Right Here All Along

"Excuse me..."

Atticus's head snapped up at the woman who had spoken those two words and gave her an intense stare. She squeaked and hurriedly finished her sentence, "you're leaning on the shelf of the book I need."

He flushed and muttered a word of apology as he stepped out of the way, giving her some glances to see if she had reacted to his words as if they're familiar to her, but all she did was quickly grab her book and speed walk to the checkout counter without looking back.

Atticus was given a slap to the head as he slumped in defeat. "Will you stop giving people that scary ass look every time they say those words at least in my store? You're going to scare my customers away." Rowan complained after watching the ordeal take place when he was coming up to greet his waiting friend.

"I can't help it, I just want to find them already." Atticus sighed as he stared at his etched wrist.

They both walked out of the bookstore, and he waited for Rowan to lock up and get in the car before sliding into the passenger seat.

"I swear my bookstore is an attractive meetup place or something because I keep having soulmates running into each other. Before you came in, I had two dramatic people acting like they were in some k-drama or something." Rowan chuckled.

Atticus groaned, "I had two customers stare into each other's eyes and held hands which held up the line, and leave it to your imagination to figure out how the caffeine addicted people behind them reacted."

The familiar feeling of bitterness and frustration then welled up in him, and closed his throat. Everyone else around him had found their soulmates already within a year or two after their 18th birthday, but why didn't the same happen to him? Not to mention of all the phrases that had to appear for him, why was it that excuse me, literally the most common two words to interact with people, were the words for him to find that one person?

"Hey man, everything happens for a reason so you just gotta go with the flow and just wait since there's so many people in the world. Plus you don't actually need a soulmate, you can always just go solo and not have that missing half in your life." Rowan said, trying to comfort Atticus, but that only fueled his frustrations and he snapped, "It's easy for you to say because your soulmate is dead."

HIs eyes widened, and his anger died the instant he said those words and he immediately whispered, "I'm an asshole, I didn't mean that." as he gave his friend a look of guilt.

But Rowan gave Atticus an easy-going smile and a comforting pat on his arm. "They died before I even found out who they were so don't feel too bad. I know where you're coming from and I definitely know you didn't mean it. You're just frustrated."

"Besides, look at me now" he continued as he stared at the dulled words on his arm "I'm happy with where I'm at in life in terms of career and who I am as a person, all that matters is that I love myself and I'm confident. Plus, I got my baby girl to take care of."

Atticus felt a small grin appear on his face when Rowan mentioned the cute puppy he had recently adopted.

"Sammie is going to be a ball soon with how much you've been spoiling her." Atticus laughed.

"Shut the fuck up, it's just the lens on the phone that makes her look bigger."

"The last time I saw her, she was still potty training, how's she doing now?"

They chatted throughout the whole car ride until Rowan found a parking spot, and they walked towards the restaurant doors where they were welcomed with smiling faces and shouts of their names from old peers as they found some unoccupied seats.