What's a Soulmate? Read online

  And if I learned one thing, it’s that holy shit my hair is red.

  No, trust me, it’s really red.

  I wrap one of the wayward curls around my index finger and stare at it. God, I’m doing that a lot.

  The bell rings, and I jerk back into the present. After throwing our trash away, Beth sidles up to me in the hallway.

  “You sure you’re okay, Libs?”

  I nod and make sure to hold eye contact long enough for it to seem true.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little … off.”

  She does the annoying eyebrow thing again, so sure it’ll get me to talk. It usually does, mostly because I know she’s not going to give in without a fight and I’m much too lazy to ever be confrontational, but it won’t work today. My lips are pursed into a hard line, and for a second I think I’ve given her too much to go on—been too obvious in my want to not talk. And while I might be too lazy for confrontation, Beth thrives on it.

  She’s wrapping her fingers around my elbow when someone barrels into me from behind and I come dangerously close to face-planting into the floor.

  The straight-out-of-a-teen-movie bellow of ‘fight!’ has saved me for now. I’ll even forgive the owner of a particularly pointy elbow for my close call with permanent injury.

  Beth’s hold on my elbow tightens as she pulls me around the corner into the next hallway. Fan of confrontation, remember? It’s already filled with people, the sight of whatever’s going on blocked from view. Leave it to my best friend to hug the line of lockers along one side and push and pull her way to an opening in the crowd, though. I follow along and allow her to lead me, mostly out of habit and morbid curiosity. I could’ve used the whole thing as a diversion and slipped away quietly, but this is also the most direct path to my next class.

  I stand back, alternating between patiently waiting for a teacher to come along and break it up and trying to catch a peek between my classmates’ heads and shoulders. Let’s face it, I’m pretty sure no one is immune to the pull of a fight. Even if I don’t know the people or agree with whatever they’re fighting over, there’s still that little sense of ridiculously misplaced self-importance felt when able to pass on first-hand information. Because people will ask about it. We’re in high school for God’s sake. We thrive on the pain and misfortune of others.

  It doesn’t take long for my concentration to wander, though.

  Between the white walls, the gray lockers, and the dirtier gray floor, I wouldn’t think there would be much to look at. And between all of those things, there’s really not. It’s the people around me I can’t stop studying. There are three people in front of me, one girl and two guys, all with brown hair. But between them, the color varies so greatly it might as well not be called the same thing at all. I guess one would call them ‘light, medium, and dark’ for lack of a better way to put it. Even those words don’t work for me, though. Because the boy standing right in front of me, some junior with a wrestling team hoodie on, with the darkest hair of all three—even his hair isn’t as dark as the boy’s from the detention center.

  It was so close to it I guess one could confuse it with being black, but now that I really know the difference between the two… Well, I’ll never make that mistake. And not only because I’ve had his face and everything about him stuck in my head for three days now. Not entirely because of that anyway.

  I still haven’t nailed down a name for the color of his eyes…

  The guy in front of me promptly steps on my foot and wrenches me from my daydreaming.

  “Ow! Hey, watch it!”

  He mumbles a quick apology over his shoulder as the Vice Principal marches down the hallway and the crowd starts to scatter. Everyone wants to see the fight. Everyone wants to talk about the fight. But no one wants to have to talk to the administrators about what they’ve seen.

  Even Beth disappears from my side in a hasty, unusually silent retreat. And good for her because I think I’m about to be sick and would hate to vomit all over her shoes.

  I don’t know the two boys in front of me. I think I vaguely recognize one as an underclassman on the basketball team, but that’s hardly important right now. Nope. What’s important is all of the blood on his face and how the other boy’s knuckles are split and a torn, mangled mess. And how the ripped and ragged flesh is covered and mingles with even more blood. So far, I’ve only thought of how the addition of color has made everything around me seem that much more wonderful, or maybe that much more, but this is different.

  Also important? The way it all makes my stomach churn and my head light.

  I barely make it to the bathroom before ending up doubled over the sink. My stomach still clenches and my throat has a tight, queasy feeling. It’s game over when I almost choke on an involuntary gag. When it’s done with, I turn on the taps and swallow handfuls of water until most of the taste in my mouth is gone. Right now, I’m not sure which is better, looking into the sink or into the mirror, so I close my eyes and lean sideways against the wall.

  “Oh, gross,” an underclassman with an obnoxiously loud voice blurts out as she steps out from a stall. She looks at me like I did this on purpose and I narrow my eyes. She gives me, my mess, and my sink a wide berth as she skitters by.

  I’m checking myself out of school for the day less than five minutes later.

  My dad’s car is in the garage when I get home, but the door to my parents’ bedroom is closed so I assume he’s napping. It’s always hard to keep track of his work schedule, but I’m pretty sure he’s using his days off this week to ready his body for his next night-shift rotation.

  Thinking about Dad’s job only makes me think more about the last time I was there. And what happened. And who was there. It’s the who that’s really getting to me.

