The One With Whisky Eyes

Who Are We to Question Fate?

One week.

One week of horrible sleep, exhaustingly long shifts and stressful walks along the street.

Her every waking thought revolved around her marks and the blue-eyed man, Barry, who she had met while trying to rush from Dr. Fletcher's office. She couldn't sleep properly, she couldn't focus at work and every person with a dark coat and pale skin caused her to jerk and instinctively try to get closer while consciously trying to get away. She felt like she was being pulled in two different directions and it was beginning to affect her more each day.

She'd heard of this before, when soulmates were too far from one another after they had met—although, it was usually when people had average soulmarks that were easy to miss the actual interaction, usually caused by simple 'hello' or 'have a nice day' soulmarks that someone heard a hundred times a day.

Even if she hadn't outright rejected him, Iris's determination to stay away while instincts and desires screamed at her to find him—them—was straining her impossibly. She hoped that it wasn't doing the same to him, but deep down she knew that those kinds of dreams were foolish. He would be feeling the same things as her.

And thus returned the guilt.

Her coworkers were beginning to notice her paler-than-average skin and the shadows that had formed beneath her eyes, which resulted in her being ordered by the owners of the large bookstore she worked at to take the weekend off. She couldn't even remember the last time she had taken a weekend for herself; her coworkers all hated having to work weekends, so she would do them voluntarily and give them all a break.

"Don't have a life anyway," she'd muttered to herself at the time, cutting open a new box of books to price, scan and stock.

Entering her apartment and stripping off her many layers while she turned on the small heater between her bed and the bathroom door, she kicked her pants aside as she reminded herself to fold them up later. Dropping her bra and underwear down beside them as she entered the small bathroom, the thin woman found herself silently thanking whatever god existed that her apartment had utilities included—which meant that she could climb into her shower and turn the hot water on for as long as she wanted without running up her bill.

Doing just that, Iris hunched down on the floor of her shower as hot water continued to beat down against her back. She never liked the colder seasons; her lack of fat content always meant that she felt more of a chill than most.

Once the tiles were warm enough, she sat down completely and began to tiredly run her fingers through her hair, pulling out the knots that were developing beneath the stream of water. The hot water helped to relax her tight muscles, all of the stress from the day seeming to finally begin to melt off of her. The tile of the wall was still cold when she leant back against it, letting the constant stream of water hit her legs as she looked down at the scattering of black words and silver scars.

Her thigh had one of the worst scars her body bore; it was to the point that two of the words were illegible when the scar was left to heal without stitches. Thankfully, she had read it and memorized it before her parents tried to take it from her.

She knew every single one of her marks off by heart, so no scar could take that from her.

It had once read, clearly and legibly in what appeared to be feminine writing, Finally, I get the light! Now, the beginning of Finally was crossed through to the point of the letters indistinguishable and light was marked up to the point that if she hadn't known the word before it was ruined, she wouldn't have been able to guess it.

As much as she loved her marks, and she wished that she could extend that love to her soulmates, she had always carried around the worries that she might be rejected for the destruction of her marks. Would her soulmate be offended to know that their mark on her was ruined? Would they not believe her because some were difficult to read?