What's a Soulmate?

by Lindsey Ouimet

  Looking around the room, I notice she isn’t the only one with a little splash of color displayed. Most of the people waiting don’t exhibit much, maybe a ring like the officer’s, or some other little accessory. Some women have their nails painted bright, vibrant colors, and there are a few with lips as red as Beth’s are black. There’s a man leaning against the opposite wall from me wearing a pale-blue shirt, with darker blue pinstripes.

  When I take the time to see, color is all around me really. Even in this place. It’s hard to believe I’ve so easily started to take this for granted already. I tell myself it’s because I’m just tired. And stressed. And, okay, bitter about having to keep this all a secret. I’m a bitter, seventeen-year-old girl who, despite thinking she has a valid reason for all of her bitterness, is also pretty damned ashamed of herself.

  Great. Another thing to add to the list of Things Stressing Me the Hell Out!

  Andrew looks surprised to see me. After the way things ended with our last visit, I’m not surprised, but staying away was never a viable option. I bite the inside of my lip and wait, deciding at the last minute to let him have the first words. He stares at me for almost a full minute before he opens his mouth.

  “You’re back.”

  Simple. Not quite what I expected, but at the same time, I’m not really surprised.

  “It would appear so, yes.”

  He doesn’t look upset, and it makes me wonder if he really wanted me to stay away at all. It’s hard to tell with him. Everything is hard to tell with him. Well, aside from how I’m sure he’ll react to my next question. Pretty sure I’ve prepared myself for that.

  “So why is it I can’t find any information on what happened? On the incident or on the officer it happened to?”

  His response is instant. Like a shutter goes down over his face and he’s suddenly a blank slate and impossible to read all over again. And my reaction to his is pretty sudden as well. I’m gritting my back teeth so hard I’m afraid my jaw will actually start to shake.

  “You’ve been looking into me more?”

  I fail to stop my eyes from rolling. It might be partially true, but give me a break.

  “Not you. It.” I tilt my head to one side and could almost cry from the relief I feel when my neck pops. “And how else am I going to figure anything out? It’s not like you’re going to volunteer any of the information yourself.”

  “Why should I?”

  His voice is still calm. He hasn’t raised it once, but he doesn’t need to. He knows he has my full attention, and probably that he’s had it since the beginning. It unnerves me just enough to say exactly what I’m thinking.

  “Because I deserve to know exactly what fate, or destiny, or whatever the hell it is that makes all of these important decisions for us was thinking. I deserve to know why the person who I’m apparently supposed to be with is behind bars.”

  He leans back and crosses his free arm over his chest. I’m breathing heavily and would love to slap the smirk off his stupid face.

  “You have an awfully high opinion of yourself, princess.”

  “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?”

  I nearly spit the words back at him, and then we’re locked into some sort of staring match that quickly evolves into something very … different. Is it possible for my chest to still heave even as my breathing slows? Because it’s happening. And even though I feel flush, it’s not the prickling, uncomfortable sensation of embarrassment or discomfort. Well, maybe there’s a little discomfort. Especially as I go to wet my lips and see Andrew’s eyes follow along with the tip of my tongue. I thought that was something I only read about in romance novels. Isn’t it something that’s only in romance novels?

  He looks away first, and the wave of relief that runs through me somehow feels tinged with something more. I’m going to adamantly deny it’s disappointment.

  “Maybe if we even the playing field,” he mutters. Well, I say he mutters, but his voice is so deep it sounds more like a rumble than anything else.

  I haven’t fully recovered or regained the ability to speak yet, so I make a face I hope asks for an explanation.

  “Question for a question?” He shrugs and then lays a hand out flat in front of him. I study his long fingers, and the veins on the back of it, as I try to regain my composure. “You want to know more about what happened, and I barely know anything about you. I don’t even know your last na—”

  “Carmichael,” I cut him off without thinking.

  He stops and seems to mull it over in his head for a moment.

  “Okay, Libby Carmichael, fake youth leader with blue eyes and red hair, and parents who love each other, but are not ‘true’ Soulmates,” he says, using his fingers to make quotation marks in the air. “Tell me about yourself.”

  I don’t know how he does it. Maybe he’s always been good at avoiding the subject and throwing people off track, or maybe I’m currently under some sort of spell that allows him complete control over my disposition. No matter the case, I practically feel the tension drain from my body and have a sudden, strong urge to move past whatever the moment we just had was.

  “What do you want to know?”

  He looks at me for a second, and I can tell he didn’t think I was going to give in so easily.

  “What?” I grin. “You don’t have a list already prepared?”

  That smile. The one that makes something inside my chest ache? Yeah, he’s doing it again.

  “Well, you already know I have a brother. You have any siblings?”

  Here’s a little secret of mine. I have always wanted a sibling. Brother, sister, it doesn’t matter which. It’s not that I’ve grown up lonely, per se, but there seems to be a certain sense of camaraderie that goes along with being someone’s sister I think I’d like.

