This is somethin' I've been working on for some time. It might be something I'll continue. I have ideas.
Tags: Hollstein, Soulmates, Fluff
I wake up alone and lay in bed listening to the hum of the refrigerator in the next room until the alarm on my phone goes off and it's time to get up and get ready for work. I do so lazily. I love my job, but some days I'd rather stay in bed watching Doctor Who re-runs rather than go out of my way to look good for some cameras, and today is one of those days. I have a strong feeling that it will be just as ordinarily dull as any other day, and that feeling doesn't diminish once I get to work and look at the lineup of reports for today.
It's a Sunday, an ordinary Sunday for everyone else, but at News station 307 it's 'Soulmate Sunday', always said with a hint of awe in the mouths of my co-host and crew and everyone else watching, but from me it's always with exaggerated flare because all in all, it's nothing but a story. It's something society created to tell kids so that they'll focus on academics and stop trying to fall in love too soon. Other than the people I interview every Sunday -- who could very well be actors for all I know -- I've never met anyone who's ever met their soulmate. Not even my parents, who loved each other so much that it killed them.
So I do the ditzy interviews and suppress my frown when a doe-eyed girl with a southern accent tells her story about how she met her husband at a casino when they accidentally touched hands and the slot machines and ATM's went haywire and started spitting out coins and money through the 'power of love' and 'soulmate's first touch'. They got married last week using the money they got from the slots. Where do they find these people?
Something like that could never be real.
I love my job, I really do, but when it comes to soulmates I have a hard time getting that journalistic edge, and it makes me question whether I should be in front of the camera at all. Maybe I'd do better out in the field, or going out to do interviews and write articles. Anything would be better than reporting nonsense. It stopped being fun when I realized that I'm the only one who thinks the whole soulmate thing is fake. I feel like the only one in the entire world.
When the clock strikes one, the replacements step onto set and we switch out.
"Hey, great job today, Laura!" my co-host, Bob, says to me. He's a very tall man with curly brown hair, and when he smiles his mustache stretches with it and it lights up his friendly blue eyes. Some would say his positivity is infectious, but today I don't feel it. He belongs on the news more than I do. He towers by me while we remove our wiring.
"You too, Bob," I reply and try my best to smile, but I feel off today and my facial muscles aren't working like they should.
"Can you believe that casino story? Man I can't wait for that to happen to me!" He's his usual excited self, and it hurts that I can't be like that too. I wish I could be so blissfully unaware. Maybe then I would feel like I fit in with everyone else who's soulmate obsessed.
"Yeah, me too," I say as I force my lips to smile wider until it feels like my face is going to split in half and reveal the monstrous, festering ball of negativity that rests inside. Soulmates are like Santa. You can't just tell a kid that Santa doesn't exist. You have to let them have hope and joy in believing that there's this mystical thing that gives you everything you want in life simply because you are alive.
We go our separate ways without much else to say other than goodbye.
The moment I leave the station, I instantly dread having to go back to my apartment and spend the rest of the day alone. Work is a nice distraction, but I have so little else in my life that I find myself floundering around searching for something to do to occupy my time whenever I'm not working. Today I decide to go to the movies.
Barring the cost of one ticket and a large bucket of popcorn, I get into the theater with relative ease and find my seat in the middle of the sea of seats to get the best view of the screen. My bucket of popcorn is resting on the popcorn holder attached to the arm rest. Fancy.
People start trickling in in groups both big and small until almost every seat is filled, including the ones around me, which isn't too big of a deal since I am here by myself.
The movie starts without a hitch. It's all loud noises and big show-offy effects, but I didn't expect anything less. I barely even paid attention to what movie I chose to see. But it has its effect. The monitony of every day life starts to fade away as I get more invested, and I fall into a rhythm of grabbing a handful of popcorn every once in a while to slowly eat the pieces one by one, and then repeatingthe action.
The super-hero guy just came face to face with the evil dude and they're about to fight it out on the rooftops of Manhattan. Everyone in the theater is on the edge of their seats as the two supers fight it out, slamming eachother into buildings and throwing punches. The super hero just got knocked to the ground off of a tall building by the villan in what is supposed to be the most exciting point of the movie when I reached my hand down to grab another handful of popcorn, but instead I grab another hand. Sparks radiate up my arm.
The theater goes pitch black and amongst the dissatisfied groans of the movie goers I feel as if I'm the one that's been punched off the highest building in Manhattan. I feel the darkness closing in on me and my breath comes in short gasps as if I'm suffocating. I feel the cotton in my lungs expand painfully as I try to breathe. It's like I've been buried alive deep under the ground where nobody can find me. It makes my heart clench painfully the amount of anger that courses through me with no explanation. Just as I feel like I'm about to pass out, the emergency lights come back on.
