Wait For Me

Chapter 4.

I inhaled in the fresh smell of the new pages that filled the room and sighed. Too many books, too little time. My fingertips ran along the smooth spines of the books sitting on the shelves slowly.I was drawn to the astrological/spiritual section and found myself eyeing up a box of oracle cards nestled between a bunch of soul exploration books.

The ever-irritating lost boy himself – Lachlan - followed me around aimlessly, his hands crammed into the pockets of his leather jacket as he whistled a tune through his lips.

His grandmother had apparently been trying to ship him off to another etiquette lesson, so he had managed to narrowly avoid her dialect torture by tagging along with me to visit Oscar on his shift, convincing her he had a new-found love for literature.

   “Lockie, we’ve been in here twenty minutes. If you wanted to buy something, you would have found it by now.” He droned - the annoying nickname he had decided to pull out of my surname grated on me like nails down a blackboard. I remembered his ridiculously proud expression after summarizing ‘Whitlock’ to ‘Lockie.’ I tried to get him to drop it, but the more I expressed my hate for it, the more he used it. It was a seriously painful cycle.

I shot him a glare and scooped up the box of Doreen Virtue: Healing with the Angels cards. He scoffed, and I could almost feel him rolling his eyes as I strode to the counter and slammed them down in front of my friend.

Oscar let out a breathy laugh as he registered my purchase. “He has a unique way of getting under your skin, doesn’t he?”

“Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?” Lachlan joked, but his eyes seemed to hold traces of concern as he fixed his gaze on me.

“That’s £10.49 please.” Oscar issued the price and Lachlan rested his hands on the counter impatiently.

“£10.49? For fucking healing cards?” he blustered disapprovingly. “Are you nuts? What exactly are you healing? Can those pieces of reconstituted paper heal a broken leg? I’m betting not.”

“Will you keep it down?” I scolded as other customers began to stare in our direction. Lachlan raked his fingers through his black curls in defiance before stuffing his hands back in his jacket.

“We’re in Waterstones, Lockie, not a library.” He pointed out.

“It’s called manners.” I hissed. He raised a brow and looked to Oscar for support.

“I’m giving you a 50% discount.” Oscar stated, tapping it out on the touch screen till. “For once, I actually agree with that over groomed baboon, those cards are a load of crap. The only other people I’ve seen buy them are women hitting a middle-aged crisis, or girls that want to know if they’re going to find their ‘one true love.’ It’s sad, really. I can’t watch you pay that much for a box of crushed dreams.”

“Well I’m quite happy paying for that box of crushed dreams, thank you very much. How much?” I pulled out my purse from my bag, and raked my fingers around through the change.

“A fiver will be fine.” He shrugged. I pulled out the note and placed it in his palm before shoving the cards in my bag.

I knew the boys were more than likely correct about the ‘mystical’ cards being rubbish, but I couldn’t help but hold a little hope that they would give me the answers I needed to move on with my life. At this point – after four years of pining after someone who I was clearly never going to see again – I was desperate. Imogen’s mother was a well known tarot reader in the area and her readings had provided comfort and quality advice to many people and naturally, Imogen herself. Despite the highly likely possibility that it was all coincidence, it had seemed to help people deal with a lot of their problems anyway, even if it was just a simple case of the placebo effect.