As I Fade (One Breath at a Time: Book 1) (8 page)

Life sure has dealt me a bunch of crappy Tarot cards,
I told myself.

I recalled my mother objecting terribly to the fact that I had dabbled in such things as the readings.

She would say, “If you’re going play with the Devil’s cards, expect bad things to happen.”

My thoughts were,
“Bad things are going to happen either way so why not get some insight.”

I didn’t believe much in the cards anyway. At the time, they were just a passing hobby of mine. I had never considered myself overly superstitious. So, I honestly didn’t think much of it when I pulled the devil and the death card from the deck, every single time during my readings. My interpretation was the devil card represents awareness and negativity that constrains, and the death card was symbolic that it was the end of something, but not human life. I didn’t take the images literally.

Everything is relative and has two sides; it is not the dose, but an over-dosage that could turn what is good for you into a fatal poison. Take sleeping pills, for example, one does the trick, on the other hand, a hundred pills would surely kill you.

I was cautious about anything that would have been considered addictive or habit forming. I’d had the cards read only a half a dozen times, or so. No big deal, right? I found the readings mysterious, fun and intriguing, but maybe my mother was right. The source of the tarot’s powers may have not been of this world.

At twenty-something, I had my whole life in front of me. If I could have changed the outcome of the silly predictions, I supposed I would have. Alternatively, thinking back on things, maybe I would not have changed a thing. I had always known the life I wanted. I just was not sure how to get it.

I was not one to sit at the edge of a pool, testing out the water with the tips of my toes. I was more of a dive in headfirst kind of girl, and then hoped I would rise to the top.

* * *

While I lay there not knowing my fate, or where the
hell
I was, my mind pushed back to a time of broken promises and unfulfilled love.

Those earlier memories swept through me; they were vivid and much clearer than the uncertainty of my current condition. Anger was the new sense that replaced my ability to grasp my fading memories.

Shattered reflections of my ex, who was long gone, stuck to me like flies stick to a strip of flypaper. Of all people to remember, why would I think of him? It had been so long. He was the
last
person I wanted to remember. Those were my thoughts at the time.
Go with them,
I convinced myself inwardly. I traveled back to a time...

Almost two years ago...

I was sitting in front of my computer in my old apartment in New York City, when four little words popped into my mind.
“Eat shit and die...”
The words appeared on the pages, more than once, in the letter I’d indignantly written to him, and he’d deserved my wrath because he had broken my heart into a million pieces! This asshole was a trespasser—he had no place in my life, or my memory, although I had to remind myself it was I who had “settled” for him.

Would he actually eat shit and die? I wondered while I was writing to him, wishing, and hoping. I was doubtful. There was a one-in-a-million chance he would eat shit and die from it. That was virtually impossible, unless, it was infested with a deadly strand of E Coli.
What would be the chances of that?

Ever since I was a young girl, my grandmother would say, “What is written makes it so.” Essentially, she was aware of
“The Secret”
long before the huge moneymaking, spiritual self-help books were flying off of the shelves.

The Secret
is the law of attraction and manipulates the “Universe’s powerful energy” to our liking.

According to
The Secret,
our thoughts and feelings attract a corresponding energy to ourselves. If our thoughts are negative, we attract negative things. If our feelings are positive, we attract positive things. Essentially, we all have the power to determine our own destiny. We can all create our own reality. How do we do this? We write down our daily affirmations, then mediate on them and keep our thoughts positive, then our desires will have a greater potential of coming true. It was pretty simple.

My grandmother warned me that
The Secret
doesn’t know the difference between negative and positive thoughts, so whatever you focus on will come to you. She said, “Be wary of what you write down and cautious of what you wish for.” Her words dripped in the back of my mind like an IV giving me life support.

Not only had I used my grandmother’s advice to my benefit, I took it a step further. In keeping faithful to her mantra, I wrote those daily letters to my ex—cursing him as a practice, and hoping my words would come true. It took me a year to get over his lying, cheating sack of horseshit ass!
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
I was that woman.

* * *

When I busted him, he had some nerve, calling me the cuckoo one! Consequently, maybe I was.
Maybe.

My behavior could have appeared a bit neurotic. I was polite to his face, sighing and smiling and then later bombarded him with over fifty emails, which could have made me look like one of those quiet types that could flip-out at any minute. So, maybe I was crazy. As far as I was concerned, he could
kiss my ass
in a Macy’s window!

After discovering the tool between his legs, he transformed himself from a computer geek into a hunk and quit thinking with his head; the one on his shoulders anyway. He had too many distractions going on below his waistline to concentrate on my feelings. So, my resolution was to write him...and, so I did and did and did!

Crazy huh?

It was my intention to use
The Secret
as my personal weapon of revenge! Deep down, I had known one hundred percent that I was not practicing
The Secret
in the way it was intended.
So what,
I thought. If it worked, I would be happy.

As much as I tried to meditate on positive things, I didn’t always succeed. I did not actually want my ex to die. But, eating shit—now, that sounded good to me. At best, if the universe made good on the first writ, I would have felt much better than I did.

After, my facing the facts, it was more than likely my prose would end up in the trash of his email; I decided to send the last letter anyway. Who would it hurt? And, in hindsight, it gave me some closure.

