I went to a psychic to buy another version of the future.

The present we were in was too complicated.

I couldn’t see how I could go on with or without you,

But I didn’t want us to end.

We felt like a house too close to the ocean.

The astronomical high tides and noreasters rocked us and sent us into freezing water.

The winter soaked the foundation and all the contents in the basement.

But it had just been a lovely cabin all summer.

We had just sailed under blue skies and circled harbors.

How could it change so fast? What’s the difference between a rough season and a crash ending?

Maybe a psychic could help me.

I was so invested in the image we’d painted over the summer.

Could she see it too in her crystal ball? Could she tell me if it would come back? Did I just need to wait a little longer?

She took my hand in hers and I relaxed immediately.

She acted like she knew me.

I felt calm.

“You have to start listening to the signs,” she said.

“You need to learn to set limits, say no and make room for your dreams,”

It wasn’t bad news but it made me cry.

“I don’t know how exactly to do that,” I said.

Who holds hands with a stranger to force a certain future?

Was I paying her to push away my intuition?

I wanted her to promise our love would be fine. I wanted her to tell me how to make us work and if she could have made me believe her I’d have paid for some time to hear her words.

But in the car, on the way home, I knew we were over. I knew we had been through our last summer and our last winter.

It was before the talks, tears and arguments. We’d make love and food a few more times but we were dismantling.

We were not building the future together any longer.

I paid a woman to offer me her vision of our future.

I paid like a woman taking a pregnancy test after the first two periods have been missed.

I knew what would be read.

The break-up baby was kicking in my belly getting my feet ready to walk away from you and us.

~

Author: Christine “Cissy” White

Editor: Alli Sarazen

Photo: Remco Wingham/Flickr