Chapter XXIII, where Adele confesses

I'm a cheater, I'm not proud to admit. And I'm not referring to this one time I decided to have something with a friend while I was seeing another guy. Okay, I'm being a bit too nice to myself here. I was not just seeing this other guy. We had been in a relationship - that was on and off - for a few years. I knew how my children with him would look like when (I felt then it was a matter of when and not if we had kids). They'd have big curious eyes and long eyelashes and I would look into them for a long time in awe. They would have pretty small hands. They would ask questions about almost everything there is in a child's world and eventually they would start asking questions about things they didn't understand completely. They'd start asking about the rain and why there are clouds and what is wind and one day they would ask about more abstract things, like what is heaven or hell, what's right or wrong, why is it that the little fish in the tank had to die and where they went after I flushed them down the toilet and what's death after all; and then they'd finally ask about god. It was when I realized that they would never be born. I realized I would tell them there's a big thick book full of stories and tales and that they could choose to believe whether they were true or not. Their father would say it was a big book with great stories about the one who created them and would take them to church. There were other things, of course, but I don't think they were worth mentioning. In my defense, I have to say that, when I slept with this friend of mine, my boyfriend and I were really being weird and it was just what it took for us to finally break up and face the fact that we would never be 'on' again. Just 'off'. I never told him anything.

Anyway. I was saying I'm a cheater. And having cheated on a boyfriend a long time ago is not what makes me a cheater. I know how to read tarot cards. Sometimes my friends come over and I give them readings. Tarot reading is not about guessing anything, it's not about being psychic. It's more like reading the horoscopes. You choose some cards, I read their symbols and tell you about your past, present and future, with more or less details. And it's up to you to make the connections. Generally people make good connections and everything makes sense. We're not really able to see the future. We see the future, but we can always change it and if we do something about it. And well, I cheat when I give myself readings. I choose 3 cards. Then I shuffle the cards again. And again. Till I get whatever it is that I want from my future. I guess it makes sense. I like to be in control of things, to know what's going to happen and I like to think that I am responsible for whatever happens to me in the future. So I literally take it in my hands. One, two or 3 cards. As many as I think necessary for me to be happy.