  But I understand why my parents decided not to have any more children after I was born. I think my mother would have loved a house full of kids honestly, but with the kind of connection my father and I have, they worried about things like bonding, and jealousy, and accusations of favoritism. They’ve never come right out and said these things, but I’m not an idiot.

  I don’t say all of these things, though. I simply shake my head.

  “Nope. Only child.”

  He does his head nod thing, and I can’t tell if he’s agreeing with me or thinking over my answer.

  “Makes sense. Considering you and your dad and all.”

  I add ‘perceptive’ to the list of words I can use to describe Andrew McCormack.

  “Exactly,” I murmur before turning the conversation back to him. “Tell me about your brother.”

  “Blake’s a good kid. He’s eight, but kind of small for his age. He used to be self-conscious about it until I pointed out how it made him a hell of a lot faster on the soccer field. I, uh, I help coach his team.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Or I did. Anyway, he’s smart. Quiet, unless you get him started on soccer or videogames.”

  It kind of hits me all of the sudden.

  “You talk about him more like a parent than a sibling.”

  The way he reaches up behind him and runs his hand along the back of his neck is becoming a familiar thing to me.

  “Our mom works a lot. Nights usually. I try to help out the best I can.”

  “Oh.”

  And the award for making things awkward goes to…

  “That counts as your question, by the way. My turn.”

  “Wait! No. That was not a question. It doesn’t count.”

  He smiles, and it looks a little contrived. A little too try hard to get things rolling again, I guess.

  “Sure it does. Now.” He pauses and leans forward. I do not notice how the top of his jumpsuit strains across his shoulders. And I certainly don’t notice that dimple. Again. Nope. Not at all. “What’s the best thing you’ve seen in color so far?”

  You.

  What? No. No, that is not my answer. I thank whatever Gods there are for short circuiting the thought
somewhere between my brain and my lips. I don’t even know where it came from. Honestly.

  “Sunsets,” I say instead. I don’t worry if it sounds girly, or stupid, because it’s true.

  His face doesn’t fall exactly, but it still looks sort of sad.

  “I haven’t seen one yet.”

  The air, or energy, or whatever it is running through the phone line between us is heavy, so I do the only thing I think of. The thing I excel at. I ramble.

  “They’re never the same. I think that might be what I like about them so much. And the longer you look at them, the more they change. And, I mean, before a month ago, I didn’t even know what the color pink looked like, but I would have never expected to see it up there, mixed in with blues, and purples, and reds.” I stop to take a breath and am surprised by my lack of embarrassment. “It’s just… They’re really beautiful.”

  “Sounds that way.”

  I wrap the phone cord around my wrist for lack of anything better to do. I don’t normally fidget. At least I don’t think I do, but I guess I have to work up to what it is I really want to say somehow. Despite the obvious lack of buildup there’s been to most of my earlier outbursts.

  “I don’t get it,” I finally say.

  “Don’t get what?”

  “The connection. I cannot make a connection, any connection really, between the person sitting in front of me right now—the person who coaches his little brother’s soccer team and doesn’t make me feel like an idiot for spouting poetic about sunsets of all things—and the person who supposedly, rightfully, legally belongs in this place. The guy who belongs on the other side of this glass.”

  I come close to actually tapping on it with my finger, and realize at the last second it’s probably something they frown upon here. I doubt very seriously he’s about to give any kind of response, so I don’t give him time to even attempt one.

  “You’ve got to help me understand. I don’t even know if it’s true, but with the lack of details and general freaking mystery whatever happened seems to be shrouded in, they make it seem like you nearly beat a man to death.”

  And, of course, because I have the worst luck in the world, our fifteen minutes are nearly up. I’m so flustered I almost don’t hear him. And when I do hear him, I’m certainly not prepared for what he says.

  “My father. He’s my father.”

  Chapter Nine

  I’m not usually up in time to do much more than grab a granola bar on my way out the door on most weekdays. This week has been different though. It probably has something to do with the shockingly small amount of sleep I’ve been getting. It was fine Saturday night when I could lounge in bed for as long as I needed in order to feel human again on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday mornings though? Not cool.

  And for this morning to follow the pattern? I might as well hang a sign around my neck that reads Approach with Caution, because I’m as likely to run into someone from lack of coordination as I am to snap someone’s head off for looking at me wrong.

  Not that it was necessarily a surprise when I woke up a good forty-five minutes before my alarm was due to go off again this morning. I thought about finally starting on my mom’s dress, but ended up staring at the phone in my hand and using the time to study how the screen glowed in the darkness of my bedroom instead. How it lit up the skin of my forearm, casting a faint blue-white color, and the planes of my bed with the shadows dipping in and out of the contours of the sheets.

  I spent Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday, and yes … last night thinking about what Andrew told me. Turning it over in my mind and trying to make sense of the whole thing. Sunday I spent out and about with mom, happy to have a dark movie theatre and a crowded shopping mall to cover the depth of my unease. I was even a little thankful for school and homework and the way they managed to mostly distract me during the day. But at night? Well, it’s been just me and my thoughts, and they’re way too loud to turn off.

