Careful What You Wish For.

Tara’s head lay heavy on her pillow as her night-long dreams of a kinder place in time became less vivid. Awareness of her surroundings grew, and memories of the previous day’s events flooded back.

A side-sleeper, Tara slowly used her aching arms to push herself onto her back. A searing pain flashed over her left cheek and radiated across her forehead and down to her chin. Reality hit her with a vengeance as she tried to pry her face off the blood-stained pillow. Tara’s swollen, badly bruised eye refused to open in protest of what it may see in the mirror. It seemed her own body also wanted in on the fight as her hot tears flowed and hit the skin tear on her cheek, causing her to inhale sharply. Fear overcame her as she lifted herself to sit on the edge of the bed. Where was she?

Tara stepped into the shower and allowed the water to run over her aching body. Tears ran down her face and dripped from her chin onto the shower floor as she ran her fingers over the purple mottled bruising that spread across her torso. The water attempted to soothe her skin and her soul but to no avail. No matter how she tried, her memories would not be washed down the drain. It would take years to rid herself of the trauma. After drying herself off, Tara dared to look in the mirror. Who was this woman standing before her, with a bruised and bloodied face and empty eyes? How did this come to be?

Incredulous, waves of emotions flooded over her. Anger, fear, dread, sadness. Tara slipped on her jeans and a loose t-shirt and made the bed. Her stained pillow bore evidence of her injuries, and Tara quickly grabbed it to pull off the case for washing. She removed the small black notebook that she kept inside her pillowcase every night and threw the naked pillow back into its place. The notebook for Missions and Visions contained her darkest thoughts, deepest wishes, and hopes for the future. The back page was reserved for the latest list of “Qualities I Want in a Partner”, a list that she had rewritten and updated several times in her life.

“How’s that working out for you?” she thought to herself as she threw the well-worn book onto the bed stand.

The book always delivered on its promises, Tara’s thoughts had always resonated with its nature to educate its owner, and it had obliged. Nestled inside her pillowcase, the heartfelt words scrawled across its pages were absorbed, and the book worked its magic as she slept. Fears were swept away during the night and replaced with hope. Small mundane wishes manifested in a matter of days, and while larger, more meaningful dreams took a while longer to “appear”, they always did eventually. Even Tara’s request for $20,000 didn’t go unheard when she was so desperate to “treat” her abusive partner to a well-deserved break. The money manifested itself by way of a very unexpected inheritance from a great Aunt in England that she hadn’t seen for nearly 24 years! However, the windfall carried a very expensive lesson.

The situation of late had tested the books patience. The intimacy they shared had begun to dwindle, and complacency was setting its roots. Despondently, the book waited for Tara to show it some love and attention, and maybe a little respect. She should know that the book would take care of everything; it always did. But she walked away, holding her aching head to make sense of what had happened the previous night. The book would have to wait.

Tara hadn’t heeded the warnings signs, the red flags that had been so clear in the beginning. She should know by now that the book manifests everything, but she had begun to take it for granted. Tara had chosen to ignore the fact that there were vital elements of her “Qualities I Want in a Partner” list missing in her current partner. She had jumped in too quickly.

“A partner who is humble.”

“A partner who is patient.”

“A partner who is financially secure.”

“A partner who is happy.”

“A partner who is caring.”

“A partner who is calm.”

Cori was beautiful, intelligent and insanely driven. Tara fell for her immediately. She hadn’t been looking for a relationship and had certainly never considered a same-sex relationship, but she was smitten from the minute they met. Within a few months, they had moved in together (a common occurrence apparently), and the rest is history. Two years into the relationship and Cori had become increasingly controlling, and her kind words had been replaced by anger, sarcasm and silent treatment.

Every day Tara found herself walking on eggshells and forever worrying about upsetting Cori. After weeks of trying to appease Cori and her demands, Tara discovered that she had inherited $20,000 from her great Aunt who had recently passed away in the U.K. Instead of discussing the inheritance with Cori, Tara decided that she wanted to use the money to take Cori away for a surprise break. She had booked a week’s holiday in Bali at the W Resort, hoping that they could rekindle their strained relationship.

