want to admit it, but she’s been thunderbolts and lightening the whole time.”
“So it doesn’t matter that she dumped you and ran away all through a text?” Tibby crossed her arms.
“If I don’t hold it against her, neither can you,” I said.
“Well, you only have one choice,” Seth said.
“Okay?”
“You gotta go get her. You can’t let her go.”
“She doesn’t want to see me,” I said immediately.
“She’s scared,” Tibby interjected. “I’m not real happy with her, but I would bet this scared her. I would be. I spent a lot of my…” she looked away, “Earlier lives scared. It sucks.”
“I don’t even want to get into what the hell that means,” I said, holding out a hand. “But you think I should go and see her? What if she doesn’t want to see me?”
“Then she needs to tell you to your face,” Tibby answered. “You both deserve that.”
I could tell by her expression that she wasn’t going to budge on this. And I was glad. I wanted an excuse, a reason to go to Olivia. I couldn’t let her just walk away. Tibby was right. If she was scared, I wanted to help her.
If she’d let me.
“I know you just got here, but…” I stopped. I felt like an ass.
“Oh, we’ll just stay here till you get back,” Seth said cheerfully. “We didn’t figure you’d be here anyway. So we’ll have a little holiday.” He smiled at Tibby.
I looked at them. “Ewww. You’d better change the sheets,” I said.
“Go pack. Go sort out your shit,” Tibby threw a sofa cushion from me.
I ran.
* * *
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the seat. I’d been able to grab a plane—not mine, but I didn’t care. What good was money if it couldn’t help you out in a jam? I didn’t know what I was going to say.
I’d think of something, and then dismiss it, and here I was, getting ready to land, and I still had no clue what I was going to say.
I’d arranged for a car to be waiting, and I found my fingers kept drumming as we headed for Olivia’s.
“Wait here. If I don’t go in, we’ll be heading back to the airport. If I do, you can leave,” I told the driver as I got out.
He nodded, and I took a deep breath and walked up the steps to the front door.
17
Olivia
I heard the knocking at the door. The pounding, really.
Momma just couldn’t leave me alone. Of course not.
“I’m coming!” I yelled, pulling on a robe. Damn that woman to hell. For once, I wanted to marinate in my misery.
“Leave me alone, Momma!” I said as I swung the door open.
Xavier stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Finally, my voice returned. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to see you,” he said.
I’d never heard a man sound more miserable in my life. I might sound that miserable, but I’d never heard it on a man.
My mouth opened again, and I didn’t know what to say. I could feel my fingers grip the doorknob tightly. I wanted him to go away. I wanted him to come in.
If he came in, he’d just convince me to ignore it—until the next time.
If he went away, he’d never come back.
Both made me want to scream.
“Come in,” I said.
He glanced over his shoulder, giving the nod, then stepped past me. I could see a car at the curb, and a man getting into the driver’s seat.
He hadn’t been sure he’d be welcomed.
He was so considerate. Now I wanted to cry.
I was going crazy. That’s what this felt like—insanity. Nothing made sense, and everything was upside down.
/> Including me. Most of all me.
I walked around him and headed for the kitchen. If I had to be up, I needed coffee. I could feel him behind me. He had a physical presence even though I couldn’t see him.
The coffee pot sat clean and ready. I remembered that I’d cleaned the house up before leaving, so that I could come home to a neat place, secure in the wonderful weekend I’d just had.
Which meant I had coffee ready to go. I checked, and sure enough, the coffee was in the filter already.
I started it, and then turned around, leaning on the counter, and crossed my arms.
“Okay.”
“A text?” His hands were still in his pockets.
“I…” I looked down. I didn’t know what to say. It was shabby. I knew it. “It was cowardly of me. I know. I just didn’t know how else to tell you.”
“You didn’t even ask me what happened.”
I could hear the anger and the hurt in his voice.
“It didn’t matter. This isn’t you, Xavier! This is me, don’t you see?” I threw up my hands and turned to grab coffee cups, so I didn’t have to see the hurt I’d caused.
“You’re you,” I said to the cabinet, “and this sort of thing will probably happen to you until you die. I don’t blame you—I don’t think you want to be with them. I figure if you didn’t want to be with me, you’d just tell me. There’s no reason for anything else.”
“Right. So what made you text and leave?”
Did he always sound so cold? Or was I just sensitive?
Probably, along with a healthy dose of guilty.
I faced him. “Because I can’t do it. I want to, I want to make this work, Xavier. But my heart fell to my stomach when I saw that picture. I can’t live like that—waiting for the next stomach drop. It will make me a hard, hateful woman. I’ve had some hard and hateful thoughts. I didn’t like it, didn’t like what I saw when I was honest with myself.”
I crossed my arms again, looking at my feet. “I felt horrible. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person who brings all that anger and shit into your life, into my life.” I looked up at him then.
“We both deserve better, Xavier. It’s not your job to manage me and my issues.” I kept my gaze steady.
“We can work through this together.” He didn’t look away either.
“But it’s not something for us to work on,” I said. “This is my thing. You’re not at fault here. It’s all on me.”
He didn’t speak right away.
Xavier
I watched her. She was upset, and I could tell that me being there rattled her. “Olivia,” I said carefully. “Livvie, I…” I took a breath. “I love you. I know it’s way too soon, and I sound crazy, but I’m not. I love you. I’ve been trying to ignore it since practically the minute we met, but it doesn’t go away. It only gets stronger. Whatever you’re afraid of, we can get through this together.” I reached for her hands.
She tucked them under her arms.
Shit.
On a stick.
I backed away. “Don’t push me out, don’t push me away.”
Her head dropped, and she didn’t respond.
