“Is my boyfriend going to leave me?”
The girl asks it the way people ask about a menu item that’s clearly explained—like she already knows the answer and just wants it confirmed by what she’s decided in her head is a higher authority.
The fortune teller shuffles her cards slowly, theatrically, the way she learned from a TikTok tutorial called How to Look Like an Expert in Beginners’ Tarot.
“I will now gaze into your third eye,” she says in her witchy cadence.
She says it perfectly. She always does. She’s been doing it long enough that even she almost believes it now—like this job is still temporary, like she isn’t forty and doing this in a strip mall between a nail salon and a vape shop.
In reality, she is locked in a staring contest with the inflamed zit between the girl’s eyebrows. A pimple so angry it deserved its own horoscope. Toxic. Like her ex. A Scorpio.
“I see…” the fortune teller murmurs.
What she actually sees in her peripheral is her client’s phone lighting up where it rests against her thigh. A brief flash of contacts before the screen goes dark again.
Chase (my love)
Heather (bff)
The universe, apparently, is very cooperative today.
“A man,” she says slowly, closing her eyes. “Confident. Attractive. Mid aura. Bro energy. Loyal in theory.”
She pauses, breathes in, as if receiving a transmission.
“His name sounds like… a dog.”
She barks once, softly, for emphasis.
“Chase?” the girl gasps, already leaning forward, pupils dilated with destiny.
“Yesssss,” the fortune teller says, stretching the word out like air leaking from a balloon, as if this costs her something—like she is surrendering a rare prophecy instead of repeating a name she just read off a phone screen.
She places three cards on the table: The Tower. The Lovers. A laminated menu from the smoothie place just down the street.
She flicks the menu over her shoulder without missing a beat.
“The spirits are trying to muddle the message,” she says calmly, faintly impressed with herself.
“They are? How can you be sure?”
“How?” she laughs. “The same way I know he is being… unfaithful. With someone you trust. Someone close.”
She closes her eyes.
“It begins with a breath. A sigh. A soft H. Then… a plant. A flower. Something you step on in Scotland.”
The girl tilts her head.
“What’s Scotland?”
The fortune teller opens one eye.
“Wow,” she says quietly. “Okay.”
She exhales. Refocuses. Makes a mental note to write her congressperson later about the education system.
“Someone who comments ‘omg love u’ on every post. Someone who owns three ring lights. Someone who tags him in every location.”
“Heather?”
The tarot reader rolls her eyes.
“Yes.”
The girl’s breath leaves her body like a kid getting the wind knocked out of them on the playground for the first time.
“I knew it,” she sobs.
“I knew it after she started posting all his Burning Man photos,” she gets slightly more hysterical.
“Even the shitty ones where he’s sitting there looking like one of those feral guys outside Costco, stuck in the fifth dimension from a bad trip—and still somehow has better lighting than me.” Her bottom lip trembled more with every word.
Angry tears streak her face. Mascara collapses like a small, local disaster.
The fortune teller suppresses a small snort of laughter, then considers her options the way influencers decide who they’ll let sponsor them that week.
She could tell the truth and accept a lifetime of bad Yelp reviews and spiritual attacks online.
She could confess everything and become one of those women who makes content about radical self-honesty.
Or she could lie beautifully and send this girl into the world armed with vengeance and a crystal she bought on some discount site for $10.99, and will sell to her for $500.
“There is… a remedy,” the fortune teller says, switching instantly into her most mystical voice, the one she usually saves for first-time clients and people with good credit.
The girl looks up, hopeful. Desperate. Ready to believe anything. Definitely a recurring subscription.
“First,” the fortune teller whispers, “wear this amulet, and take something precious of hers. Something that, if she lost it, her mind might snap like a twig.”
She makes a small snapping motion with her fingers for emphasis before pushing a random gemstone pendant toward the girl, its cheap nature invisible to the upper-middle-class eye.
The girl nods and hands over her credit card.
“Then,” she continues, processing the payment. “during the full moon, put it somewhere it absolutely does not belong.”
She pauses for dramatic effect.
“A professor’s desk. A CEO’s car console. A place where it will be discovered by someone who has no idea what it is and no patience for it. Somewhere that will get her in real trouble. Then sleep with the amulet under your pillow.”
The girl nods back in understanding.
“Thank you,” the girl says, wiping her cheeks. “I feel… empowered.” She leaves, necklace in hand, her shoulders squared.
The fortune teller tells herself she’s definitely going to hell. If there even is one.
She imagines a long, overheated, swirly slide down into sulfur pits, and hopes there is at least Wi-Fi, eye candy, and decent lighting.
She laughs quietly to herself.
Before the tarot reader can exhale, before she can even consider feeling guilty, she opens her phone.
Scrolls.
Taps.
Then, she buys a listing for a hand-drawn portrait of her soulmate.
For entertainment purposes only. No promises.
Delivery: 3–4 business days. $14.99 plus shipping.
Even prophets deserve entertainment.
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