I know my phone is watching me.

 

This is the fifth online tarot I’ve scrolled to in fifteen minutes.

“Will He/She come back to you?”

 

How did it know I got dumped this Thursday?

 

The girl was a freelance writer with pieces published in indie literature magazines. She wrote four days a week, six when she felt like it. She submitted to magazines and reviews. She got two to three submissions accepted per month if lucky. Then she got paid, from $20 to $200 per piece.

 

She didn’t really care after all.

 

A “freelance writer” did not count as a job.

She didn’t need one anyway. Her mom had two holiday villas, one in Atlanta, one in Ischia, an island forty-five minutes away from Capri.

 

I met her in a flamingo-themed underground bar during happy hour. Under the pink light and fake palm trees, I asked why she was called Onion.

Weird name, I thought.

 

She said it was Orion, not Onion.

But the first name you called someone out loud became a fixed code. I tried hard to correct my bad habit. By the third time, I gave up. She did too.

 

So I just called her Onion.

 

Every online tarot’s cover looks similar: three random objects.

This time, it is a red-capped Japanese Otsuka Ointment, a half-used bottle of hydrating serum, and a golden tin of Nescafé freeze-fried coffee. The rule is simple. Each object represents a pre-drawn card spread. You just pick the one you feel the most “inspired resonance” with, then swipe to find the card interpretation for the object. I’ve seen used lipstick, a hair-entangled comb, and a half-shattered perfume bottle before. Compared to those, another one I saw—an orange that looked like it had been in the fridge for at least three weeks—was so unspiritual.

 

I chose the Otsuka Ointment because it reminds me of my cracking joints in the winter. My skin always splits during winter, then bleeds. After the blood dries, the skin becomes harder, more brittle. Then it splits again, bleeds again.

 

There was a guy called PixelMoth13 on a late-night forum saying, “Love is a wound that repeatedly tears and stitches itself back together.” I clicked like.

The next day, he DM'd me asking where I lived, and if I was interested in grabbing coffee together.

 

The card spread for the Otsuka Ointment is: Chariot reversed, Lovers reversed, Wheel of Fortune upright, Seven of Cups reversed.

Upside-down cups often signify dashed hopes and shattered illusions.

 

I have already pronounced my own verdict and lost the patience to keep reading the rest of the interpretation.

 

I exit the page and type into the search bar: “Why is online tarot reading unreliable?” A user calls “No-reply-to-dumbasses'-comments” says online tarot reading is essentially psychology; it can’t reflect reality or predict the future. Those who post always say things like XXL jeans, so that anyone, any size, can squeeze into them. Her words make me feel a bit more at ease facing my terrible result. She sounds professional—like a hidden master, far more credible than those trying to get a spiritual connection through ointments and dried oranges.

 

“You mean she will come back to me?” I ask.

 

Over the next few days, I check the comment notifications constantly.     

“No-reply-to-dumbasses'-comments” does not reply to me.

 

*

 

The water in my bathroom doesn’t come out the instant I turn on the tap. The metal hot water pipes stutter, then release a 'tut-tut-tut' like a machine gun.

 

Orion takes me to a day-café-night-bar around the block on a Sunday night. The bar counter is sticky and crowded. She says if I want anything, it’s on her. Charli XCX plays overhead, I look at the sugar solidify on the edge of the Canada Dry I got from the deli—it cost me $0.87.

I’m good, I tell her.

       

After she takes a few shots, I tell her I have a habit of counting every penny I spend. She laughs and says it’s fine. She loves Blood Orange and the Cocteau Twins.

 

She orders me a lychee martini.

I think the moment I see her walk towards me with that pale liquor, I’m in love. I don’t know, maybe the music is just too loud.

 

I get back to my apartment in the corner of the city at 1 AM. The shower water is a faint reddish-brown when it first came out. I have already taken my clothes off, standing by the tub patiently, knowing that in ten seconds the water won’t be brown anymore.

 

The free hot water supply is from 7 to 10 PM. I hear the water meter ticking in my head. I ask ChatGPT how much hot water costs in the area I’m living in. It tells me: $0.00081 per second.

 

I still turn on the tap, then bend the handle to the far left.

While letting the hot water lefting red spot on my back, I let my mind climb willfully on Orion’s body.

 

I have read a story where the protagonist has the desire to lick someone’s thigh. I don’t have the desire to lick Orion’s thigh, but I want to sleep with her. But I also don’t want to have sex with her. I want to lie on her lap, play with the rings on her finger. I imagine what it would feel like if her fingers were in my mouth. I get ulcers often because my mouth gets inflamed easily, and it hurts even just to think about it. Or maybe all I want is to take off her glasses, so she can kiss me without anything in the way. 

I want her to look at me, with her olive-colored eyes.

 

Thirty-five minutes later, I finished showering. $1.70, the calculator tells me. Almost enough for two Nature Valley raisin granola bars.

 

*

 

I go to Whole Foods with Orion the first week in December. I have a day off.

