Starboys

You were with an earth sign… earth and…” she stared intensely into my eyes as if she was searching for something. “Earth and metal!”
“I… I don’t know what that means…” I said, moving the sprayer through her soft white hair.
Concern pulled across my face as I examined the strands. Her hair seemed at least an inch longer than it did when she first came in. But it was normal for wet hair to look longer, especially if it suddenly got wet after being super dry for a long time.
“It means he was boring as sin! Probably tried to drag you down into his boringness too!” she grumbled, crossing her arms and tutting.
“He was… predictable. He liked routine,” I said carefully.
“Routine… please! Routine is for squares. You, Charlie, have all of this sparkling creative energy around you. Being with a person like that is… well, I’m sure it was a waste of your time.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little offended. Sure, my ex was predictable, but he was also stable.
Something I was not.
I decided to turn the subject back around to her. “So, the earth metal guy was one of your loves,” I said. “What was the next one like?”
“The next one? The next guy fancied himself an artist. One of those fire-types that was so full of himself, when he looked into my eyes it was clear that he was admiring his own reflection!” she said. “Him and everything he represented was nonsense.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. “I totally know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I know someone who looks at people like that.”
“Oh, it’s the worst!” she exclaimed as I toweled off her hair. “Those types are pretty, and they’re magnetic, but they know it. It doesn’t give them anything to strive for. At least, the one I was with was like that. There are some good fire types, though.”
Once I was done patting her head with the towel, she stood up and led me back over to the chair as if I was the guest in her salon, not the other way around.
She settled back down into the chair with her legs crossed like a queen.
As I gave her another pat-down with the towel, her steely eyes locked onto mine in the mirror. “You do realize that you have something in your aura that’s just waiting to come into your life, right? You must know. I’ve never sensed one this big.”
I stopped patting. “What do you mean?”
She rolled her eyes as if I was a simpleton missing something completely obvious. “Normally I can sense people that are close to you in your aura. They show up like tiny little pin-pricks of light that I can only see with this,” she gestured to a spot on her forehead above the bridge of her nose. “They show up with different kinds of brightness. Acquaintances are like sparkles, flickering in and out of your aura. Friends, now they’re a little brighter, a little more fixed. Close friends and family are like lightbulbs. And lovers, well, they’re even stronger. They flicker with this incredible brilliance!” She moved her hands in a fluttering motion.
My eyebrows came together with disbelief, but I was enraptured nonetheless.
“And you, Charlie… you’ve got what feels like a sun glowing in your aura.”
I paused combing her hair, stuck on a tangle.
“You haven’t met him yet. It’s a him, by the way,” she added slyly. “If you’d been touched by this already, your aura would be glowing a bright pink and purple. Right now it’s made of all these reds and oranges, like embers.”
I inhaled sharply through my nose as I felt pain flicker at my thumb. When I held it up to my face to examine it, I saw that I’d picked the side of my nail a little too far.
Hazel was regarding me with a knowing expression in the mirror.
I knew I could have denied her. Written her off as a crazy woman who decided to come and sit in my chair. Changed the subject to more banal, boring things.
But I wanted to pull at this thread, and from her expression, it was clear that she wanted me to, too.
“When? When do I meet him?” I asked, my mouth going dry.
Her eyes went down. “I don’t know when. Time is… different and difficult with these kinds of things. It could be in two years. It could be tonight.”
My shoulders sagged a little. I hadn’t realized how much I’d gotten my hopes up. Then I reminded myself that this was silly; she was just a stranger in my chair. There was no way she could know my future.
She cleared her throat, pulling my attention back to her. “Don’t worry, love. Meeting him — your heartmate — for you it’s inevitable.”
“Heartmate?” I asked, “Don’t you mean soulmate?”
She shook her head, her silvery eyes shining like dimes. “Soulmates show up in your life to teach you things. They could be close friends, family, or a stranger you meet on the street. A heartmate though…” her eyes widened. “Heartmates transform the very state of who you are as a person. True love, acceptance, happiness, all of that is the stuff of heartmates.”
I busied myself with mixing the colors so that she wouldn’t see my shaking hands.
“And this guy — my heartmate — I’m going to meet him for sure?” I asked, trying to sound like I was half-bored.
She nodded. “As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It’s waiting there in your future for you to discover.”
Suddenly I felt terrified. I wasn’t ready to meet the love of my life. I needed to go back to college, I needed to lose about fifteen pounds, I needed to make my apartment more presentable—
“No, you’re ready,” she said as if reading my mind.
I paused mixing the dye. The bland white paste was locked in a swirl and turning a vivid pink hue.
She squinted at me, and then her face fell. “There’s something blocking you, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, continuing to