Alexa Daskalakis

She Said I’d Have Money, But Not Love

The fortune teller looked at me and smiled. “You’ll have money,” she said. “But not love.” Then she tried to sell me a candle for $110.

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The room smelled like smoke and coconut oil.
A velvet cloth covered the table — red, of course. Always red.
She had five rings and zero warmth.

“You’ll have money,” she said, already bored.
“Not love. Not real love.”
She tapped the cards like they owed her rent.

I laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was too familiar.

She looked up, eyes glassy.
“You want your name written in stars,” she said. “But not the way it’s written now.”

I asked what she meant.
She asked if I had $110.

“For what?”
“The candle,” she said. “The one that rewrites endings.”

I told her no.

She didn’t argue.
She just smiled like someone who’d seen it fail before.

“You’ll get everything you want,” she said, standing.
“Except the reason you wanted it.”

I left.
But I think about the candle.
And whether it still knows my name.

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Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction.
It is not based on any real psychic, spiritual advisor, or religious figure.
It is not intended to mock or disrespect anyone in those roles.
The fortune teller is used solely as a fictional device to explore longing, irony, and choice.