 

We wander aimlessly between aisles, circling the shelves again and again until we eventually pause at the display of scented candles. She says she loves the one called “Wild Poppies” the most. I say I hate it, it’s too sweet—reminds me of cherry-flavored Life Savers.

You are weird, she says.

 

Walking around hand-made soap and scented candles together feels like we are married, though I get nothing except the vanilla yogurt, which costs me $2.99 because it has a French name.

 

Whatever. I will take it as the admission fee to this pseudo-marriage.

 

She still gets that sweet candle in the end. I don’t get to see the price tag, so I don’t know how much it costs.

 

*

 

Orion has her first reading night at 8 PM on Friday. She texts me asking if I’m around. I say maybe.

 

I arrive at 8:15 with a bouquet called “Orange Liqueur,” a mix of Bird of Paradise and Anthurium. She is waiting near the platform for her turn. Another girl is standing right next to her, wearing a ginger mock-neck sweater, holding an Aperol Spritz. They are standing too close. Orion is slightly taller, and I watch her lean down to catch whatever the girl is whispering. The light reflected from the diamond earring on the girl’s ear pierces my eyes. I wonder if they are from Tiffany & Co., and I wonder if I should go tell her it actually hurts.

 

Nevermind, I think I see her lips graze Orion’s neck after she speaks.

 

I sit in the crowd. The venue is tiny, but I’m not sure if Orion sees me or not. I recall speaking in front of the entire high school. When the spotlight shone down above my head, my eyes felt pasted shut. I couldn't see a thing.

 

Orion disappears the moment she finishes reading; the dim light is the perfect curtain. The ginger sweater disappears too. I wonder if she’s had one too many Aperol Spritz and is now hunched over a white porcelain American Standard in the bathroom.

 

I shove the “Orange Liqueur” into a trash can under a traffic light on the street. Watching it get stuck under the lid, I decide to walk away and find a real drink. Three minutes later, I run back and haul them out of the trash because I suddenly realize they cost me $93.

 

I texted Orion the next day, asking if she had seen me and where she had gone. I immediately regret my tone, and follow up by telling her I’ve started listening to Blood Orange. I say the covers of Cupid Deluxe and Coastal Grooves remind me of Divine in Pink Flamingos.

 

I tell her I’ve fallen in love with eating tomatoes. I tell her about my growing obsession with its gel, the juice thickened with seeds, licked through my fingers. But the tomatoes in my fridge have gotten very soft these days. I don’t know if they have gone bad.

 

I tell her about that strange story I read, about a woman who wants to lick another woman’s thigh.

 

I tell her, “I miss your glasses,” after I get out of the shower.

I stare at the screen for two hours and finally delete “glasses,” leaving only “I miss you” before I go to bed. The next morning, there is an unread notification on my home screen. My heart hammers so hard I can feel the vibration in my chest. I ignore the Face ID request and punch in my passcode.

 

“Your T-Mobile AutoPay was successful! $53.87, including taxes, was processed on VISA.”

 

*

 

The night after I get dumped, I don't eat anything. I get a four-pack of Delirium Tremens Blond ales and see pink elephants. I see Orion too. Her face, mixed with the elephants, dances around my head.

 

I wake up at 3 AM and throw up some sour bile. I dig the Pepto-Bismol out from the bottom of the cabinet but accidentally knock it over. Watching the sticky pink liquid slowly seep into the cracks of the wooden floor, I ask Google why Orion's face keeps flying around my head and how to clean a floor after vomiting from a hangover. It asks me if I've heard of the “Ironic Process Theory,” also known as the “pink elephant paradox.” The theory suggests that intentionally trying to avoid thinking a certain thought or feeling a certain emotion cannot only fail but also cause the thought or emotion to occur more frequently and intensely.

 

For cleaning, it suggests combining vinegar, water, and a big squirt of mild dish soap. In the end, it tells me to drink some electrolyte water. I think of the organic coconut water I once saw that was pink. I searched on a delivery app and found that it's called Harmless Harvest. Three minutes later, I turn off my phone and lie back in bed instead of ordering it.

 

No more pink, I think. I'm going to a psychiatric hospital.

The smell of vomit ferments faintly in the room.

 

*

 

The Earth is so big, but I like you.

 

I like you, she once said. Her hair on my face, I had thought of the brown microfiber cloth they sell at Whole Foods.

 

The Earth is so big. We will meet many, many different people. We will read many different online tarot readings, and even 99% of them will be totally bullshit. We will take many showers, use lots and lots of hot water, and meet many people with strange names.

 

I think if I send Orion a receipt for everything I’ve spent on her and demand she pay me back before I block her, I’d be an asshole. So instead, I just curse her.

 

I curse you to think of me. I curse you to think of me when the trash is growing upside-down bouquet. To think of me when you light the scented candle that smells like cheap candy. To think of me when standing under the shower, the boiling water hits your naked back. To think of me when a pink flamingo is drinking a lychee martini.

 

But the beer covered with baby blue foil will always make me think of you.

 

Its logo is a pink elephant