Page 102 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
“Can you put that on the table and grab whatever salad dressing you’d like from the fridge? I’ll eat whatever you choose.”
“That’s either very trusting or very dangerous,” she said, already opening the refrigerator.
“I prefer to think of it as flexible.”
She made a small sound that was either a snort or a laugh and held up a bottle of vinaigrette, seeking my approval. I nodded.
We ferried everything to the table together, and when we sat, there was a brief moment of quiet—the particular quiet of two people who know each other well enough to feel the strangeness of this particular situation.
I took a bite of the risotto. Then her fork moved, and the silence stretched one beat too long, so I said the first thing that surfaced. “I’m glad you were the one who won me.”
Her eyes slowly came up to meet mine. “I, uh …” A flicker across her face—surprise, first and beneath it, something warmer and a little uncertain. As though she hadn’t quite decided what to do with it yet.
“I shouldn’t have said?—”
“I am too,” she said quietly. She smiled tentatively, feeling her way through whether she meant it or not. Then, as if she decided she did mean what she said: “I am.”
I exhaled.
The conversation that followed came easier than I expected. She wrinkled her nose when she admitted she’d never learned to cook properly—her parents hadn’t encouraged it—but her face went soft when she talked about her aunt’s kitchen, and the two of them making something from scratch, flour on every surface.
“Your aunt was the first to welcome me when I opened my practice,” I told her.
Delaney grinned. “Let me guess. She brought you crystals, didn’t she?”
“Citrine and rose quartz.”
“Of course.” She pointed her fork at me. “Citrine for the prosperity of the business. Rose quartz …” She paused. “For connection, maybe. She’d want the animals to trust you and stay calm.”
I studied her across the table. There was a particular comfort in watching Delaney think. The way her eyes went a little distant, the small movement of her fingers when she was working something out.
I took a chance. “Can I ask you a question without offending you?”
She grinned. “Spit it out, Kingsley."
“I have a hard time believing the crystals do anything. Scientifically. Why do you believe it?”
She took a bite of the risotto and made a low sound in her throat—a soft, satisfied sound that had absolutely nothing to do with me and still managed to tighten every muscle in my body. “Not everyone believes in what I do,” she said, either unaware of what she’d just done to my composure or merciful enough to ignore it. “And I know for someone who lives in the measurable world, it’s harder.”
“I’m not dismissing it. I’m asking.” And that was a big step forward for me.
The muscles that had just tensed in her face and shoulders eased—like she’d been braced for a fight and found, instead, genuine curiosity. She leaned forward slightly. “It’s about intention. We use it to ease a worry, to invite abundance, to calm our body. But it’s not just the crystal doing all the work—the person also needs to make moves toward the outcome before they can expect things to change. The crystal is the anchor for that belief.”
“That sounds like what a skeptic would call a placebo effect,” I observed.
“Some people will say that, yes.” She wasn’t bothered by that. “But here’s the thing, Marc—you don’t need to believe in it for it to work. I would never tell someone to use any of this in place of medical care. But I also believe that the two can coexist. There are reasons Reiki practitioners have been invited into hospital settings. Patients who receive it heal faster.”
“I’ve read about that,” I said. “Using Reiki in clinical environments. It’s fascinating research.”
She stared at me.
“What?”
“You read about it?”
“Yes.”
“You just …” She pressed her lips together like she was suppressing a smile. “We’re not fighting. We’re disagreeing peacefully, and you read research about energy healing. I feel like I should document this moment somehow.”
