The Love Sucks Club(25)

“Hello, Esmé.”





Chapter Seven



Swinging her legs around, she stands and walks toward me. “I wanted to talk to you about Fran.”

Oh Jesus. Why now? A sweat is breaking out on my forehead. Collapsing onto the nearest chair, I tug at the collar of my shirt, breathing in hard. “I just had a particularly bad run in with my ex and I’d like to be alone.”

“I saw it,” Esmé says. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but if she had gotten violent, I would have nailed her with one of your cast iron pans.”

“Well, I’m so glad you have my back. What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

“You said my car wouldn’t make it up the hill,” she says. “So I walked.”

“And got in here without me or my ex or my neighbor noticing.”

“Your neighbor noticed, but he just waved at me as I came around to your deck. He was more concerned about...”

She mentions my ex by name and I shake my head. “We call her Voldemort around here. Or-she-who-shall-not-be-named.”

Esmé laughs.

My head is killing me and this conversation is making it worse. Holding my chest, I breathe in and out several times. Blinking and panting, I try to bring myself out of the darkness. I can’t get a deep enough breath. Esmé is staring at me. “Just fall into it.”

“What?”

She pulls up a chair and sits knee to knee with me. “Let the vision come. Fighting it is the root of the problem. If you let it come, you’ll feel better.”

Her voice is vaguely soothing and listening to it feels like riding on a wave. My eyes are closing involuntarily and a deep sense of exhaustion sweeps over my head.

She continues to speak in a soft voice. “Just relax and breathe. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

Peace settles over me, though my head is still swimming. Esmé’s voice is coming from far away. Even with my eyes closed, I can see wavy lines in the sides of my vision. When I try to focus on them, they move away.

“Fran,” Esmé whispers. My head recoils at the mention of her name, but my eyes are so heavy, I can’t open them. “You’re looking at Fran.”

The darkness is complete. “I’m in the tunnel,” I manage to mutter.

“Walk down it,” Esmé commands. “Walk down it and find Fran at the end.”

“I can’t,” I murmur. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Breathe in through your nose. Out through your mouth. Let the darkness come down over your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Relax into it.”

The ringing in my ears has gotten so loud that it seems to be pulsating with my heartbeat. I open my mouth to tell Esmé that I can’t take it anymore and suddenly, I’m enclosed in darkness.

I’m walking down a long tunnel. There’s a figure at the end of it. She’s beckoning toward me. As I get closer, I’m sure it’s Fran. She smiles when she sees me and my heart skips a beat. When I reach her, I reach up my hand. She puts her hand up and we stand face to face, one hand up in the air, just touching. I’m marveling at her touch, at the freshness of her face. She smiles at me. I want to talk, but I can’t make myself speak. When I move to hold her, I’m swept back down the hall. Being ripped away from Fran feels like I’m having my arms torn off. I’m screaming, but it doesn’t help. The blackness comes over my vision and all I can do is scream.

Blinking, I look up to see Roxanne’s face hovering over mine. She smiles as I open my eyes. Passing a cold rag over my forehead, she wipes the sweat from my face and neck.

“Don’t talk until you’re ready,” she says.

“Where’s Esmé?”

“I’m here,” she calls from a chair across the room. “Your friend thought I was killing you or something.”

Struggling to sit up, I glare at her across the room. “Well, what the hell were you doing?”

Roxanne presses down on my shoulder, pushing me back down into my chair. She twirls the wet cloth in the air for a few seconds before putting it back on my head. The coolness feels amazing. “You’re fine,” she says, ignoring the exchange with Esmé. “I came over to bring you the book we talked about yesterday, and I found you having a seizure of some sort. This one was just watching you, doing nothing.”

“She wasn’t having a seizure,” Esmé explained quietly. “She was in a deep meditative trance where she was communicating with my lover.”

“My lover,” I said.

“She was mine first,” Esmé insisted.