  I managed to somehow keep my curiosity at bay over the weekend. Probably because I was legitimately distracted with the process of trying to figure out complementary colors, the difference between sunlight and moonlight, and the million other color-related questions I have.

  Well, all of those things in addition to being, truthfully, completely, one hundred percent terrified of what I might find out.

  I’ll admit there was a split second where I considered asking my dad what he knew about him. I’d imagined the situation to go a little something like this:

  “Hey, dad?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “I was wondering if you could possibly, maybe, please find out what you can about this really tall, kind of slim guy with curly, messy, dark hair who was booked into the Center on Friday?”

  After translating my fast-paced, mumble of words, my imaginary situation father would cock his head to the side. Not unlike a confused puppy. “And why would you need me to do that, Libby?”

  “Oh, no biggie really. I just happened to see him while he was being booked last Friday and he just happens to be my Soulmate. That’s all.”

  And cue my father, still young with only the slightest amount of graying hair at his temples and lacking the pudgy potbelly of most middle-aged men with teenage daughters, clutching at his chest and promptly keeling over from a heart attack because his little girl is destined to live out her days with a convicted criminal.

  So yeah. Regardless of how sure I was he wouldn’t actually drop dead from the news, the whole ‘my little girl seems to belong with a criminal’ thing kept me from taking that route.

  The Internet helped me out while allowing me to keep quiet once already, hopefully it proves as valuable this go-round. With fingers figuratively crossed, I boot up my laptop and pull up a search engine. And glare at it. What the hell am I supposed to even search for? Tall, dark-haired, kind of cute guy who looks like he might be around seventeen or eighteen years-old who was arrested on Friday? Somehow I don’t think that one will yield too many results. Or any.

  Okay, let’s think about this.

  He’s obviously a minor since he’s at the juvenile detention center and not in a regular jail. So even
if whatever got him in there made the news or got any media coverage whatsoever, it’s not like his name would be attached to it. I don’t think. Unless he killed someone, then I’m pretty sure his name and face would be everywhere. I’m also pretty sure that would have gotten him sent straight to regular jail. And I would’ve heard about it. So yeah, we’re going to cross off murderer as a possible criminal classification.

  At least there’s that.

  Maybe there’ll be something in the local police blotter? I can’t pinpoint an exact town he’d be from, but I do know he’s never attended Regents High. It serves as the main high school for Hoyston as well as a few surrounding towns. Unless he’s been homeschooled, he would have had to attend one of the county’s other two high schools. Clarkesville County isn’t very big though, so it only leaves a few towns' worth of incidents to search through.

  Yeah. I’ll start there. I can do this.

  Technically, I can do this. I’m still really apprehensive—read—scared—of what I might find. So I realize I’m stalling when I find myself reading through reports of crimes that were obviously not committed by the object of my investigation. But there seems to be a peeping tom on the loose in Dawson, and who knew so many muggings actually happened in such a small community? I can almost convince myself this, too, is pertinent information to have.

  I switch from Dawson Daily’s website over to the Madison Journal and my heart instantaneously drops into my stomach.

  Local Off Duty Police Officer Critically Wounded in Residential Area.

  There’s something, a gut reaction perhaps, that tells me clicking on this headline is about the dumbest thing I can do right now. My stomach is already starting to twist and turn again with a sense of dread unlike any I’ve ever felt before. I close my eyes and click on it anyway.

  I squint a little once I open them to a simple screen of text. I don’t know what I was expecting—maybe some grisly crime scene photos? Seems like I need to remind myself how my life is not some ridiculous detective movie. And the Dawson Daily is hardly more than a dinky, small-town paper I’m surprised even has an up-to-date website.

  I skim the article as if not fully reading it will somehow lessen the blow I know is coming.

  It doesn’t.

  Officer Benjamin Jordan was found unconscious at the scene after nine-one-one operators received an anonymous tip.

  …currently in critical condition at St. Mary’s Memorial Hospital.

  …medically-induced coma until swelling is reduced.

  Assailant, an unnamed minor, has been arrested and detained.

  I didn’t actually need to look any of this up to know it. It’s been all over the news since last week. Since Wednesday or Thursday at least. Well, I assume it still is anyway—it’s not like I’ve been watching much television lately.

  Thursday night this was the main topic of conversation as my mom and I ate our dinners in front of the TV. For a split second, I wonder how something we were both so obviously repulsed and beside ourselves about is also something I’ve managed to forget so easily. At the time, all I could think about was my dad and how everything would fall apart without him there if something like that ever happened to him. How lost we would be. How angry and unforgiving I would be.

  Try as I might, I can’t manage to convince myself it’s not him. Regardless of how he didn’t seem the violent type or how the big guy a couple of places ahead of him in line had a much meaner look to him, I just know.

  And I’m suddenly as angry and as unforgiving as I imagined being.

