anger was dry and caught immediately.
“Come on. This shop is just as touristy and fake as all the
rest. And what’s with the hair? The scarf? If you’re trying to
come across as some gypsy knock off, one in a million, unique
kind of I don’t even know what, you’re failing miserably.”
All Dani did was shrug. She actually looked beyond bored
now. “I like the scarf, I like the hair, and I like black. What can
I say? My shop is my shop. It works for me. Now.” She
glanced at the cards on the table. “Do you want a reading or
not?”
As she dropped her eyes to the table, Emily felt like the last
of the oxygen had run out in the place. It was stifling. Her
lungs were on fire, her insides ached, her stomach spun, and
her head was starting to pound. She stood so fast that she
dumped her bag on the ground and had to bend for it. She
bumped her shoulder on the edge of the table on the way up,
but didn’t even wince at the sharp crack or the pain that spread
like trickling raindrops down her arm.
“This is dumb.”
The whole thing, she meant. Herself. Not the store. She was
sorry that she’d insulted someone who was just sitting there
listening to her complain about problems that most people
wouldn’t consider problems. Not that I did a very good job of
actually trying to get her to understand. Or anyone else. Emily
hated that she felt trapped. Trapped in that room. Trapped in
her life. Trapped so that she felt like she was always going to
be forced to just exist.
Emily dug in her purse, grabbed her wallet, ripped it open,
and produced a few twenties. She threw them down on the
table. She had no idea how much a reading cost, but she