“Happy New Year,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers as they caught their breath together.
“Happy New Year, Santi,” she giggled, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and somehow that was much more intimate than the kiss they just exchanged.
And just like that, their promise was made. Or re-made.
Chapter Two
January 4
Three years ago
Lipa, Batangas
“So you’re not going to tell us about your secret New Year kiss?”
It was a cool evening in January when the three of them gathered. The Luz family’s gazebo was lit with candles and twinkle lights and a parol dancing in the breeze. There were no other sounds except the rustle of the trees and the birds of paradise plants chiming in with the rustling to join the symphony, led by the tuko announcing itself in the distance.
“No,” Kira Luz said with a coy little smile. Some things were best kept to herself, including really serendipitous New Year kisses with an old childhood friend. And she really would have been able to get away withnottelling anyone about it, but Santi had insisted on walking her to the hotel that night, where her Ate had coincidentally been hanging out at the lobby for the Wi-Fi. Then, of course, Kira never heard the end of it. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell. She does, however, kiss and do oracle readings. So shh and focus on the innermost desires of your heart.”
It was the perfect night to ask the universe for a little bit of guidance. Kira Luz looked at her friends, Sari naturally trying her best to look uninterested, and Sam all too interested in every move of Kira’s hands. She wanted to think there was a magic in the air as the three of them sat around the low table in the middle of the gazebo, her hands inexpertly shuffling the oracle cards she got for Christmas.
“Are you sure about this?” Sari asked, nursing the cup of tsokolate in her hand as she pulled her gray cardigan closer to herself. “We’re not summoning anything naman?”
“Like what? A demon that will do your every bidding? Clean your house? I would not be mad.” Sam Tomas shrugged.
“Relax, Sari. This is an oracle reading, nothing more,” Kira assured her like she’d had more than three days’ practice with the cards. “No predictions, just a little guidance before we go do our things in the New Year. Nothing occult, more spiritual than anything else.”
And she really did believe in that. If there was anyone who always tried to attune themselves to the cues of the universe, it was her. And right now she needed that bit of guidance. The questions in her heart were getting too loud to ignore, and sometimes it was the universe who knew best how to guide her.
It came to her soon after she lost her dream job, and realized that she wasn’t exactly where everyone else was. The world was moving at a pace she couldn’t follow, down a path she couldn’t see. She was supposed to graduate, get a steady job, make money, fall in love, get married, have kids. Kira wanted all that for herself, but had no idea how she was supposed to go about it. The path had been so muddled and lost, that she couldn’t even see where she was going.
Enter astrology. It was funny at first, how much a general, non-specific description of a Gemini just felt so...her. Then she learned about rising signs and moon signs, learned about the different houses and how the planets aligned when she was born. Then she was introduced to oracle readings, which were so insightful. They helped her remember how to find joy, how to look at how her life was going, and course correct if she needed. How to find the path that everyone seemed to be on.
To her, astrological signs and oracle readings were the equivalent of a matchstick when you were walking through a dark forest. It was better than nothing.
There were three of them tonight. Kira the Gemini, with her questions about her life, if she was doing the right thing, trying not to forget that she was very prone to the most spontaneous decisions. Sam, the Leo, who already knew all the answers. And Sari, who was a Capricorn through and through, rooted and grounded, almost immovable in her steady ways...and could maybe use a gentle push.
“Here we go,” Kira said, after she asked her friends to close their eyes and breathe evenly, just to open up their minds. She shuffled the cards, her hands still fumbling a little over them as her limbs loosened, and she allowed herself to breathe evenly and let her mind clear. Three cards, she decided (was it really her, or someone else deciding for her?). One card each. This one. This one. That one. Done.
Okay, universe,she thought, laying three cards facedown in a row in front of her.What do you have for Sari, Sam and me?
Each girl picked up their card, choosing without prompting from Kira.
The middle one,she thought, and picked up the card. The wind picked up, and her mother’s wind chimes sang. It seemed to be the right choice.
“The belonging you seek is not behind you—it is ahead.” Sari Tomas read, her frown immediately deepening, as she stared at the picture on the card. This particular oracle deck was insight from the movies. And while Kira thought the movie selection wasverylimited, it didn’t make the insights any less important. “It’s Star Wars. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.”
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner. IlovedDirty Dancing,” Sam announced, showing them her card and chuckling before she flipped the card facedown again, like she wanted to tuck it away. If there was any more insight she gained from it, she wasn’t about to say, which Kira found very curious. “What did you get, Kira?”
“I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for.” Kira showed her friends the card, which featured an illustration of the moon, with white flower petals rising from a bowl, just like in the movie. She remembered the scene, but Kira had a sense that there was a deeper connection behind the drawing, a connection that transcended love, if such a thing existed. “Practical Magic.”
“Huh,” she said out loud, flipping the card over as if it had more answers for her. “Labo.”
“How is it malabo, you’re the one doing the reading?” Sari teased. Kira laughed with her friend.
“It all depends on how you see it, I guess. Or I just made a bad pull.” She highly doubted that was possible, but decided not to think too hard about it.
But really. A love that time would lie down and be still for? Kira had too many other things in her mind to think about love. She had a condominium unit in Manila to give up, a family business to keep running. A life to figure out, and that wasn’t even factoring in that she wasn’t ready for love. Love was a hard concept to grasp when the things you thought were a given—a good job, a sure way to be a happy, fully realized adult—were all murky and a huge question mark. Love was not supposed to be in the cards yet.