When she looked up, her face was shining with tears. “I am not what you deserve,” she started.
That pissed me off. “How do you know what I deserve? I can tell you, I am pretty damn happy with you!”
“When I get crazy, and jealous, and yell and scream at you because some drunk woman grabs at you? Or when people ignore me and pretend you’re available? You want to be around me when I’m dealing with that?”
“Yes! I want to be around you, period! Everyone’s got shit they deal with, Livvie. I sure as hell do. I don’t want any other guys anywhere near you. I’m more possessive than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t like it. That was the shit my mom’s asshole boyfriends used to say right before they beat the shit out of her! They did it because they loved her so much, they couldn’t stand to see her in the same zip code with another man! So they beat her for her own good!” I threw up my hands and walked away, too frustrated and upset to be still.
“You think that doesn’t scare the hell out of me? To hear shit in my head that sounds exactly like the abusive assholes I spent my childhood hiding from? You’d be wrong if you thought anything else!”
I looked at her then, her eyes wide. I could see how hurt she was for me, in addition to everything else.
I wasn’t making this better.
Without warning, I heard the voice of one of the counselors I’d had at the Y when I was in high school, and I’d been suspended for fighting again.
“You cannot be anything for anyone, much less yourself, until you deal with your demons, Xavier. You have to deal with all the negative things that piled up inside of you before you can deal with anything else. Until you do, that anger, and all the other negative feelings will get in the way of every single thing you do, forever.”
I’d scoffed at him, but later that year, I started seeing him every week, because my anger had reached a point where I wanted to hit someone until my own hurt went away. No matter how many fights I had, the hurt never went away.
It had taken some time, but I’d finally listened to him.
Looking at Olivia, I knew she needed to deal with her hurt. I loved her, and I thought she loved me, but until she got through her own shit, she couldn’t be with me. Or with anyone else, I thought with some satisfaction.
No one else would do for her but me, but even if she tried, all her negative stuff, as my counselor had said, would still be piled up inside, getting in the way. Until she dealt with it and got through it, she’d never get better. No matter what.
“Listen,” I said.
She could hear the difference in my tone and watched me carefully.
“I get it. You have things you need to handle. I understand. So I’m going to go now. I wanted you to know I love you. I wanted to tell you that I’m here if things change. My door is always open. I can’t promise you how I will feel….but…” I looked down because I could feel tears in my eyes, “No matter what, if things change, come see me. Please, Livvie.”
I almost held my hand out to her and stopped myself.
“I’m just going to go call my car, okay?”
She nodded one small, tight nod. Her whole being was wrapped as tightly as she wrapped her arms around herself.
This was killing me, but it was the right thing. She’d need to come back on her terms, with her own issues handled. I wanted to fight whatever dragons she had going on in her head, but I couldn’t. Those were up to her.
I walked out to the front of the house, wanting to hear footsteps behind me as she changed her mind.
The house was silent.
When the car arrived ten minutes later, I opened the door and looked back toward the kitchen. I couldn’t hear a thing, and she wasn’t coming out.
I shut it behind me and hurried to the car before I broke down.
18
Xavier
I took a deep breath. It had been a long time since I’d done this kind of thing. I used to sit and record myself when I was younger, when I struggled with imposter syndrome, and worried about making weird faces when I sang.
But now, I just wanted to make sure I got it right.
Marcus nodded at me from outside the booth. “Rolling,” he mouthed.
“Hey,” I said, looking at the camera. “XTC coming at ya. I haven’t done this for a long time, but I want to get this out—I need to—and I thought I’d share it with all of you. I’ve been working on some new stuff for the tour that’s coming up. This is a song that came to me recently. It’s a little different, and I want to see what you guys think. I know you’ll tell me if it’s shit,” I grinned at the camera. Once I put this on social media, if people hated it, they’d let me know in about six seconds.
“So if you’re not in the mood for sappy and emotional, stop the video right now. I don’t want to hear the bitching later that y
ou expected something different. This is…well, here it is.”
I dropped my head, waiting for the simple beat Marcus and I had chosen for this. I saw him nodding slightly as the music filled the booth. I looked up, closing my eyes. Let me get this right, I thought.
“I sit where you sit,
a couple of seats
Don’t know if I wanna
Wanna meet n greet
Or run fast on fuckin nervous feet
I don’t know jus don’t know
X, X, X—Xs and Os.”
I stopped, letting the music fill me, closing my eyes, thinking about Olivia watching this. I wished I could see as she watched, as she listened. I’d seen her with some of my other music. Now, this would be her song.
“X, X, X—Xs and Os
Where does it go?
Neither one knows
When we age when we grow
No one no one wants to show
But I do
With you
X, X, X—Xs and Os”
How I made it to the end, I didn’t know. While I sang, I could see all the things we’d done, the fun we’d had, the time we spent together—it was like a movie playing in front of me. It made me feel like someone had sucker punched me from about ten different directions.
I closed my eyes, letting the music die away. Then I looked at the camera and gave a peace out. Marcus moved something on his board, and then I heard him.
“We’re done, man. Got it in one. That was amazing, X.”
“You think so?” I felt more nervous about this than anything I’d done in a long time.
“Hell, yeah. This is totally sick. She’ll love it.”
“Is it that obvious?” I asked.
“Well, I met the ‘O’ part of that song,” he came into the booth, clapping me on the shoulder. “I know where it comes from. I saw you guys together.”
“I don’t know what else to do. I don’t exactly have the best rep with successful relationships.”
“You know she watches your videos?”
“That’s how I met her,” I confessed. “I saw her watching them.”
Forgotten Wishes: Djinn Everlasting Book Two Page 22