FALLING AROUND YOU ➵ DANIEL SEAVEY ➵ SEQUEL

24 ➵ A Different Kind of Soulmate

The moment he died, I felt as though all things soft and beautiful and bright would soon be buried with him. My word wouldn't turn dark, but dull.

"Charlie, stop!" I giggled.

He kept flashing the blasted flashlight in my face. My vision was consistent of more and more blurry dots every time it flashed me. I did the same to him, and it was soon a competition of who could blind each other the fastest.

"I give up! God, I can't see!" he rubbed his eyes.

My laughter never faded. It was in the first two weeks of my introduction to the shaggy-haired boy. He was at my hotel room the more and more we had gotten close. This was one of the countless nights he would sleepover. Most nights, we would watch a movie or a new series on another random channel, but this night was different.

He wanted to build a fort, and I happily obliged.

Although I had an incredibly comfortable hotel bed, we both settled on the floor. A thin cover was overhead as pillows laced on our backs and near our legs. Another blanket was under us as it supplied a bit of cushion between the hard floor and our bodies. My legs were crosses, facing the boy. We were trying to make hand puppets with the flashlights. Even in the darkness, I could feel his smile at me.

He flashed the light in my eyes once more, "Charlie! I'll kill you!"

He raised an eyebrow, "Aw, little Sienna will miss me too much!" he snickered, continuing the action.

The things I would do to hear that laugh just one more time.

It's a different kind of leaving when you never had a choice in their disappearance. It doesn't feel final. My mind could still wonder to the lost memories of our past. The only thing left are the memories; no physical reminisce of the connection between our souls, not yet anyway. When someone leaves without your expectation to, you still feel stuck holding something that just simply isn't there anymore. He was there, but now he's not. In one simple moment, the real angel left my life, and I didn't know how to deal with it.

If soulmates truly existed, I want to believe that they aren't found, but they are made. When people meet, they have a good feeling about each other and start building the wall of their relationship on their own.

I didn't know what to call Charlie before. He was a friend, yes, but I always felt like he deserved a better title. That's when I realized he was my soulmate. A soulmate doesn't have to be a romantic relationship, but a platonic one as well. It's that instant connection, that instant and overwhelming feeling. It's the knowledge that they will be so important to you although you haven't known each other for too long. That's a soulmate. We're still soulmates, but just a different kind, an incomplete kind now.

My sobs continued, but the ringing in my head was stronger.

He was in Death's arms now, but I always wondered if Death considered the works of Love in taking his victims. I felt is if my mind was programmed to be disappointed. When we get what we don't want, we suffer, but if we get what we do want, we still suffer because we won't be able to sustain it forever. With him gone, I felt a garden of agony blossom in my chest.

My sobs felt like screams, but it was then I realized no more tears were on my cheeks. My sobs weren't really sobs, but they were just screams of torture. A pair of arms grabbed me once more, but this time, it wasn't rushing me out of the room. It was engulfing me into an embrace.

It was his parents.

His mother weeped, "I'll miss him too, dear."

Her words were so soft, and her cries weren't as vivid as my own. Mr. Gray pulled both of us in closer. For the first time in hours, I felt a bit of warmth when my world ran cold. Mr. Gray started to shed more tears, and I could tell that his heart was completely shatter. I could tell that his world was almost like a game of Jenga. People were constantly pulling away the blocks of his life, and he still shed of a face of stability, until he finally toppled over.

He collapsed. He broke. He felt all the emotions and more.

The problem was that the anticipation of his life falling apart was impossible to predict. The only thing we knew what that the block that would send his life crashing down was Charlie's block. When you take Charlie away, his world was left unbuilt.

The only thing left to do was the build your life back up from the ashes, but the structure will never be the same.

He sniffled a bit, "Death means losing a life, not a relationship."

I nodded at his words, feeling a bit more comfort. Then, we just stood there, grieving over the lose of our loved one. We each loved him in different ways, but his love is what brought us together.