Discover Soulmate

Birthday

Thank you for giving my book a chance. I hope you continue to read and enjoy the ride I will have for you guys. If you see this, I'm still re-editing the beginning chapters since I wrote them years back. I'm also uploading a new chapter while editing. If you don't see this, it's probably because I either finished editing or I finished the book.

Imogen

When the tape on my wrists pulled, the name of my soulmate underneath appeared. I had it since I was born. There hasn't been such a case of someone removing it before they came of age. Somehow, the elders on the Council would know. I stared at the flat grey tape; the shine worn off after years of showering and aging. Everyone was supposed to have a soulmate. But I heard if there was no name underneath; it meant no soulmate, and you vanished from the Earth like dust in the air.

You couldn't just rip the tape off. When I was younger, I would try to tug on it. Even in the shower, it didn't even become damp. It was attached to your skin until you turned sixteen when you would go to the Council and have them do their little magic trick.

Today was my sixteenth birthday, the day I've been dreading for years. I've always hated the idea where people force you to be with someone. I wanted to have the choice of being with the person I love, not the person I was supposed to be with.        

How am I supposed to believe in soulmates when I think about my mother's relationship with my father? Their relationship is a perfect example of a soulmate connection not working. I should have a choice. My heart pounded as I thought about the name underneath the tape. Honestly, the whole concept of 'soulmates' just felt kind of weird to me. Like, why should I have to listen to some name on my arm? How could a relationship be meant-to-be if it was forced from the start?

Never one to dress up, I grabbed an oversized grey hoodie: like my mood. As I braided my string black hair down my back.

I had the worst eyesight, so I usually wore large, black glasses. But if I was feeling special, the contacts would come on. I'd had them since third grade, so I was used to them. Besides, every time I took my glasses off, people looked at me like I was an alien.

My phone started buzzing. I looked down to see it was a message from Frankie.

Happy birthday IMIIIIIIIIIIIII

A smile crept on my face upon viewing the attached picture of her in bed—she was always the first person to greet me on my birthday. Ever since our early childhood, we had been drawn to each other like magnets. It was funny considering the only thing we had in common was our views on soulmates. We pledged when we were ten years old to never look at our wrist until we were older.

Our personalities were polar opposites, but it made us match so well. Second grade was where it all started. It was at lunchtime and I had just brought my favorite juice box. But as I was walking to the lunchroom, this short, curly-haired girl bumped into me, leading to my juice landing on the ground. She turned around, horrified at the mess she'd caused, and started apologizing profusely. I started having a tantrum and got taken by the teacher.

Later, during recess, she offered me a juice box for the one she'd spilled, and I decided to call it a truce. We sat there, giggling about what happened and — well, the rest was history

I quickly applied some light makeup to help me from looking like a walking zombie. By lathering the bright blush onto my white creamy tone skin and add a little lip gloss, I was ready for the day. Moments like this made me wish I had Frankie's skin tone. Frankie doesn't need to tan with her natural clear olive skin leaving me to look like a ghost beside her.

The smell of eggs and bacon wafted from the kitchen into my bedroom. My mom must've been home cooking my favorite breakfast. So I smiled and headed downstairs to devour my breakfast.