Her gaze narrowed on him, interest obviously piqued.
“I never knew that.”
“A lot of people don’t. My daddy had a baby that died from crib death. A woman he was messing with while married to my mama. One of many women.” He grimaced. “He didn’t know the song was about that either until years later, but he claimed to be drawn to it. Metallica is one of his favorite bands. I like ’em just fine, too. I’m telling you about this, English, because sometimes, we are drawn to things or people, and we don’t know why at first. But it all points back to something we felt we wanted or needed. Somethin’ from our childhood we’re trying to heal or run from, or something bad that happened long ago. An unexpected event.”
“That’s quite introspective and wise of you.”
He wasn’t certain if she was being serious or sarcastic, but it made no difference.
“Based on that text message, I’m guessing the person behind it is an old flame. Somebody who once had control over you.” She didn’t respond, and her expression was flat. Unreadable like gibberish written in white ink on white paper. “We choose certain people to date, and we don’t look deep enough into why we’re attracted to them. Hardly anyone does.” He shrugged. “We think it’s because he’s handsome, or she’s pretty, things like that. Sure, that plays a part in it, but they have something we want, and we think if we saddle up close enough to them, we can get it. We want to feel a certain way, and we think they can help us achieve that.”
“Energy. It’s their energy. We’re attracted to souls, and don’t even know it.”
“Dallas, my sister, is into all that crazy shit.”
“What crazy shit? Energy readings?”
“Yeah. You know, crystals, runes… but one thing she said to me about all of that stuff that I agree with is: we’re all energy. So, I agree with you if that’s what you were getting at.”
“We’re vim, covered in flesh and bone. I think we’re also spiritual beings, too.”
“Same thing. We’re saying the same thing.”
She nodded in understanding. “Energy attracts like a magnet, or it can repel, like a sonic boom.”
“So, we either attract what we want or need, or we invite a lesson to be learned. Kind of like what you and I were talking about weeks ago. If our energy is not to someone’s liking, English, then it repels them. One twist to that is, if they think they can get something out of us, good or bad, then we bring folks around us that we might not want there. People that feed off good energy like piranhas.”
She placed her tea down on the coffee table and lounged back against the love seat.
“Axel, that’s unfortunately true. Bad people see our light. It sounds a bit sophomoric the way I said it, I guess, but doesn’t make it any less of a fact.” Her voice trailed as she looked away.
“They see the light… or our darkness.” She threw him a curious look as he spoke, then swallowed. “We become deaf to the truth if we’ve taken a liking to someone who means us no good. We hear no evil as they say, but sometimes, it ain’t evil at all, English. It’s just the plain truth, but usually one we don’t want to hear, so we say the devil is tryna interfere in our love life, or break up a happy home, when it ain’t got nothing to do with Satan, and that home was far from happy to begin with. Got folks in this world getting themselves in unhappy relationships for money, or they say, ‘for the kids.’ Bullshit.
“Most people get comfortable and are afraid to be alone because that’s the biggest human fear of all. We’re not okay by ourselves. We keep loyal to a bad choice we made a long ass time ago, and keep punishing ourselves by stayin’ true to it. It’s got to do with our own bad choices, not facing reality, and not wanting to get out of the mess we’ve made or allowed someone else to toss on us, day after fuckin’ day. The bottom line is, we could save ourselves a lot of time if we’d just acknowledge things for what they are and move on. Stop making excuses for our situation. Friends are one backstab away from becoming an enemy, and lovers are one kiss away from walkin’ out the door.”
“This is another thing I love about you.” She reached for her cup and took a sip of her tea.
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“You remember the things I say to you. I admit that I stereotyped you based on how you look, where you’re from, and what you do for a living. You’re a deep thinker. You’re funny. You’re… protective. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t care about what was going on with me.” Her complexion deepened and she broke their eye contact by looking back down into that teacup of hers.