  I don’t feel like actually cooking anything, and even though dad’s back on day shift at the Center and awake, I turn down his offer to make waffles. Instead, I opt for a bowl of cereal and curl up on a chair in the living room. The volume on the TV is turned down low, so I’m mostly reading the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. Above it a blonde woman with a face full of Botox and man of indeterminate ethnicity report on this morning’s headlines.

  I haven’t watched much TV at all lately, but it’s not lost on me how ours has apparently always been in color. I read online they manufacture them in black and white as well, and that had even been the only variety available for years. Color televisions are a little more expensive to own, but studies show once most people have gained the ability to see in color, they also gain a certain aversion to reminders of a black and white world.

  I’m draining the last of the milk from the bottom of the bowl and getting up to return it to the kitchen, when the screen catches my attention again. Blindly reaching out to place the bowl down almost gets me a floor covered in shattered ceramic, but I catch it at the last minute. My gaze darts back to the screen as quickly as possible.

  Officer Involved in Violent Attack Wakes from Coma— Details to Come.

  Details to come. I glance at the clock on top of the mantel and let out a low string of words best not overheard by my father. I might have gotten out of bed in time for cereal, but not in time for however long it’ll take them to get to this story.

  I have my dish in the sink and my ass in the car faster than I thought possible. If I can’t see it on TV, at least I can hear on the radio. Right? God, I hope they still report the local news on the radio. Normally, I plug my phone in and put my music on shuffle.

  The presets are an indiscriminate mix of top 40, one local station’s version of ‘alternative’, and what I like to call ‘dentist office easy listening’. At any rate, not a single one of them is helpful to me at the moment.

  AM! AM radio is mostly talking, right? News and weather and traffic… Right?

  I keep my fingers crossed and hit the seek button I don’t think I’ve ever used before to find the first station with a clear signal. Three stations later, I finally find what I’m looking for.

  “It’s been reported that Officer Benjamin Jordan woke earlier this morning from his month-long coma. The coma, medically induced to help reduce and prevent additional swelling on the brain, has left authorities with unanswered questions about the incident leading to Jordan’s hospitalization. We certainly expect after the prerequisite examinations by the medical professionals on staff at St. Mary’s Memorial Hospital, answers regarding the incident in question will be revealed and proper legal action will be taken. The underage assailant involved in the assault is currently awaiting trial at Clarkesville Juvenile Detention Center.”

  A cold, unexpected feeling creeps into my bones, and I turn into the school’s parking lot. It’s not until I go to take my hands from the steering wheel I realize exactly how tight of a grip I had on it. I watch as the blood rushes back to my white knuckles, and I flex them to get the feeling back.

  Maybe it’s the ‘awaiting trial’ part that catches me off guard. I mean, I always knew that’s what he was doing there. It’s what all of the ‘youths’ detained there are doing. I guess I never looked at it that way. He’s there, and he’s been there, and as far as I was concerned, until I managed to figure it all out, that’s where he would continue to be.

  This allows me to see the situation for what it really is though. It’s more serious than it’s been up to this point. Not that it hasn’t been serious, it’s just … I suppose it’s been important to me for personal reasons only.

  Obviously I’m much more self-absorbed than I thought because, in the grand scheme of things, this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Andrew. And what’s going to happen to him.

  Those words that have kept me up each night this week? They had an impact on me I didn’t see coming from a mile away. And I know they’ll have a similar, if not identical, impa
ct on anyone else who hears them.

  ****

  “Your father?”

  “Yeah,” he said, eyes down and voice clipped. “And Blake’s father. And my mom’s Soulmate. Not that he would ever admit to being any of those things. He doesn’t deserve to be any of those things.”

  “I … Andrew, I don’t understand.” When I swallowed, it felt like a brick dropped into my stomach. “I thought… I thought he was married?”

  “He is.” He looked down at his lap like he was ashamed. Like it was somehow his fault. “I mean, he wasn’t when he first met my mom, but you might recall the part where he’s also a piece of shit.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t miss that part. I just don’t understand why—”

  “He’s…” he interrupted and immediately trailed off, searching for the words and gauging how much time he had to say them. “He’s not like your father. He’s not a good man. He’s mostly threats, but sometimes … sometimes he follows through. I don’t understand it either. My mom thinks she—she thinks she has to put up with him and what he does because they’re true Soulmates. It’s also why she thinks he’ll change.”

  He went quiet, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the weight of the words or the shock of saying them out loud.

  “But he can’t, can he?”

  The last words he could get out before being forced to hang up the phone and step back from the counter were low, and the ones I would spend the following nights losing the most sleep over.

  “Having a Soulmate… Being with that Soulmate? It doesn’t change human nature.”

  ****

  It’s about time I start asking myself what I’m going to do to help.

  The anxious feeling from earlier doesn’t go away as the day progresses. I’m antsy, jumpy, and distracted beyond words. I keep thinking about the man lying in the hospital bed, and the bit I read weeks ago about the ‘assailant’s’ mom keeping a near constant vigil over him when she wasn’t working herself. And it makes me angry. So angry.