Waiting For You

Chapter Twenty-two

"Uncle Ron..." he dragged pushing the man gently.

"Those beautiful girls right there are my daughters," he said pointing towards the swing where two girls around our age were standing. The girls had noticeable characteristics, one seemingly from Latin America while the other somewhere from Asia.

"And I'm Georgia, nice to finally meet you. We all couldn't take another minute of Hunter's moaning about his soulmate," the woman said, teasing Hunter.

"Did he worry so much?" I asked with a stupid smile.

"No, I didn't," Hunter replied defensively.

"He kinda did," Ron muttered to me.

"Hey, both of you, stop this!" he said and started pulling me away. "Georgia's soulmate, as well as Samara's, had to work today," Hunter explained telepathically as we went and sat down on a bench by the table. "You okay?" he asked me out loud, giving me a caring gaze.

"Yeah, I just expected this to be different".

"As in...?"

"Definitely no music. And the barbeque kinda throws me off..." I replied, nodding towards Aaron and Elaine, who were standing in front of a grill. I frowned as I noticed it was Elaine, in her extravagant dress, who was cooking the meat.

"Mom's such a show-off," a woman said shaking her head while looking at Elaine and came to sit down next to me. "I'm Celeste," she told me, with a inviting smile. I couldn't help but stare.

She looked young. Like very young. She had caramel blonde hair that flowed down to her chest, and the same dark blue eyes color Hunter's mother used to have. Noticing my stare and dumbfounded-ness she rolled her eyes.

"I am Estelle's younger sister and when I say young, I mean I was nine when Hunty was born," she said grabbing a beer bottle. A man came to sit next to her. "This is Tamaki, my soulmate" she added pointing to the man.

"Celeste is a YouTuber too," Hunter told me and nudged me with his knees.

"Really?! What kind of channel do you have?" I asked her.

"An LGBT and mental health support one. I talk a lot about problems regarding the LGBT community as well as mental illnesses, in general, seeing as I know so many mentally ill people. I also identify as bisexual," she explained taking a swing from the beer she was holding.

"What you're doing is great... I'm also bi," I replied, moving my eyes from her to Hunter.

"Neat. So, you're a YouTuber? What kind?" she went on.

"Musician. I upload mostly covers of songs but if I manage I want to put my own music out too," I answered.

"I told you he was an artist too," Tamaki mused draping an arm over Celeste's shoulders. She rolled her eyes lovingly, while mine fell on her right forearm.

Ink. She had a tattoo –or maybe they counted as more than one-. It was something of a list of names. Three feminine and two masculine names.

"What does that mean?" I asked and Hunter, Celeste, and Tamaki went rigid.

"Aunt Celeste, shit, I'm sorry, I forgot to warn him..." Hunter immediately rushed to tell her. I frowned at him and slowly turned to look at the woman again.

"It's okay Hunt... those, um..." she whispered and cleared her throat. "Those are the names of all the soulmates I've lost," she said and just like that, I regretted asking.

She was twenty-six years old and had lost five soulmates? I had thought Aaron had it bad, which he had, but Celeste... How was she still alive?

"Sam, the latest I lost, had a car crash a few weeks after our bond was formed. That happened almost two years ago. Four years ago, Anastasia... you might have heard of that on the TV. She was raped and killed one afternoon while she was walking home from college". As she called the names she ran her fingers over them, her features drawn in a sorrowful expression. "My bond with Lucian was formed six years ago. He died when the plane he took to come and meet me crashed. Cecilia had been diagnosed with cancer two days before our bond was formed seven years ago. They couldn't save her. And Vivian..." her voice faded and she hugged herself.