In particular, I find myself focusing on The Empress and The Hanged Man. Unlike The Magician and The Lovers, which held the complete coordinates in their symbols, Perilli split the numbers for the missing King of Pentacles between the symbols of The Empress and The Hanged Man. My best guess is that these two cards are tied to the nature vibes of Pentacles, in addition to being tied together numerically: the one and two that make up The Hanged Man’s twelve also add up to three, The Empress.

Could this be part of why I feel drawn to Anwar, this connection between our own expressions? Is this why I’ve trusted him joining this journey? Or is this just my mind assigning meaning to another coincidence, however powerful it might be?

“Hey, isn’t that my tarot card alter ego or something?” Anwar asks, reappearing on the deck with two steaming cups of cocoa.

“Indeed it is,” I answer, putting the cards down to accept my mug.

“He seems kind of… I don’t know, messed up?”

Anwar looks down at The Hanged Man, and I understand this initial reaction. I used to be spooked by this card, too, until I learned the true depths of its meaning.

“Actually, The Hanged Man is one of the more sophisticated cards,” I begin. “It represents a resolution, using your circumstances to open up to a new world. His hanging upside down isn’t ominous; it actually represents a pivotal moment in a journey between worlds, looking to both.”

I finish speaking to find Anwar staring back at me with a strange expression on his face. Some mix of pain and maybe… adoration? Looking him over, his strong nose and wavy black hair and liquid eyes, I can’t help but feel like he could maybe be a turning point for me, a gateway into a new perspective. Goddess knows he already flips my stomach upside down.

I hate to say it, but Anwar’s interest finally makes me feel like I am someone to be interested in. I know I should feel that way on my own, but I just never have.

“That’s fascinating,” Anwar says, meaning it. “I can’t believe I never got into the tarot before. It’s so much deeper than most people know.”

“That’s what my grandma always used to say. Turns out, she was talking about something even… deeper.”

I feel an angry stab in my chest. The truth, the one I don’t want to admit, is that I’m mad at Grandma for lying to us. This anger, in turn, makes me feel horribly guilty, which then makes me miss Grandma even more. I find myself constantly trying to reconcile these emotions, to ball them up into one thing. Then I remind myself that, like the tarot, all of these emotions can exist in me at the same time.