Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
So, yes, Brynn not responding to her texts for well over ten hours was sign number one that something was wrong. Sign number two was that Brynn hadn’t come back home that night. If she was staying with a guy, cool, but she would normally inform Shavonne because it was a rare occurrence. They’d made a pact less than a year ago that they’d never sleep at a guy’s house again unless the relationship was serious. They wanted to get their lives on track, which meant focusing on themselves first. But Brynn had met up with her ex, and Shavonne figured this ex had triggered Brynn and made her disregard their pact. Not that Shavonne really cared about her breaking it. It was going to break eventually, when they each found the loves of their lives, but Brynn didn’t mention staying the night with this ex of hers. It’s not rare that someone hooks up with a past fling again, but something about this guy being in New Orleans struck Shavonne as odd. She specifically remembered Brynn saying her last real relationship was with a guy from North Carolina. Brynn had some flings in college, but nothing that was ever serious. What was this ex doing in their city in the first place? Had Brynn been talking to him all this time and not telling her?
At first, Shavonne figured Brynn needed a night to be wild and reckless. But see . . . that was the issue. There was a night when they were wild and reckless, and Shavonne had almost been sexually assaulted in an alley. She and Brynn were having a night out barhopping and Shavonne had decided she could walk to an ATM by herself for some quick cash so they could order more drinks. Her short walk out of the bar turned into a nightmare. A man grabbed her, shoved her against a wall, and groped her. He went under her skirt while choking her, so she’d be still and quiet. Brynn found Shavonne in the alley and maced the hell out of that man, sparing Shavonne heaps of trouble and possibly a sexually transmitted disease. After that, Brynn bought Shavonne a protection kit (bear spray and a pocketknife) and promised to never let Shavonne out of her sight and vice versa when they went out. New Orleans, just like any other city, had its dangers, but so long as they stuck together, they’d survive.
Shavonne and Brynn were more like sisters, really. They always said so. Both of them came from shitty childhoods. Both attended Loyola University where they were dormmates for all four years before graduating and becoming real-life roomies. They had their moments where they’d bicker and, sure, Shavonne could be a little overbearing, demanding, and a bit of a neat freak, but regardless of all that, they meshed. Brynn was laidback and chill, where Shavonne was more alert and hyperaware of everything.
Ever since she was a child, Shavonne envisioned the worst-case scenarios. She couldn’t help it, really. Her parents died from a worst-case scenario when she was sixteen. They’d gone on a winter cruise and her mother accidentally fell off the boat. Her father jumped in after to save her. There was a whole rescue situation but neither her mother nor father survived.
When her parents passed, all she wanted was to speak to them again, to hear them. She believed in spirits and the afterlife and had even dabbled in witchcraft here and there. She believed that certain crystals let off good and bad energy, and that superstitions were true.
Shavonne was living with her aunt Trudy on 7th Ward when she paid a visit to a psychic in Garden District. She’d saved money from her job at a burger joint just to see this woman, despite Aunt Trudy’s warnings.
“Mess with people like them, and they’ll mess with you,” Aunt Trudy scolded when Shavonne mentioned going to see her.
The psychic’s name was Krystal, a plump black lady with bushy gray hair and a smile that reminded her of the Cheshire Cat. She owned a little voodoo shop that was more like a hole in the wall called Magic Hour. Shavonne paid Krystal $75 to have Krystal “call” her parents in the afterlife. The room they were in was closet-sized and stuffy, with trinkets lining the wall and incense wafting about, but Shavonne swore she felt the energy change when Krystal closed her eyes and called for her parents.
“They miss you,” Krystal said with a smile. “Oh, Shavonne, you look just like your mother. She wants you to stop taking the medication your psychiatrist prescribed to you. She wants you to heal and grow without them.”
Shavonne broke down crying after those words left Krystal’s mouth. Truth was, she hadn’t cried much since her parents died. She’d been bottling it in, trying to figure out why them, why her? Why, why, why? And now Krystal was talking about the medication she’d never even mentioned, and it was proof—proof that the afterlife was real, and that all her studies were true. Well, at first. The truth (and something she later discovered) was that Krystal had taken a peek inside her purse when she placed it on the floor before her reading.