How to Ruin a Wedding(82)

She hums deeply before sitting across from a hopeful Valerie.

“You’re confused,” Taina says, placing her hands in a prayer shape on the table covered in a white tablecloth. Everything but Taina’s rings, layered necklaces, and hair is without color—purposefully plain, so she could “easily read the colors of Valerie’s aura,” she’d said, after “extensive research” on Spanish psychics she found on a Reddit thread. She took notes all night.

“Your soul is splattered with emotion,” Taina continues. “So much so that your inner self has become a shadow lost in a dark room, unable to find itself.”

Valerie stiffens.

“I’ll give you privacy,” I say, phone secretly recording under the table.

Valerie grabs my hand. “Stay,” she whispers. “Let me know how you feel about her when we’re done.”

I drag over a cushioned chair and sit beside her.

Valerie rests her hand on the table. “How long have you been doing this?”

Taina impressively lifts a single brow. “How long have you known how to breathe? My gift was passed down to me by my mother at birth. Our seer ability has traveled through generations, given to the next in line, taken from the one who births.”

I focus on the gold chains on her neck to keep from laughing. But then I see Valerie’s face—how much she believes this—and guilt digs into my ribs. If she knew this was all fake, would she lump me in with everyone else who dismisses her?

I’ve always cared. But now that Anders and I have decided to be together—really together—everything feels heavier. My head scrambles, my heart falters, and guilt gnaws through my chest as violently as an energized woodpecker, first thing in the morning, on a brand-new tree.

“A honey psychic,” Valerie says—a term I’ve never heard before. “My last psychic was the same. I didn’t tell anyone that.”

“Fate binds you to the familiar. The familiar shall guide you.”

I should’ve never let her binge-watch a marathon of low-budget Lifetime magical movies last night. Taina might be pulling from all of them at once.

“You have the biggest decision of your life to make,” Taina says. “Figuring out if you want to say ‘I do.’”

I snort. “Yeah, that’s not exactly brand-new, top-secret information.”

Taina holds a finger to her nose. “The universe whispers to me about you. It says you need a cleansing.”

“Focus on Valerie, please,” I mutter.

“You’re wavering.” Taina presses her fingers into her temples. “You see a name that is not the one you’re meant to wed.”

Valerie freezes. Panic flickers before she smooths her expression. “What name?”

Taina closes her eyes, tapping her nails on the table. A long pause. Then she opens them. “Nick.”

Valerie glares at me. “You told her.”

“I did not.” I totally did. But I thought she was too drunk to remember telling me about him in the first place.

Valerie leans toward Taina. “Tell me something only I would know. Something no one else could guess.”

Taina closes her eyes, humming something familiar—until I realize it’s a Bad Bunny song. I discreetly kick her under the table, and she switches melodies.

Her brows furrow in mock pain. Then, right on cue, clouds gather and thunder rolls faintly in the distance.

Or maybe our mom is rolling in her grave, ready to claw out of her coffin and strangle us both for this brujería. I can picture her making the sign of the cross with her fingers and whispering a prayer to ward off whatever spirits she thought this would invite.

She believed even saying “Oh my God” was a sin to confess before entering heaven. I say her signature forgiveness prayer in my head. Just in case.

Thunderclaps. Taina opens her eyes. “When you were a child, you wanted to be a ghost hunter.”

Valerie grips my arm. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

“The universe hears you anyway.”

No way that was a lucky guess. If I had to bet, Taina’s late-night drive was to Bethany’s house to hack Valerie’s search history and take notes on her niche interests. Taina once told me she could track a cheating boyfriend’s incognito tabs. In another life, she’d be recruited by the NSA.

“Okay, okay,” Valerie says, mostly to herself. “I have been thinking about Nick. A lot. Why am I doing that? What does that mean?”

“Often when we think we’re happy,” Taina says, “our memories echo truths in our souls.”

“I think I’m happy?” Valerie echoes. “I am happy.”

“Then why are you here?”

Valerie hesitates. “Clarity.”

“And what clarity will you gain from one not of your heart?”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps,” I interrupt, “the universe could explain itself less cryptically.”

Taina raises a silencing finger, then clasps Valerie’s hand. “If your heart teeters, you must place it on the scales and see to which side it breaks.”

Valerie pulls back. “I can’t see Nick again. My family would kill me. I promised I’d never see him again.”

Taina doesn’t flinch. “Then why does he still visit your thoughts?”