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“Is that significant?”
“I shuffled and cut the deck three times, and it was always the same card.”
Cahill was sensitive, meaning she had some Sight and an awareness of the spirit realm but no real magic of her own.
“I’m not an expert on tarot. What does it mean?”
“It could mean failure, but I think it means I’m stuck in the past.”
Jesse’s version of the card featured the Platte, the river cutting through downtown Denver’s western side. He’d included the buildings from the view, but Adam’s focus was always on the cups, the three spilled at the feet of the cloaked figure and the two full ones behind him. Jesse had set the card at sunset, filling the sky with oranges and fiery reds, lending the art an almost apocalyptic tone.
Adam squeezed the pillow harder as she lowered her eyes to his forearms.
“It’s getting warmer out, but you still wear long sleeves all the time,” she said. “Covering your scars.”
“I don’t want people staring at them.”
They weren’t that noticeable, but he didn’t like to see them.
He especially didn’t like it when Vic touched them. He didn’t like that he felt Vic’s heart sink whenever he did. Vic hadn’t been able to protect Adam, and it wasn’t like it was his job or something. If Vic had been there he might have been hurt too, and the idea of that was so much worse.
“I thought I had it under control. I felt better at Christmas. Vic and I were better, different, but not like this.”
“So you agree with the card, that you’re stuck in the past?”
“Not completely, but yeah.”
“It’s only been a few months, Adam. You went through something awful, something traumatic. It’s going to take time to heal.”
“I can’t . . . when Vic touches me, I flinch. I jump when someone slams a door. What if it never gets better?”
“What if it doesn’t? Are you prepared for that?”
Adam squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He tried to imagine how it had been, before, how they’d been before. He wanted that back.
“No,” he said. “I won’t accept that.”
“Okay, then we have work to do.”
“Where do we start?”
“First, I have a question for you.”
Adam braced. Her questions were always meant to challenge him, which was what he paid for, but still . . .
“Go ahead.”
“Do you feel loved? In general, like right now or when you’re alone?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Simply that. Do you feel loved?”
He reached around inside himself for the answer.
“Kind of? Like, I know it’s there. I know Vic loves me, that Bobby does, in his way. Spider does and I guess my mom, though that’s not as solid. All the good stuff in my life is like that lately. I just can’t always feel it. It’s like it’s over there.” He gestured to the other side of the room. “Just out of reach. It’s like something is missing, something in me.”
“Is it missing or is it a wall?”