Tara had not paid attention to the subtle red flags that had been flapping around since the beginning of the relationship. She had been turned on by arrogance in place of humility, had mistaken sullenness for introversion, and had accepted bullying and control as a sign of Cori’s care. The book could do nothing to stop the trainwreck that was about to happen.

She stood rooted to the spot.

“You did what?” Cori asked as she struggled to comprehend what Tara had just told her.

A look of utter disbelief spread across Cori’s face as Tara nervously spluttered about the amazing holiday that she had planned for the two of them.

Disbelief transformed to fury.

“I can’t believe you would make a decision like that without discussing it with me.”

Disbelief was now Tara’s friend. Cori began slamming doors and stomping around the house with Tara in tow, apologising profusely.

“So didn’t you think that I had a right to know? Didn’t you think I might have an opinion on how that money should be spent?”

“Seriously, Tara, you’re so selfish!” Cori screamed.

The gravity of the situation became apparent as she watched Cori lose control. Tara watched incredulously, speaking only when Cori demanded an answer and trembling on the inside as she watched helplessly as her relationship fell apart before her eyes. Tara pottered around the kitchen, trying to avoid Cori’s penetrating, angry eyes. At one point, she found herself in the pantry getting a bottle of water, and Cori appeared in the doorway.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Tara? Do you think this is normal behaviour?” Cori seethed.

“What? The fact that someone might want to organise a surprise holiday for her girlfriend?” Tara said incredulously as she tried to walk out of the pantry.

Cori stood solid in the doorway, blocking Tara’s exit.

Fear immediately overcame Tara. Cori knew that she didn’t like confined spaces, yet she deliberately blocked her path. Tara screamed for her to get out of her way and was met with a smirk. For ten long minutes, Cori stood rigid, blocking the doorway and glaring silently at Tara. It wasn’t until Tara cried in fear that Cori moved out of the way.

Cori’s mood seemed to soften slightly, but the sullenness was glaringly obvious. Inhaling deeply, Tara opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. Sitting at opposite sides of the kitchen table, the two women sat silently consoling their glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. Cori broke the silence to say that the money wasn’t just Tara’s inheritance to do with whatever she wanted.

“We are either a couple or not, Tara.”

She hadn’t seen this coming, but she had to try to explain.

“Well, actually honey, yes, it is my money. My Aunt left it to me, not to us.”

Cori’s mood shifted at lightning speed. She shoved the kitchen table at Tara knocking the chair backwards onto the floor. The situation escalated so fast. With the wind knocked out of her, Tara grabbed at the table leg in an attempt to pull herself upright, but Cori was there. Screaming non-stop obscenities, Cori lashed out at Tara and poured what seemed like a never-ending torrent of strikes to Taras’s head. A punch, a kick, became one and the same. Curling herself into a protective ball, Tara screamed for the attack to stop, but it continued until Cori ran out of steam.

Cori slammed out of the house, hurling a stream of abuse as she went. Tears began to flow, and refused to stop. Tara’s uncontrollable sobbing echoed throughout the empty house that had once been a home full of love.

The book pitied Tara but secretly looked forward to the coming days and months that she would pour out her heart onto its parched, empty pages. Much like the Guatemalan worry dolls, the book absorbed Tara’s worries and sent them into the abyss to be dealt with accordingly. Worries or fears that others had deliberately caused would be allocated a score, and karma would be delivered according to the universal scale. Justice, respect, honesty and morality saturated every page of the book of lessons, and every written word was judged. Unconsciously, the book owner couldn’t help but divulge their most authentic selves onto its pages; the book would settle for nothing less. Who would have guessed that a simple Moleskine notebook would hold so much power?

The book always delivered on Tara’s wishes, but she had to play her part. Tara had neglected the book and had ignored the red flags that she would see clearly when reflecting on her list in the coming months. Her negligence had cost her dearly. They would reconnect; eventually, they always did. Cori would be dealt with appropriately when Tara’s pen touched the paper. Until then, she needed to focus on her recovery.