Page 109 of A Fool's Game

“How can failure be how I find happiness?” I start to stand, feeling my emotions rise uncontrollably. “This is the last thing I needed right now.”

“Sit. We’re talking through the cards.”

“The terrible cards of failure.”

“You know there are no bad cards.”

“How can failure possibly be a good thing in my situation?”

“My dear, you are a positively wonderful failure. It’s why I love you so much. You fail at being a racist and bigot on the daily. I’d say you’ve spent your whole life failing to be a murderer and a bank robber. You’re quite happily failing to live up to the patriarchal standards of wifehood with your two handsome lovers.”

I flop back into my chair. “Positive failing. I should have known you could pull it off.”

“What determines failure or success in any given situation is the value system being used as judgment. If you want something and don’t get it, you will have failed in your own eyes. If you don’t want something and don’t get it, well, what a success you are.”

“So, I’ll need to fail at something on my current path in order to find happiness? What if it’s my internship?”

“What if, indeed. I’m sure you’re looking at this dualistically, so play the choices out for me.”

I take a deep breath and consider. “Okay, if I fail at my interview and fail to get the internship, I get to keep living in Seattle with Taylor and Ainsley. But, if I fail at my relationship with Taylor and Ainsley, which will happen if I get the internship and move to New York, then I find success in my career.”

She nods, but I’ve hardly convinced her. “That is two of the ten billion ways things could go. But you’re forgetting a few important elements of this reading.”

“Enlighten me,” I humor her, praying she offers me the answers I desperately need.

“The sphinxes.”

“Which mean…” I lead her when she fails to go on.

“Which represent the very real idea that you have no fucking clue what’s going to happen.”

I let out a breathy laugh in surprise. “Noted. What else?”

She lifts the Page of Cups and tosses it over the other two cards. “Like I said before. Fearless, unconditional love.”

I blink down at the card, with its smiling, well-dressed man, seemingly in friendly conversation with the fish leaping out of his wine glass.I’ve pulled this card for myself and others enough times to know that people generally think it’s a positive omen. Everyone wants love in their life. Even when I tell themthat love likely means they’ll need to reach down deep inside and be honest and direct about what they really, truly want, they readily agree.

Only me, on the verge of giving up the truest, purest love I’ve ever known, would see the prospect of having all your wishes come true as a bad thing.I do want this internship. I want the future I see it offering me. I recognize that I would be better prepared for the trip to New York and the interview and all of it if I’d been honest in the first place and therefore able to talk things out with the men who know and love me. But that wasn’t the choice I made. I’ve been keeping secrets out of fear that my ambition would ruin everything.

And I may have just ruined everything anyway.

But only for myself.

Over the last few months, I’ve watched Taylor and Ainsley grow together. Blossom in each other’s presence. I always knew Taylor had it in him to open up like that, but he’s never fully done it for me alone.

And Ainsley. My beautiful fool. Who will still tell me that he’s unsure what’s coming next for him, even as he powers through each day with determination and purpose. Taylor let it slip to me a few weeks ago that his hours are done, yet he keeps showing up at the kitchen, working his shifts and making everyone smile.

They both seem so…content. So settled.

It’s impossible to risk destroying all the peace and happiness they’ve found with my own selfish desires. As much as I’ve told myself Taylor would choose the house over me, I don’t honestly know if that’s true. And it only makes me more sure of my decision. He’s been clear as day that his goal is to save the house and someday make it his. If I force his hand, make him choose to leave it behind just so he doesn’t have to lose me…what kind of person would that make me?

I look back down at the card and shake my head.

Fearless, unconditional love.

Well, maybe that’s what I’m doing. I’m making the choice out of love for my guys. Saving them the pain of sacrificing their own dreams and lives for me.

“You look like you’ve made a decision,” Marisol says softly, shaking me out of my rumination.

---