I had never taken the power of
The Secret
as serious as my grandmother did, especially because I wanted to be an author. After all, an author writes everything down. If everything that I had ever written came true, my life would have been nothing more than a tangled web of drama. Therefore, in my role as an author, I had to throw away her mantra. “What is written makes it so”—I mean according to my grandmother, the universe does not know the difference between fiction and reality.

After rereading the emotional letter to my ex, I focused on my closing—
Break A Leg.
I laughed to myself at my closing. It was very apropos because my ex happened to be an aspiring actor. It seemed as if it was the perfect way to end the letter. He would have no idea that I meant it in the literal sense. Then again, in tune with the rest of the letter, I was sure he would figure it out that I definitely meant it literally!

Then came the most nerve-wracking moment—the time to actually send the letter. I slid the cursor up and over to the little blue send button. After all, hovering over the send button was the easy part; actually clicking it was a different story.

A gut-wrenching pang oscillated in the pit of my stomach as the cursor blinked in anticipation. That feeling of regret we have all experienced from time to time, swept over me.

“
Do not send it,” a little voice whispered.

I had to tell myself to breathe, one breath at a time. Deep breaths—it’s going to be fine. Don’t panic.

I closed my eyes and tapped my index finger against the mouse pad. It was complete. Within seconds, his phone would alert him that he had an email from me.

As the moment passed, that feeling of impending doom eased in my chest. With one click of a button, there was no more pressure beating down on me, no more threats of an unknown female scratching her nails across his back, and no more lies bringing me to my knees. It was true; he’d pushed me past the point of breaking, causing me to become pathetic on many levels.

Stupid girl,
I thought, scolding myself. But, of course, it was my own fault for believing in fairytale romances and happy endings.

“
Good riddance to bad rubbish,” I muttered out loud in a British dialect, quoting the phraseology that was originally coined by Tobias Smollett in The Critical Review, 1805. The quote had special meaning to me. My grandmother often used the expression. She always exhaled a modest little sigh of
“ha-ha”
after saying it; I found her quote extremely befitting in this case.

“
Enjoy the shit-eating feast, asshole!” I spat out the pithy words. I tried to laugh, but a lump snagged in my throat.

‘
It is over’ rang through the silence of my mind as if to consummate the closure. The quiet void of the room sank around me, a pool of tears swirled in my eyes. The sorrow in my heart was greater than in my mind.

Fight it...damn it...don’t cry—don’t give in to the heartache.

I wiped the tears away with the hemline of my shirt.

The letter was riddled with such anger. Sighing deeply, I stopped second-guessing whether or not I should have sent the letter. More than likely, he probably would not even read it. I tried to convince myself of this. After all, what was the point of reading mean hate mail, right?

I closed my laptop, and my eyes scanned the vacant apartment, stopping at my six large suitcases that waited by the front door. The suitcases were filled with one year’s worth of carefully selected garments and designer shoes. Each packed meticulously. The insoles were stuffed with the finest tissue paper.

Everything was in motion, slow motion. The doorman rang my intercom. He was on his way up to my apartment to help with my bags. It was time—too late to turn back now.

The words “single,” “freedom,” and “adventure!” ran on a ticker-tape through my mind. That’s right, I thought to myself, my future was brighter than all I could have ever imagined. There was no looking back, I convinced myself. And, like the wind, I was off to embark in my new life in Paris!

* * *

To my knowledge, the affirmations did
not
work on my ex. He more than likely never ate shit, and as far as I knew he was still alive and well. Unfortunately, when you say or wish bad things on others, somehow as Karma has it, your words will potentially backfire. Case in point, the last memory I’d retained was being with my ex, and as it turned out I was the one near death or dead!

So, I am in Paris!

I held onto that thought, it would be the one memory I was certain of—
if
...and when I woke up.

-5-

In the Wake

A bright light darted back and forth between my closed eyes. I could hear voices. Some of them spoke in French, while others spoke in English, and some used a pretentious fake French accent. Not cute.

“Open your eyes!” The words were in singsong, as if spoken to a child. “Wake up, Mademoiselle.” Cold fingertips on my eyelids. Someone was peeling them back. How disturbing. I struggled to keep them closed.

Where would the dark prison of my mind take me next? One thing I knew was that the crippling pain had mostly subsided. No, two things...I was in Paris!
Paris!
And, I was not dead. Okay, maybe there were three things I knew for sure.

When my eyes slowly opened, my head pounded with pain. My entire body felt as if it had been dragged by a team of horses and then trampled on for good measure. My limbs felt lethargic and weighted down. From beneath my lashes, through half-opened eyes, I was startled to see bandages wrapped around various parts of my body.

My usual perfectly manicured nails looked messy and unkempt. The red fingernail polish gathered like pools of blood beneath my over-grown cuticles. The nails themselves were scuffed, ragged, and broken down to the quick. I mean way down. Not a pretty sight.

I ran the pads of my fingertips across old scabs that rested on the peaks of my knuckles. They looked as if I had just gone a few rounds with the Brad Pitt in
Fight Club
.

Apparently, I had lost.

I heard a breath that was not my own and turned toward the quiet movement of air. My eyes raked over the blurry image of a man. I could not see the details of his features, at least not in the moment, considering my light-headedness.