“Should I meet with Bennie?”

Her hands felt like they were on fire, so she was quick to pull out the topmost card of the deck and place it down on her desk face up. As soon as she could see that there were no positive images or symbols to be found, she knew the answer she had been given.

THE DEVIL, the card’s bottom read. There was a big, well, devil as the focal point of the card, with hairy chicken legs, bat wings, goat’s horns, and an upside-down star centralized just above its narrow forehead. There were two people chained to the column it stood over, one a woman, the other a man, and while the man seemed almost content with where he was, the woman was looking back at her… and all she could feel was the judgment radiating from her.

This was the second time she asked this question. She hadn’t received a better answer the first time around, but she had thought that maybe she had just shuffled the cards erroneously, because she had received it reversed: the Two of Cups.

She had really hoped for something she had known deep down wouldn't change when she drew a new card.

One didn’t really need to be an expert at tarot to know that this particular card held absolutely no positive connotations. Just the image alone was enough to be able to tell what kind of message it sent; the name was incredibly on the nose. She had yet to look up the meaning on the guidebook, but she felt like… like the card was symbolizing her and Bennie’s relationship.

There had been times in which she had felt chained to him, even if not by him. And she had accepted it because that had been what was right; what she had allowed herself to accept as simply being her lot in life.

As she chewed at her bottom lip, worrying it between her canines, she reached over for the guidebook. She had to flip through a few pages, but she eventually found the page on which The Devil’s meaning was offered.

> Upright: Addiction, depression, obsession, dependency, materialism, abuse, assault, violence, hopelessness, cheating.

>

> Reversed: Detachment, freedom, defeating addiction, hope.

The sound that she made did not feel as if it came from her mouth, for the rest of her body was cold and frozen; petrified.

Bennie had asked for them to meet at a coffee shop they had visited once before; they had liked it well enough to say that they would eventually return but not enough to have actually followed through after. It had been as neutral a place as he knew she would be willing to go to and, damn her weak, wretched heart... she had been tempted to go.

Simone had told her it would be a bad idea and not worth the hassle. Her sister had texted her to let her know that she thought it would be good for at least a little bit of closure for all three of them. Her parents had insisted it would be good to go back to Bennie, explain herself, and ask for forgiveness from the best man she had ever met in her life.

She had blocked Bennie everywhere she had been able to think of. She had made sure to block him as soon as she had been able to on the sites she had easy access to and then she had thought long and hard and gone about the grueling task of blocking him even in places she didn’t, just to really force herself to stay away from the temptation of reading anything sent by him.

But she hadn’t blocked her sister. And she had just known that it would only be a matter of time before he took advantage of that fact to get through to her.

And, because life was cruel, she wouldn't be able to block her sister, either, to get rid of Bennie as absolutely as she knew she would have liked. She couldn't block her sister because she had yet to admit what she had witnessed to anyone; not even Simone, who was her friend that knew the most about the situation.

Bennie would have undoubtedly known all of this- she had always been too willing to speak far too freely about the fragmented relationships she shared with her family members... she hadn't been surprised to find out when he had tried to communicate her by using her sister's phone.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

And because her sister couldn't leave well enough alone, she had gone ahead and told their parents.

And now she had to wait with building anxiety for her brothers and cousins to get involved to either ask what had happened or demand for her to go back and stop being so dramatic. Because… well… if she gave a reason for the break-up, it would be a lie. She couldn’t just admit to the fact that she hadn’t been good enough to keep a man she had always been told was too good for her. It would be too much of an embarrassment.

The deck was more than clear, in her opinion, over what she should be doing. In a way, she even felt like it was… insulting her? There was a feeling of being attacked that she couldn’t really shake, even though she couldn’t quite explain why she felt such a way.

Still… deep down, she knew that she wanted to see Bennie again, even if she knew it was wrong.

Bennie had been good to her, yes. But she couldn't look past the fact that he had cheated on her. With her sister. Even though he had known everything she had told him about her relationship with her sister.

Nellie had always known that life was cruel but this? This was just a new low she wished she could be surprised by but... in truth... she wasn't.

Her sister had always been the kind of person to steal anything that belonged to Nellie. When they had been younger, Nellie had done her best to write such actions off as her little sister simply wanting to be like her older sister. But, by now, Nellie knew better.

As long as her sister was around, she would never be able to have anything that was truly just her's.

She had been stupid to think that Vanessa would be incapable of stooping so low. Well, no, with the way that she was taking all of this with relative ease, it was clear that she wasn't too surprised by what had happened. Instead, she had just hoped that Vanessa would be better than that.

But, really, this was all on her. She had been a fool to hope such a thing. From birth, their parents had basically raised Vanessa to think that she had a right to everything that belonged to Nellie. Not even her preferred nickname had been safe from her younger sister.

Yes, it was petty. But there was still a dagger in her heart because ever since Vanessa had been born, Nellie had felt like she wasn't enough. She may laugh at family gatherings when people remarked how cute it was that their preferred nicknames rhymed so perfectly but... Nessie and Nellie had haunted her heart for far too long.

With a sigh, Nellie forced her mind away from such thoughts and back into the most important matter at hand. She couldn't really do much to handle the situation with her sister other than just accept it for what it was: her life.

Bennie, though? She could at least get away from the new brand of toxicity he had unleashed in her life; she didn't have to lie down and accept this.

She looked down at the card once again, focusing specifically on the blonde woman. The further she looked at her, the harsher her contempt became; Nellie felt a hollowness begin to appear deep within her chest before she tore her eyes away with a groan.

After she had unlocked her phone and entered her sister’s messages, she wrote a curt ‘No thank you. I love you but if you play middleman for Bennie again, I’m blocking you too.’

The words were harsher than what she usually would have resorted to; she had sent the message before she had allowed herself to attempt and change them into something much less straight-to-the-point, into something much gentler. The harshness of the tone would probably cause friction with the family but... well... she could handle that when the time came.

Her fingers began to tap against her thumbs without her even noticing it; her foot began to tap against the ground.

There were a million thoughts bouncing around her head and most of them were not very kind. As she focused on the one about her sister being a better fit for the athletic social media star than her own reserved, isolation-loving self, another one about her parents being disappointed over having to say goodbye to their prized future-son-in-law forced its way to the front. One about being crazy for even thinking that there was sense to what cards she had pulled crawled at the very bottom, mostly quiet, but ever present in the mess that was her mind.

When her breathing became noticeably hollow, Nellie decided it was time to distract herself with some more videos on witchcraft.

She needed to stand strong because Bennie was a lying cheat, even if only she knew the truth. Her sister was also deserving of being blocked, but if she didn’t press too hard, Nellie was willing to grin-and-bear-it for the sake of family harmony. They were both assholes that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with because they had betrayed her and broken her heart; but one of these assholes was family and she couldn’t just cut her out full stop.

She deserved better than a guy that lied about how much he loved her and then turned around and fucked her sister when her back was turned.

She did.

She just needed to keep repeating this until she started to believe it.