soulmates. ― chandler bing

― 01 | THE NEW ONE

APRIL, 1996 · GRAND CENTRAL STATION

THE TRAIN DOOR OPENED and the first thing I saw was Monica's smiling face and her tears of joy. "Hey Mon!", I cried. "I've missed you so much! I feel like I haven't seen you in months!" She hugged me tightly, "I've only visited you, mum and dad a few weeks ago!" I took a step back to look at her. "Oh come here!" She hugged me again. We walked through a mass of people down to the exit. "I'm sorry, Ross couldn't come picking you up, but he had to take over a shift in the museum. He will meet us later!" I nodded absently till we got to the cab.

"To Central Perk, please", Monica informed the cab driver. "Central Perk? What's that?", I asked confused. "Oh, that's our favourite coffee shop. It's close to our apartment. You better get used to it, we pretty much spend half our lives there."

"Our? Who are all those people, I have to get used to?", I giggled. She fixed her hair looking into the driving mirror, "Let me introduce you to them, when we get there!" I just nodded, because I felt like it would only annoy her if I'd ask another question. We drove past thousand yellow taxis, millions of people, one Central Park and stopped at Central Perk. "The people who you'll have to get used to are sitting over there–", my sister whispered pointing at a big orange couch in the middle of the coffee shop. One of them must have heard her, because a brown haired guy stopped talking and turned around. "Hey Mon!"

"Hey, you guys!" The other three people who were sitting spread on the couch and on some comfortable chairs next to it turned around. "Hey Monica!", a blonde girl shouted. "Oh hello, Mon! Oh, is that– Evelyn, I wouldn't have recognized you!" Happily I turned around, because that came from a familiar voice. "Hey, Rach! I haven't seen you in literal ages!", I ran past the couch and hugged Rachel. "So Evelyn, that's everybody. Everybody, that's my sister Evelyn." It feels weird that she introduces me like that. The spotlight should not shine on me.

"Please, call me Eve!", I said blushing and facing the floor. Monica pointed at the blonde girl with a guitar in her hands. "That's Phoebe!" She turned around and pointed to the two guys sitting next to each other on the couch. "The left one is Joey and the right one is–" My eyes got bigger. It was the guy who greeted us entering the coffee shop. I hadn't recognized him then. But there he was, sitting right in front of me. "Chandler!", I said joyfully. "–Chandler. Yeah, so you do remember him!", Mon finished her sentence. "Of course I remember! You spent practically every Thanksgiving at our place back when Ross was in college!", I laughed. Joey waved me and Chandler greeted me with a simple, "Hi!"

Monica and I walked over to the counter to get something to drink. I was already studying the menu, when my sister started talking, "I wouldn't have thought, that you'd recognize Chandler!" She laughed a little. "I frankly do remember him. He really did spend a lot time at our house a couple of years ago. How come you never mentioned that you had contact again?", I responded still not letting my eyes off the menu. I hoped she wouldn't notice the light blush on my cheeks. "I didn't think it would interest you. He is very acceptable now, though. I always thought he was rather annoying back then. And the hair, let's not talk about the hair." She paused for a moment, "Why though? Would you have liked to know?" I shrugged with my shoulders. "Oh come on. You wouldn't have asked if it was otherwise. There is something behind that, isn't it?", she pinched me in the arm, which caused me to look at her instead of the menu.

"Ow! Fine! I may or may not have had a crush on him when I was fourteen." Before my sister could reply a guy asked us what we wanted. "I'll have a black tea with milk and sugar, please!" After he wrote that down, he looked at Monica. She on the other hand was still facing me. "You had a crush on Chandler?", she whispered. The blonde guy raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat, whilst I turned even more red. "Don't be so pushy, Gunther. I'll have a black coffee." The guy, Gunther, panted and walked away offended. "So you really had a crush o–", Monica started again. "Let's just never talk about this ever again. Especially not in front of other people!", I said smiling, walking to the couch, leaving my sister behind. Why did we have to talk about this. It's not like seeing him alone hasn't thrown me off my rhythm enough.