My Favorite Souvenir(32)

A tear fell down my cheek. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d let that happen, especially in front of people. But I couldn’t help it. If this was Zoe coming through—and it seemed it was—it was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced. My emotions were all over the place: happy and sad, relieved and scared, all at once.

“She’s making me cry because she’s so sad that you blame yourself. She says what happened with her could not have been stopped, that it was her time to go. Her story was written that way. So even if you had done something different or tried to stop her, she would have left this Earth anyway. She needs you to understand that what happened wasn’t your fault.”

I had to take a moment to grab my bearings. With my face in my hands, I let those words sink in.

“Do you understand that?” Zara asked.

I looked up. My lip trembled as I nodded silently while Maddie squeezed my knee.

I had always blamed myself for Zoe’s death, because I’d let her ski the double-black-diamond trail with me, even though it was too advanced for her. To this day, I’d still been ruminating about the what-ifs. If only I’d told her not to come with me, she’d still be here.

“Wow. She’s passionate. She really loved you,” Zara said.

And with that, I could feel more tears forming.

She smiled. “Ah…she’s playing music. Was that an important part of her life? Was she a musician?”

I wiped my eyes. “Yes. She was.”

Zara nodded to herself a few times as she concentrated. “She wants you to know that you have no choice but to move on, and that it’s okay to do so, alright? That’s why she came through today. She needs you to know that.”

There was a long moment of silence.

What felt like a couple of minutes passed before I finally asked, “Is she gone?”

“I haven’t been able to figure out her last message. She’s showing me hazelnuts. Do you understand what that means?”

Hazelnuts?

After several seconds of reaching for meaning in that, I shook my head. “Not in the least.”

Maddie looked between Zara and me.

“Sometimes a spirit sends me messages auditorily and sometimes through images that might sound like certain words they are trying to convey. Perhaps I’m misinterpreting what she’s showing me. But I believe the image is hazelnuts.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

Maddie looked utterly freaked out. This had to have been too much for her. It was supposed to have been in good fun. Instead, we got more than we bargained for; we got a séance.

But for me? It was a gift. To hear Zoe tell me that what happened wasn’t my fault and couldn’t have been stopped was something I would only have believed coming from her. And it seemed it did come from her. At least at this point, I had to believe it was real.

“Anything else?” I asked.

Zara’s eyes moved back and forth. “No. I think she’s gone.”

I exhaled, feeling a bit sad that Zoe had left, but also relieved. Anticipating the messages had been intense.

Zara reached into her pocket for her phone and checked the time. “We are actually ten minutes past your allotted time. I hope you’ve found this reading helpful.”

I stood up. “You can’t even imagine. Thank you for going outside of the box to let me hear Zoe’s message.”

She smiled. “She gave me very little choice.”

Maddie stood up, and we headed out the door together.

The mood was completely weird as we walked in silence down the road.

“That was intense.” Maddie put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I blew out a long breath. “That was... I don’t even know what to say.”

“It was amazing. Totally and utterly amazing. And meant to be, Milo. So meant to be. We were meant to find this place so Zoe could get that message to you. In fact, that might have been the universe’s entire reason for this trip. We were brought together to find this place, to find Zara, and to get Zoe’s message.”

That was wild. I was starting to get emotional again. Seeing as though I’d done enough crying for one damn day, I tried to lighten the mood.

I wrapped my hand around her back. “So you mean to tell me we’ve gone to a sex party, bought godawful boots, and you’ve been caught talking in public about masturbating all so I could hear from Zoe?”

“Yes!” She laughed. “Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“You might be right.” I smiled. “I wish I knew what the hazelnut thing was about, though.”

She stared off for a moment. “Well, if it really does mean something, and you’re meant to figure it out, I suppose you will in time.”

I nodded and ruffled her hair. “This day has been way too crazy. We need to do something chill. Where should we go tonight?”

“To be honest, I’m sort of bushed. I kind of just want to go back to the room.”

Shit. I was hoping we could avoid having to be alone in that room a little while longer. But what was the point of putting it off? We had to go there eventually.

“Alright. Sounds good. Want to grab some food and take it back?”

She rubbed her stomach. “I’m still full from that jambalaya earlier.”