Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Yes,” she said, as if it was obvious. “The blockage was started a long time ago and has only grown since then. You definitely need some clearing. I’m going to try.” Her expression was one of utter concentration, her mouth tight, her brow pinched. “Shoot. I can’t budge it. There are too many layers across too much time.”
“Is this where you try to upsell me on the energy-clearing machine?”
She shook her head slightly. “You’ll have to do it yourself. It will take a lot of introspection and hard work.”
Impatient, I bounced my leg beneath the table. “Look, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“You must stop hiding your deepest emotions.” Delphine spoke with increasing intensity. “You must shed the layers of protection you’ve put into place. You must eliminate the blockage in order to access the deepest reaches of your heart’s reservoir.”
“Could you be a little more specific, please?”
“You must strip down to your purest self.”
I stopped bouncing my leg. “Strip down? Like . . . get naked?”
“If that helps you to get comfortable with vulnerability, then yes.” She lifted her shoulders. “Sometimes our clothing is just a metaphor.”
“A metaphor for what?”
“The protective walls we put around our hearts. They keep us safe, yes, but they also keep us hidden. You must stop hiding.”
I thought for a moment. I did like being naked. Even if it wasn’t exactly what she meant, it sounded a lot easier and way more enjoyable than going at my childhood trauma with a pickaxe. “And this will help me get better acting jobs?”
“I believe it will help you show the universe you are ready to receive what awaits you. That you are open to accepting its gifts.” She leaned forward in her chair and pinned me with her dark brown eyes. “Tear them down, Dashiel Buckley. Let in the light. What you seek is within.”
“Well? What did she say?” Izzie demanded as we got on the road back to my house in Los Feliz.
I stared out the passenger window, rubbing my index finger beneath my lower lip. “A lot of weird stuff.”
“Did she clear up your dark, cloudy energy?”
“No. She said I have to do it.”
“Did she say how?”
“She said I need to strip down to my purest self. Get more comfortable with being vulnerable.” I shrugged. “Apparently, clothes are contributing to the walls around my heart, and I need to get rid of them.”
“Clothes are your problem?” Izzie asked incredulously.
“That’s what she said,” I insisted, even though it wasn’t quite what she’d said. “My homework is to get naked more often.”
Izzie shook her head. “Far be it for me to doubt Delphine’s wisdom, but I feel like there has to be more to it.”
“Well, I don’t know what.”
“I do. You need to get out of Hollywood for a while.”
“You think I should leave town?”
“Yes! You need to get away from the scene, Dash. Nothing is real here. It’s all artifice—costumes and sets and props. You need to go someplace genuine and authentic, someplace where you feel safe. Like your hometown in Minnesota.”
“Michigan.”
“Wherever.” She flipped a hand in the air, as if every town that wasn’t L.A. was all the same to her. “What’s it called again?”
“Cherry Tree Harbor.” I thought about the small town on the coast of Lake Michigan where I’d grown up. “I’m headed there in a couple weeks for my brother’s wedding. I guess I could go a little sooner.”
“That’s right! Which brother is getting married again? The single dad with the twins who fell in love with the nanny?”
I laughed. I had four siblings—three older brothers and one younger sister—and Izzie was forever trying to keep them straight. “No, that’s Austin.”
“The former Navy SEAL who opened the bar?” she guessed hopefully. “The one dating the country music star?”
“Nope, that’s Xander,” I told her. “Devlin is the brother getting married. He’s the middle sibling, the one who lived in Boston who swore he would never tie the knot and then eloped out of the blue last fall.”
“Oh, right!” Izzie thumped a hand on the steering wheel. “With the girl whose family owns the ski resort.”
“Yes. They renovated the place over the winter and decided to renew their vows there, so the families could attend.”
“And your younger sister is . . .”
“Mabel,” I said. “She’s in graduate school.”
“Virginia, right?”
“Right.” I glanced at her. “I’m impressed with your recall.”
“You talk about your family a lot. You must miss them.”
“I do,” I admitted.
“So go home, Dash,” she said. “Take a month off from this grind. Reconnect to your childhood self. Take long walks in the woods. Meditate. Strip away all the protective layers—and I don’t mean just your clothes. Open up your heart, look to see what’s buried there, and let yourself feel it. Better yet, let yourself show it.”
That last part didn’t sound like a ton of fun, but I hadn’t been home in over a year, and I did miss my family. We’d always been close. My mom had died when I was only six, and my dad raised all five of us on his own. He’d never remarried, and he’d recently sold Two Buckleys Home Improvement, the business he’d inherited from his father and had run for decades, first with his brother and then with my brother Austin. Without work to distract him, I worried about him being lonely now that all his kids were grown and gone. Maybe I’d show up at the house and surprise him. He’d like that.