“So right side or left side?” I asked.
My mom wrapped a few strands of her hair around her fingers. “Right.” My phone screamed out again, and I sighed. My mom looked back towards the living room and then at me. “Do you need to get that, sweetheart?”
“No. It’s just…” I didn’t want to involve my parents in even the little bit of interaction I’d had with Gabriel and his dangerous lifestyle. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
My mom perched herself on the edge of her bed. “Now, Stace. What have we taught you about holding things in?”
My parents weren’t the kind who pressured me to talk about things I didn’t want to, but they lived in constant fear of my aura darkening. Holding emotions in was just one of the things that could make one’s aura darker, and I had to imagine mine definitely was after what had happened with Gabriel.
“I’m going to see Mira after this, Mama,” I replied. “I’ll get it all out with her, and then, if my aura still feels heavy, I’ll come over so you can clean it.”
My mom raised an eyebrow but seemed to accept my plan. “Okay, baby.”
I set the tiny hippo down on the shelf and then instinctively walked over and sat on the edge of my parents’ bed. My head fell into my mom’s lap, and she pet me gently.
“A little cleaning right now?” she asked.
I nodded without a verbal response, and my mom immediately took to waving her hands above my head, picking invisible objects out between two fingers while humming softly to herself. “Very murky, Stace. It wasn’t like this yesterday. Did something happen? You don’t have to tell me what, just let me know you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
It wasn’t really true, though. Physically, I was fine, and even in spite of what I’d learned about Gabriel, I had no fears I was in danger from him. If anything, I was perturbed with how much I missed him. It had only been a day, and I’d been ignoring his back to back calls, but I desperately wished I could rewind time twenty-four hours and have our date and night together all over again.
“Guy stuff,” I finally admitted. I didn’t often keep things from my mom. I didn’t want to start, so if I had to save some details to protect her, I at least wanted to share what I could. “We went out last night, and it went really, really well, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“Oh, that’s why it’s so dirty up here,” she replied, referring to my aura. “Nothing brightens an aura or darkens it more than love.”
Love. It was weird hearing that word, not because it described Gabriel and my situation, but because I was actually relating to it. I didn’t love Gabriel. I’d known him less than a day, and yes, we spent the night together, and yes. it was the most natural feeling thing that had happened to me in my entire life, but still, instant-love wasn’t possible. If I just kept saying that to myself, it was bound to be true.
I chose not to respond to my mom’s statement, and she didn’t try. She continued to finger herself through my aura until she either finished or gave up, I wasn’t sure which. Her hand settled on my forehead to pet while looking down at me sweetly.
When my phone next interrupted our silence, it wasn’t a phone call, but my alarm. I’d set one, knowing I was coming to my parents and may get lost in whatever I got into. Mira and I were meeting for lunch, and I didn’t want to be late. I sat up out of my mom’s lap and wrapped my arms around her in a huge hug.
“Thanks, Mom.” I smiled and stood up.
“It’ll work out, you know,” my mom called after me. I stopped and looked back at her, and my confusion must have been prevalent because she chuckled. “Whether it’s with or without this guy, things will work out for you. They have to because you’re a wonderful girl, and things always work out for wonderful girls.”
I smiled warmly at my mom, gave her a nod of affirmation, and she clapped her hands together. “There. All clean.”
The restaurant I was meeting Mira at was called Surento’s and was one she always gushed about after traveling here for work. It was ironic that I lived here while she was still in Woodstock because, though we were both born into a holistic life, I was the one who hung onto my parents’ natural roots. The second Mira could, she went corporate. Pencil skirts, shimmering black pumps, and her brown hair cut into an executive bob. The people watching us sit at the same table must have thought she was helping me bail my boyfriend out of jail or something; we did not look cut from the same cloth. She always wanted to move to Philly, but circumstances had helped me make the jump first, and she was still just passing through for work. At least we could finally visit this infamous restaurant together.
“How’s Philly been?” she started once we’d placed our food orders. “I can’t believe your parents actually came up here. My parents went to your parents’ house looking for them yesterday, even after I told them they’d moved, because they didn’t believe me.”
I chuckled, imagining Mira’s parents, equally as hippie as mine, wandering up to the new couple that now lived in my old family home.
“Nice.” I took a sip of my iced tea before continuing. “Philly’s good. You were right. The energy here is awesome. Things are going well at the studio, too.”
Mira grinned, and her smile was comforting amidst my current disdain. We’d been friends since elementary school. There likely wasn’t a single soul on this earth that knew me better than her. “I’m glad.”
“And you?” I asked. “When are
you ditching Woodstock?” I raised an eyebrow. “Or are you waiting for Stephen to finally pop the question? You guys have been together, what, ten years? It’s about time.”
Mira’s face saddened in an instant, and my heart sank.
“No. What happened?”
Mira shrugged. “Oh, you know. The typical stuff.” She fiddled with the straw in her drink. “I’ve been traveling more with work, and he’s been diving into his studies. We went from being lovers, to being roommates, to being acquaintances, at best. I walked in, asked him what he wanted for dinner, we narrowed it down to chicken or steak, I made a joke about doing chicken fried steak, and he said ‘this isn’t working anymore, is it?’ I guess he just realized that that conversation about chicken or steak was the most enjoyable conversation we’d had in months.”