  I don’t even know who I’m angry at. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m obviously mad at him, a boy whose name I don’t even know, for doing something so awful. I’m also mad at myself for forgetting our drinks last Friday. If I had only remembered them, I would’ve never made my way to the vending machines and been in a position to even see him. I could live with ignorance much better than whatever this is. But I think the thing I’m most mad at is Fate. If it’s even a real thing. And it has to be a thing instead of a person, because who would ever take someone like me, really look at who I am, weigh the options, and decide I would best benefit from someone like him? From being with someone who would do what he’s done?

  I’m so mad I can barely see straight, much less realize I’ve navigated from one website to another.

  The FriendSpace logo is not something I’m all too familiar with, but also something I recognize as a necessary evil. If there’s one thing that can be gleaned from my high school career so far, it’s people my age? They love gossip. The situation with Audrey proves this. The stupid fight in the hallway earlier proves it as well. So one can only assume social media only furthers this, right? I hope so because I’m about to log into an account I barely remember the password for and cyber stalk people who I haven’t seen or talked to in at least a year.

  I have approximately seven people on my friends list who attend a different high school than I do. Four from Madison Central and three from Willow Shoals. I check out the Willow Shoals friends first and come up with a whole bunch of nothing. I get similar results from the first two contacts from Madison as well, but the third … I think I might have something here.

  Naturally it’s the one person who I honestly have no idea how I even know. Maybe a party? Or one of the literary competitions Beth’s dragged me to for the drama department? At any rate, the status update of ‘Wow. How crazy is this? He’s always seemed like such a nice guy!’ catches my eye. I don’t care if they think whoever he is is nice, or not. I just want a name. I scan the comments with no luck. It’s all a bunch of ‘I know, right?’ and ‘I’m shocked 2!’

  I run a hand through my hair, completely irritated and getting my fingers stuck about halfway through and nearly making my eyes water trying to untangle them. I don’t even try to fight the tears as they come. I’m tired, confused, angry, and so frustrated I don’t have the energy to stop them.

  Taking a deep breath, I start checking out the profiles of those who’ve commented. Most have privacy settings established, so I have access to little more than their profile pictures and name.

  And then, like a bright, shining beacon on a cloudy day, I find it.

  I barely process that she even has a name as I skim her page. It’s hard to find anything among all of the pictures of kittens—some of them are cute, even I’m not immune to a cute kitty—and sparkly, blinking gifs and emojis, but at the same time, I feel like I’m about to hit pay dirt. I don’t even know what the term pay dirt means, but I’m about to hit it.

  And there! There it is! A status dated last Friday, around noon. I can practically picture her, glittery phone in hand, furiously tapping it out at her lunch table.

  ‘Support @Andrew McCormack! Innocent until proven guilty!

  Obviously, judging from the previously mentioned bombardment of kitten pictures, she’s not as behind her cause for support less than a week later since there’s no other mention of him on her page, but whatever. I have a name. And I can even be super lazy and click directly on it to get to his page instead of having to type it into the search bar.

  The three seconds it takes for the page to load feels like an eternity. And I’m usually a very patient person.

  Damn it.

  I’m staring at a page with nothing but a profile picture I can’t even click on to enlarge, his name, and not much else.

  My vision is perfectly fine, but I still squint and lean in to get my face closer to the screen. The photo looks recent, at least from what I can tell. His hair might be a little shorter than it is now, but still falling into his eyes and just as unruly. He’s leaning back against a gray sedan with his arm slung around a younger boy who can only be his brother. They both share dark hair and a tan complexion, along with a deep dimple in their left cheeks I obviously didn’t see on Friday.

  His smile is wide and it actually makes my chest ache a little to look at because it’s so at odds with … well, with everything I know. Even though I don’t really k
now anything. Not for certain.

  And that’s what bothers me most of all.

  Chapter Four

  I wake up with a jolt. Same as every day since the color vision kicked in. I prefer to think of it in those terms instead of ‘since I met my Soulmate’. It’s easier, and it will continue to be easier until I decide exactly what I want to do with what little information I have to work with.

  The alarm on my phone continues to go off and I roll over to silence it. I hold it in my hand for a second, contemplating the fact everything on the screen is still in black and white. Color screens are available, but having a phone with one, while not appearing any different than other models to most people, will definitely alert anyone who can see in anything other than black and white.

  It’s the same thing with clothes. If I look around at any given time, most of the people I see will be dressed in black, white, and grays. Only those who’ve found their Soulmates—and want the world to know, unlike myself—wear anything with color. For Christ’s sake, there was an entire section in the program I downloaded dedicated to the sole purpose of teaching people how to match their clothing in a sensible manner. It took me years to find a happy mix of certain fabrics and cuts.

  Adding color presents a whole new challenge. One that comes with an entire section of the fabric store downtown I’ve never been able to appreciate before.

  It’s a challenge I secretly look forward to, but enough about that.

  I get out of bed and wander over to my closet. The skirt with the grape soda stain is folded neatly on a shelf there, and I take it out. I lay it out over the foot of my bed and trace the spots where the white fabric is dotted with a now faded purple.