On the drive home, my tears seem to have dried up, their salty film, still streaking my face. When I get home, I tell Jose about my seaside dream and how the sea guided me… I leave out the part about the aliens.
When I do, he stares at me blankly for an uncomfortably long time and I don’t blame him.
When he finally speaks, I can hear the doubt trickling through his voice. “How would that go, exactly?” he asks me.
I hesitate for a moment and it’s then that I realize that I truly have not thought this through. I don’t know a single thing about owning any business, let alone a brick and mortor. For a moment I consider gaslighting the hell out of him and telling him that he wouldn’t understand even if I explained my plan, but my conscious butts in, like the annoying menace that she is.
Not so fast bitch. Your pants are going to catch on fire.
I teeter between the two versions of me, my darkness and the light. With a roll of my eyes, I reluctantly sub-come to my moral compass, answering him honestly instead.
“I have no idea,” I say only slightly defeated. My ignorance doesn’t bother me, even though it should.
His eyes meet mine, but he says nothing. I’m practically infamous for my impulsive decisions, so this isn’t exactly new territory for us. When he still says nothing nearly a minute later, I fill in the silence.
“I know this sounds crazy, but the problem with risk is, you never know if it’s worth it. The other problem with it is, you never know what you’ll miss if you don’t give in to it.”
His shoulders fall a bit. I can tell he is about to say something but this time, I interrupt him before he gets a chance to, desperate to convince him.
“Look, I can’t escape this vision. It visits me in my dreams and haunts me when I’m awake. I just have this….feeling. Maybe it will completely fail, but I’ll regret it forever if I don’t at least try.” As the words leave my lips, I can hear how dramatic they sound, but I don’t give a single fuck. This FEELS dramatic. To me, it’s so very serious.
Maybe the determination can be seen in my face, because in the next moment, I can see his expression shift. I can also see that he’s starting to give in.Finally, he speaks. “And if it doesn’t make any money you’ll quit?”
“Of course,” I fib.
