Chapter 33 Sam

T he world of my room slowly fell away as I envisioned my body sending roots through the floor and into the earth, branches into the sky to soak up all the light. I had been on a pretty good stretch there for a while of meditating in the mornings when I got to the shop. Then I got busy with preparing for the festival and thinking about Jesse and then obsessing about everything my mother said. Since Zin had given me the shadow-work book, I'd been trying to get back in the habit.

I sat at the raw wood table in the woodland cottage in my mind and poured a cup of tea. The knock came on the cottage door, and I invited the energy in. I'd set the intention for this session to try to sort out how to separate my feelings about Jesse from my feelings about staying in Emberwood and carving out a real life here. No matter how many times I went round and round in my brain, I couldn't imagine staying and just ignoring him or the way I felt when I was with him. But I also couldn't imagine staying and things falling apart with him and being forced to see him settle down with someone else. I had to want this enough that I would feel confident about the decision independent of whatever happened with Jesse.

My guides entered the cottage, and their presence felt warm and familiar, like the scent that hung around hours after baking cookies. Today, I waited calmly. I'd already apologized for yelling at them multiple times for their lack of guidance, and I was trying to do better with the whole patience thing. Something akin to a scrapbook was placed in front of me, and it flipped through pages on its own. I watched still images of myself in the shop—organizing, doing readings, changing displays, and in all of them I looked genuinely happy. My body relaxed even further into the meditative space as uncertainty fell off my shoulders little by little.

This will be the right thing for me whether Jesse is there or not.

Then, the book flipped back to the beginning, and my guides showed me the same series of photos but zoomed out. In them, Jesse was either dropping off coffee, leaving me notes on the checkout counter, or sitting across from me during readings. And he looked stupidly happy too.

Wait , I thought. So, I can't separate the two?

The answer I heard back was, "You can if it's what you decide. You just don't need to."

Those words settled over my skin like a blanket, and I let the weight of it sink in. The energy of my guides retreated out the door, having done and said all they needed to for the moment. I began to wiggle my fingers and toes in my meditation until I could feel them in my physical body, and I slowly came back to my room.

I had not considered the idea of just not separating my feelings about staying and my feelings about Jesse, but yeah, what if I just... didn't? What if I just got to be happy about both things, and I didn't actively prepare for the worst? What if I got to be the exception this time? The girl who gets what she wants and isn't someone's second choice. What would it feel like to just accept that I got to be first?

Zin wanted me to be more active with the shop. She wanted to have more of a retirement, and she trusted me to take care of the store. Jesse said point blank that he wasn't giving up on us... that he wanted this. It can't really be that simple, can it?

"I THINK VERY SERIOUSLY that this might be the best Halloween set-up the shop has ever had, Samantha." Zin looked around, pride radiating out from her.

"I've got all of the crystals organized into different Halloween vibes- I've got the amethyst and rose quartz our for the fairy princess crowd, tiger's eye and obsidian for the horror fans, and even crystals set out for all of the Hogwarts houses for the witch and wizard clients."

I had decided to take back the ownership of my Halloween descriptions from Christy. Lauren made me understand that I was being a little petty with my initial reaction, so I thought this was a nice compromise. Plus, I could live with a little petty.

"I also sent out the new flyer with a coupon for fifteen percent off a ‘Samhain "Thinning of the Veil" Reading.' It sounds very magical. Plus reading on Samhain is magical so it's not just a marketing scheme," I said, grinning.

"Sometimes I think I've been doing this so long that I forget how much fun it can be," she replied. "Your energy is good to have here."

"I'm glad I'm here too, Auntie." Her gaze focused on me a little harder, and one of her brows raised up impossibly high. "Anyway, do you want to grab lunch or—"

"You know better than to think you're going to beat around the bush with me."

I grinned. "I know, I know. I just had to make you work for it. I've decided I'm staying. Like, really staying. I do have some specifics to work out with you because I'm not just going to keep living at your house for free. But I feel really excited about what I can bring to the shop, and it's already amazing how much more focused I am on my craft since I've been here. I want to keep learning from you, and— where are you going?"

I was in the middle of a well-practiced explanation when Zin darted toward her office on a mission.

"Keep talking. I'm listening!" she called from the back room.

"Well, now it just feels silly!" I waited a few moments for her to return to see her holding a thick folder.

"Nothing you say is silly. Go on."

"I just... I'm excited. To come to work every day. It makes me happy to be here, and I think I can add some of my own flair to the shop, maybe do some designing, if that's okay with you. I mean, I know it's not my shop. You know what I'm saying."

"I do know what you're saying, and I'm prepared to remedy that immediately."

"Remedy what?"

"It being only my shop."

"What are you talking about?"

Zin flopped the folder open on the checkout counter and turned it around so I could read the first page. I skimmed through the words, and then read it all again more slowly.

"You're... making me your business partner?" My heart thudded in my chest.

"Of course, dear. I can't fathom you thinking I begged you to come here just to work as what, a clerk? A manager? You're a part of this shop, and you are its future. I had your father work with my lawyer and draw up all the necessary paperwork to make sure we're both getting everything we need, legally speaking. Your dad also said he's going to come down and make sure you get your old 401k rolled over into a new retirement account and that you're set up for financial success for your future."

"When... what? I've talked to my dad like five times since I've been here, and he never..."

"Ah, he's been an excellent co-conspirator. Very impressive."

"I don't know what to say. Why wait until now to tell me this?"

I felt heat rising toward my ears and tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. This was more than I'd ever anticipated.

"Because you had to decide for yourself what you wanted. I could tell you all day about how obvious it was to me that you belonged here, and how you would make not only the shop but people's lives better here, but it had to come from you. For the record, I'm ecstatic that you decided this way because it has killed me not to tell you."

I walked around to the other side of the counter, threw my arms around my aunt, and let the happy tears spill over. I had never felt so seen before in my entire life.