I got to McDonalds, and I sat in my car for a little bit. I breathed in deeply, and I breathed out. "Time to figure out what exactly is going on," I muttered to myself. I got out and walked into the McDonalds.
There weren't many people inside of the McDonalds, which meant that there wasn't a big line at the register. In fact, there wasn't even a line to the register at all. I walked up to the register and said, "Hi, can I order a McDouble and a drink, please?"
The cashier rang it up and said, "Anything else?"
"No, that'll be it," I said.
"That'll be $5.27," he said, and I gave him the money, and he took it, pushed some more buttons on the register, put in the money, gave me the change and receipt, and said, "Your order number is 38. We'll call your number when it's ready."
"Thank you," I said, taking the receipt. I walked over to the table that was the closest to the exit, and there sat a girl. She had dark, brown hair, and had the face of a supermodel. Well, not really. I didn't really know how to describe her face, and that was the best that I could come up with. I mean…it was almost perfect. No scars, no pimples, no deformities…it was weird. And she also had green eyes that seemed to shine out at me. She was wearing a baggy hoodie, jeans, and boots. She was fidgeting, almost nervously, and it persisted even when I sat down in front of her. "Hi," I said. "McDouble and drink?"
She looked up at me, and she quietly said, "So you did care." Then she spoke up, "No, thank you. I don't really eat this kind of food." For a moment, there was an awkward silence between the two of us, then she said, "Thank you for showing up and not saying you would like everyone else."
"I mean…I really want to know about soulmates," I said, looking at her. "They…" I didn't know how to broach the topic of saying that I had one, so I said, "They interest me."
She lit up a little when I said that. "They interest me too! Did you know that only 16% of soulmates actually end up together? For the most part, they remain friends or probably don't even know each other."
I blinked a few times. "I didn't," I said. "Why do they do that?"
She seemed to be gleaming as she told me. "Well, it's very possible that one of the soulmates finds another person who they believe is meant to be with them forever until the day they die. And for the most part, if that happens, then the other mate honors the wish, and leaves it at that. The two still keep in contact with the other, but they won't ever fall in love."
"That's…kind of sad," I said, after I had processed all of the information. This girl had really done her research on this topic. "So, uh…how rare is it for soulmates to receive the same wounds on each other's bodies? I read about it in your blog, but it didn't exactly give an exact percentage."
"Oh!" She lost some of the gleam in her eyes when I said that. "Well, it's because I don't know the exact percentage. All that I really know is that that kind of circumstance is very rare and I've only seen it in maybe four pairs of soulmates."
"I see," I said, and inwardly, I sighed. I had hoped that she would be able to tell me why this sort of thing happened, but she didn't know much.
She looked at me a bit curiously. "You know," she said, and she leaned in closer to me, making me lean back a little bit. "Most people don't come to me and say that they're interested in soulmates out of the blue. And they most certainly don't ask about the "sharing pain" part of them. So please…tell me why you're really here?"
Shit, I thought to myself. This isn't how I wanted it to go. "Look, I really want to know about soulmates," I said, leaning back forward and looking her in the eyes. "It's a subject that I just recently got into, and it interests me a lot. I don't understand why you think that I'm here for any other reason." That was true. I was interested in them. I wasn't lying to her…was I?
She sighed, and she leaned back. "I'm sorry," she said, and she looked at me. "It's just that-"
Suddenly, I heard my order being called, and I looked at her apologetically. "Excuse me," I said, but I should really get this." She nodded, and I stood up and walked over to the register, picking up my food. Inwardly, I wondered how much longer I was going to hold up the facade of being fine. It was eating away at me, and I wondered if eventually it would show. I shook my head. "Thanks for the food," I said, a smile on my face. Then I walked back over to the table and sat back down. "Sorry about that," I said, and I looked at her again. "You were saying?"
She nodded slowly. "Most people have some reason to come and talk to me," she said, and I could hear pain in her voice, as if she were reliving those moments. "None of them actually have to do with soulmates, and it just makes me sad. It makes me feel like people believe that I'm crazy, I'm a lunatic. But I'm not!" I could see some tears in her eyes. "I'm just…I'm just a normal person. And yet they think I'm crazy for what I believe and research. I didn't do anything to them to make them believe that. They just…they just assumed that I was crazy." She was silent after that, rubbing her eyes.
After a few seconds, I said, "Well, you're not crazy."
She looked up at me, her eyes a little red. "Why?"
I took a deep breath. "It's because I have a soulmate."
She looked at me in shock. "You're lying," she said. "There's…there's no way that you have a soulmate, you're lying to me. You're just trying to make me feel better."
"I'm not," I said, and inwardly, I felt the darkness inside of me eating through, it was almost through. "I really do have a soulmate. And you know that special case of soulmates you were talking about? It's the case with me and my soulmate."
I rolled up my sleeves, showing her the scars and bandages all over my arms. "I'm not suicidal," I said, as she looked at them in shock. "These just started appearing on my body after I met someone, after I met my soulmate. I didn't realize it then, but now I know: we were soulmates. They've been getting worse. I don't know what this means."
She looked up at my eyes, disbelief and also a bit of curiosity in her eyes, too. "When did these start appearing?" she asked me, and I could hear her trying to contain the excitement within her voice.
