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Fiction

Sometimes I recall back to times in my life and I wonder why they feel like distant memories. I remember the first time I ate mint chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins and how I became instantly hooked. I also remember how I subsequently gained cavities and lost a day spent at the dentist trying to get my teeth cleaned. There are many memories that exist that I am fond of and others not so much. Almost none of them compare to when I first met this beautiful girl named Ophelie, and I plan to marry her someday when the time is right. I know for sure that I want to spend the rest of my life together with her. We’ve had so many good times together like rollerskating in the park, even though half of it was me falling down and her laughing at me. Her positivity is something hard to miss and the joy we share encompasses the room. She is sensitive in the best way possible and far more emotionally intelligent than me. I always made fun of her for how the smallest things moved her, but something I realize now is that they were only ever really small to me. She loves everything I don’t care for, astrology and everything else spiritual concerning the divine. I never saw the point for it anyways, she always thought she could find the answers through them though. I did say that I want to marry this girl when the time is right, and as hard as it sounds, this positive and emotionally intelligent girl I love has become someone I don’t even know. Lately, she has been so closed off to me and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. We’ve had our arguments, and I’m sure if it was about me she would have at least tried to talk about it; but that hasn’t been the case. It’s almost as though I don’t exist to her. It’s been several months since she stopped stalking to me, she looks out the window all the time and I am scared I don’t know how to help her. She hasn’t had anyone over the house, and I want so badly to eavesdrop once the opportunity comes. To make matters worse, she cries incessantly and I just don’t know how I can comfort her. It’s only been a few hours today of her sitting by the window, but I hear a doorbell and in the eerie silence I hope she is the one to answer it. I’m just hoping to see a sliver of her in whatever altercation is going to happen. I see her go to open the door and it’s her best friend Emily! Emily and Ophelie used to go on retreats together and they always talked about everything. I’m so glad that its Emily. They both go into the room and close the door, but the situation is too significant and it doesn’t stop me from listening in. I hear them both talking but it’s mainly all the spiritual stuff that girls talk about, and I could be less interested. The conversation goes on and I only start to listen in on the things that Emily mentions. “Ophelie, I heard that in theory all souls are reincarnated. We are all assigned a soul in this lifetime, and we take in the lessons that were learned in the past lifetime and try to apply it in this life.” I don’t even know why Emily is even saying any of this to Ophelie, it doesn’t sound like anything new that they’ve ever discussed. Emily continues on “I know a psychic who you can talk to, she is a medium” and proceeds to give Ophelie a card with information on it and leaves. I’m starting to think Emily is a bad friend, because who realistically gives their friend a card to a psychic when their friend is dealing with something. Isn’t more help to be found with a therapist than someone who stares into some crystal ball? What’s even weirder is that I see Ophelie standing up and putting on her jacket. Why can’t she just talk to me? Her friend just referenced a psychic over me. Where is she going and why can’t I tag along? I follow her as I see her leave and she starts to walk to the address listed. I don’t know why she didn’t take the car instead, she always preferred taking the car. Anyways, I follow her until she makes her way into this small little shop that looks incredibly sketchy. She’s greeted by this old lady and what’s weird is that she acknowledged me more than my own girlfriend recently, it’s almost like she knows me. My girlfriend proceeds to sit down in this woman’s chair and the psychic tries to ask me what I feel like is happening. Now I don’t know anything about psychics, but I know that she was only $120 for a reading and she’s letting me talk about my girlfriend; which is way cheaper than my initial suggestion of a therapist. I tell her I feel like I hurt her someway somehow, even if I did, it was never intentional and I just want to talk about it and she tells my girlfriend the same exact thing. My girlfriend starts to break down and I’m thinking about how finally my messages are getting through. Maybe I should have never wrote off psychics because I’m feeling like this lady really gets me. Then the psychic out of nowhere says “your spirit guide is showing a car crash”, to which I’m thinking nevermind this lady is obviously delusional and her cold readings are vague and aren’t relevant at all cause she just referred to me as a spirit guide and secondly nobody ever said anything about a car crash. Ophelie starts to tear up again and mentions how she experienced a car crash recently, which takes me a little back because I have not heard her talk about anything like that all. As I listen in closer, the psychic says “your spirit guide is a male that was romantically affiliated with you”, and Ophelie confirms “he was my boyfriend.” Did she have another partner that I never knew about? That would probably explain all the distance. Ophelie continues on “His name was Jack and he died in a car crash a few months ago.” The psychic continues to look at me, and I’m extremely bewildered because my name is Jack and I am for sure not dead. My head starts to spin, and I look around the room pacing back and forth. I look at the sign that reads “Only one person inside allowed during readings”. I’m realizing all these months of living in pure angst and anxiety, the love of my life not being able to see me or hearing me, and my existence in this 1 person capacity room only known to a psychic is the result of my actual passing from the old world. To think that I died, and I didn’t even know it. The psychic tries to comfort me letting me know I am living in the inbetween, where souls reside when they are inable to move on from their past lives. She lets me know many other souls live here, and only reincarnate when they are ready. She tells me that ghosts are only souls that have lost their way and cannot go home, and they exist because they cannot let go and sometimes taunt the living. I am astounded at all this new knowledge, I don’t even know what to say. She lets me know that I must help my girlfriend because Ophelie is hurting and struggling to find peace to move on. I try to tell her I don’t possibly know how to help her given this new information, and she says that “this is probably the only opportunity to make things better and get the message across”. I ask the psychic what I should say to which she exclaims, “What is the most important thing you would like to let her know in this lifetime?” I ask her to tell Ophelie that I loved her and that I always wanted to marry her, even though I know now I will never get the chance. As I look over to Ophelie, she seems heartbroken at the idea but I can see she has found some peace with what was said. I realize that the only thing that has been keeping me here in the inbetween was hoping for things to change between Ophelie and I. I have been so unsettled from how distraught Ophelie was only to find out I’m the one who hasn’t moved on. I thank the psychic, and I pray that in the next lifetime I can get a chance to marry the same soul that I used to know as Ophelie.

April 11, 2021 21:35

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1 comment

Lyn Carstone
18:22 Apr 22, 2021

Hi Estelle, This was a lovely story. One thing I would recommend working on is paragraph breaks. Every time someone new speaks, there needs to be a new paragraph or if you're changing topic. I enjoyed your story. Great opening sentence. ~Lyn

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