Free I'm Not Gonna Lie by George Lopez

hug and started walking toward a room in the back of her small house, dragging her portable oxygen tank behind her like a tail. We followed her past a cluttered living room completely filled with crystals—crystals on an old television set, a credenza, end tables, shelves. In the center of the room, on a coffee table, a gold Buddha sat surrounded by even more crystals. As we walked behind the pet psychic, wind chimes sang outside a large picture window and cast a golden light across our path.
    We came to a back room, a kind of porch, and the pet psychic gestured toward a love seat facing an overstuffed armchair. We sat down and the pet psychic sat heavily into the chair, arranging her oxygen next to her. She smiled at us, and then she closed her eyes. She sighed, let out a long, cleansing breath, and fell into a deep trance.
    After a full two minutes, she said, “Yes. Uh-huh. I see a strange-looking dog. A spaniel crossed with a poodle, maybe. A mutt.”
    My girlfriend looked at me in confusion, but I nearly fell off the love seat. “That’s my dog! From when I was a kid. I had that dog for sixteen years.”
    The pet psychic dropped her head and covered her face with her hands. “This dog liked to go in the car.”
    Wow. How could she know
that
? Lady, every dog likes to go in the car. This pet psychic was a fake. The oxygen tank was probably a prop, a way to tug at your sympathy and get you to cough up more money.
    â€œThis dog would go crazy whenever you grabbed your keys,” the pet psychic said. “That was his signal. You would grab your keys and he’d think he was going in the car with you.”
    Whoa. She hit that on the head. I swallowed. “Yes,” I said. “It was kind of funny.”
    â€œWhen this dog got old, he developed problems with his hips. Terrible. Finally, you had to put him down.”
    Damn. Two for two.
    â€œYes,” I said softly. “That’s true.”
    â€œYou brought him to the vet and you left. You knew it was the end, but you didn’t stay with him. You couldn’t face it. You knew if you stayed, you’d lose it, that you’d fall to pieces. You tried to pretend that you were tough, that it didn’t matter. But it did matter. You left because you knew that was the only way you could hold it together. You didn’t want to cry.”
    I bit my lip. I could feel the tears welling up.
    â€œHe wants you to know that it’s all right. He understood. He knew how you felt. He knew you loved him.”
    â€œI didn’t know what to do . . .” I said, the tears trickling down my cheeks.
    â€œAre you crying?” my girlfriend said.
    â€œNo,” I blubbered. “Allergies.”
    â€œHe forgives you,” the pet psychic said. “Now, he says, you have to forgive yourself.”
    I lost it. I tried to fight back my tears. And failed.
    â€œHe was a good dog,” I said.
    The pet psychic pulled a tissue from a box on the table next to the love seat and handed it to me. I dabbed my eyes and blew my nose. My girlfriend shook her head and rested her hand on my forearm.
    â€œNow you,” the pet psychic said to my girlfriend.
    The psychic closed her eyes and drifted off into that trance again, this time for a solid three minutes. When she opened her eyes and spoke, her voice seemed higher and had lost its raspy sound.
    â€œI hear her,” she said.
    My girlfriend gripped my hand so tightly I thought she would snap off a finger. The pet psychic nodded and spoke in an even higher voice. “‘Hey, dying was as much of a shock to me as it was to you,’” the pet psychic said.
    My girlfriend gasped.
    â€œâ€˜It was quick,’” the pet psychic said in that new voice. “‘I wanted it to be quick, because I knew you couldn’t handle a long illness. Believe me, I didn’t want to go through that, either.’”
    The pet psychic scrunched her