"Well…it all started about three months ago," I said, thinking back to that time. In my head, I didn't realize that it had only been about three months since Ashley and I first met. It felt…it felt almost unreal. "It only started to get worse probably in the middle of the second month."
"This is amazing," she muttered to herself. "I've never seen this before…even in the other cases…"
"Hold on, what do you mean by other cases?" I asked her, rolling down my sleeves again. "Wait…you don't mean-"
"I do," she said, nodding. "I mean the other people who had this sort of thing happen to them." She sat back, deep in thought. "In those cases, the wounds normally started to appear maybe a year later, and the wounds themselves wouldn't be anything too major, maybe like a papercut or a bruise. But you…" She looked at me with a bit of uncertainty. "If you're telling the truth, then it's possible that you and your other soulmate have the strongest connection I've seen. The wounds that appear on a soulmate's body is already a sign of the deeper connection between the two." She looked at me. "You are…you are telling the truth, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "I am." In my head, I thought, I have to go now before I say anything that I might regret. "It was really nice meeting with you, but I have to go," I said, and I stood up, grabbed my food, and made to leave when she grabbed my hand.
"Um…can you…can you come back with the person who you say is your soulmate, please?" she said, her voice small and pleading. "I…I just don't really believe what you're telling me right now."
I really wanted to leave, but I knew that I would hurt her feelings if I said I wouldn't. "I will," I said, putting my other hand around hers and prying it off of mine gently. "I promise you, I am telling you the truth."
She nodded, a little of the uncertainty leaving her eyes. "Thank you," she said, and in her voice, I heard a bit of relief, too. "Also…sorry for grabbing your hand."
"It's fine…" I said. "I've got to go now, bye!" I walked out of the McDonalds and got into my car, and I put my head down onto the top of the steering wheel. I started to sob uncontrollably, the tears falling down my cheeks and onto the seat. Having someone that I could talk to…it made me remember my mom and how she would always talk to me about things. I didn't realize that she would end up like the way that she was now, and it left a huge impact on me.
I wiped my eyes, still crying, and I figured that I should probably go visit her at the hospital. I was about to start up my car when I heard knocking on my window. I looked out, and there was the girl, a worried look in her green eyes. I didn't roll down my window, and she knocked again. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, her voice muffled through the glass. "You're crying. Please open the door."
I shook my head. I didn't want to open the door. I didn't want to talk to her, I didn't want to. I didn't know how it would turn out, I didn't know what I would say or do. I didn't know what to do. She knocked again on the window. "Please…please open the door," she said. "I've gone through what you're going through before. I can help you…please."
I put my hands over my ears. I started to hyperventilate, because I wondered if anybody was also watching this scene unfold. There was a girl, talking to a guy through the window of his car, and she seemed to be talking nonsense to him. Then somebody would ask about it, then they would wonder why the boy was crying, and then they would ask, and then everybody would know, they would all know-
I felt a pair of arms wrap around me. I was still breathing really quickly, and there were still tears dripping down my face, but I heard the girl saying "It's okay…I'm here. Let it all out…"
Slowly, my breathing began to slow down. I didn't know why. It was almost as if her being there made things…made things seem a little bit more bearable. It made me feel like I could tell her everything that I was going through. I didn't understand why. I probably never will. But at the moment, I cried into her shoulder, while she kept hugging me, her body giving me warmth…
Warmth that I had only really ever felt from my mother.
After a few more minutes of crying, I sniffled and got out of the hug. "Thank you," I said, my voice hoarse.
She nodded, a relieved smile on her face. "I knew there was something wrong when you abruptly got up and left," she said, playing with her hands. "I…could sense that something was off, if you can understand that."
My ears perked up when I heard that. What did she mean by that? "What do you mean?" I asked her.
She started to play with her hair. "Well…" She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, I'm able to sense when there is something that a person is hiding from me. Kind of like knowing what their intentions are…but I can only sense deep, emotional ones. Whether it be from something traumatic or happy, I can sense it. And I sensed it from the very first moment that you walked inside. Do…do you want to talk about it at all?"
I thought about it for a second. Then finally I said, "No. To be honest, I just barely met you. I…I don't trust you enough yet so that I can tell you about it." In my head, I thought to myself, Have I…have I changed in the way that I talk to other people?
She nodded. "I understand. But…can we keep in touch, at least? Whenever you feel ready to tell me, you can tell me about it."
I nodded slowly. "I would like that." I'm talking to new people more often, I thought to myself. This is…this is new.
She smiled, and she handed her phone over to me, and she said, "Put your phone number into it, and I'll make sure to text you that it's me."
I nodded, and I started to type it in before I stopped. "I never asked for your name," I said, looking up at her. "What's your name?"
"Oh! It's Hailey. Hailey Portman," she said, a little bit embarrassed. "Sorry that I didn't tell you my name."
"Me too," I said. "I'm Chris."
"It's nice to meet you, Chris," Hailey said.
"You too," I said, and I handed her her phone back. "That's my number."
She took it and said, "Well…I'm sorry that I just invaded your privacy like that."
"No, no," I said, shaking my head. "It's okay. I…I really needed that."
She smiled, and she turned and headed back into the McDonalds. I looked at this place for a second, then I got into my car. "I need to go visit my Mom," I muttered to myself. Then I put the car into gear and drove off.