Member-only story
My Dear Renata
She was a tale as old as time.
Renata didn’t realize she was special: that’s what made her so unique, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things. I don’t like to play the games of “she’s not like other girls” — but, with her, that was the truth. She wasn’t like the other girls I’d courted, the ones I’d wooed through charm and missives alike, even though a part of me knew better than to think I was the lone man in her sights.
In a coffee shop at the end of the world, I sat with my hands before a row of Tarot cards that had unveiled themselves to me in swats and verves. The Fool stared up at me from the middle card, and I almost laughed at how astute the reading was that it should name me the Fool.
Renata came by with a coffee in a ceramic cup and saucer — she knew I didn’t like the paper cups that were so popular these days — and set it down before me. She looked across the cards splayed out before me before she shook her head. “Looks like a bad hand,” she said.
“Oh, my dear,” I said, catching her hand in mine, “you have no idea how to read Tarot, do you? There are always different readings for the cards depending on how they’re paired together.”
She smiled, biting her bottom lip as she did so. “Oh, really? Then do you want to tell me, or are you going to keep your secrets?”