There she is, the person whose hand I'm still holding onto as if my life depends on it. Letting go would mean letting my life slip through my fingers -- or at least it feels that way. The raven-haired woman in front of me has shock written across her pale face
"Did we do that?" I ask hesitantly as I begin to question everything I believe about soulmates. My voice only slightly raises over the chatter of the other grumbling movie goers, but she stills hears it.
"It was just a coincidence," she says quickly and takes her hand back, as if suddenly realizing they were touching, and instead runs it through her hair and sighs. Instantly, I feel the sparks stop and it starts getting easier to breathe, but my heart is still pounding in my chest.
"But it was-" She stands up and starts making her way to the side aisle to leave, not taking into consideration the feet she's stepping on or the angry yells following her as she makes her exit. Quickly I shoot up from my seat and follow her.
It's been too many years since the last time I had something with someone that meant something. Something more than co-host or the pizza delivery guy. I'll be damned if I let her leave like this without another word. I ignore the strange looks and follow her out of the movie theater and into the brisk October night.
"Hey!" I call out to her between shivers and watch in stone silence as my breath turns to vapor in the frigid air. Maybe you can't avoid suffering for what you believe is right, but it couldn't have hurt to at least bring a jacket.
The dark haired girl freezes. I can barely tell that she's there because she's wearing all black and she blends in with the darkness around us, but her pale arms are poking out of her shirt. She's stopped under a streetlamp, conveniently.
"I'm Laura," I tell her. I see her shoulders heave as she takes a deep breath. I walk closer until we would be face to face -- if she were facing me.
"I don't believe in this stuff, Laura. I only just met you."
"Yeah, and shouldn't that tell you something?"
"Tell me what? That apparently society has a better hold on hopeless romanticism than I thought? That I should be one of those crazies who loses their minds over a power outage like you?" She's finally facing me. Her face is lit with the bright white glow above us, casting our two separate shadows across the asphalt.
"That's not who I am, but-" I pause and take a deep breath as I search for the words that feel so foreign to me. Any time before now it would have been said sarcastically, but now things are drastically different; "Isn't your heart racing? Pounding? Mine is." The woman looks away off into the night, her reticent mask breaking with the pained expression that crosses her features before she's looking back at me, and I continue, "Maybe it's true. Maybe it isn't just a story people tell to get on the news. What if- what if it's real. What if it's happening to us?
"Something like this could never be real for someone like me," she says grimly and shies away from my prying gaze when I try to look into her eyes to see what lies behind. She looks off into the night again.
"What do you mean?"
"I- nothing. I'm unlovable." The way she says it, curt and with a dismissive shake of her head, I know it isn't the real reason she believes she's undeserving. Her bare arms cross in front of her as if she's trying to protect her image of aggression. Intuition is telling me she's definitely hiding something. I can feel my heart reach out to her even after she's rejected it so many times already.
"Nobody's unlovable," I tell her simply and with as much sincerity as I can. Even my dad loves me, even if he's always working and never has time for me anymore.
"Then consider me nobody."
"You're my soulmate!" I wince when I recognize a hint of crazed hopeless romantic in my tone, but the cringe of realizing that I'm turning into the kind of person I've always hated doesn't outweigh my need to convince this mystery woman that she should at least try. Soulmate or not, she's starting to get on my nerves. I'm really trying here!
"Will you stop bringing that up? We're not soulmates!" Her voice raises and mine raises in kind.
"Well, what happened back there says something different!"
"Jesus, you're insufferable," she groans with her head thrown back to look up at the sky
"There's a reason we were chosen for each other," I mutter, loud enough for her to hear if the way her steady gaze locks onto mine. We stand a few feet apart staring at each other, sizing each other up. It feels like seconds, minutes, hours, I can't tell. The intensity of her eyes scares all the rational thoughts from my mind, but I do my best not to break under it. I have no idea what's going on in her head, which might be half the reason why I feel drawn to her. Uncertainty is danger, and danger is what I've always been running toward, according to my dad.
"I'm Carmilla," She eventually says. Her arms fall to her sides limply. The sudden shift in temperament makes me blink and furrow my eyebrows in confusion, but I don't have much time to question it before she's reaching into her front pocket and approaching to grab my arm so she can shove a piece of paper into the palm of my hand, eyes aimed at the ground. "Call me. Sometime," she adds, only sparing one glance at my face before she turns around and walks away again. This time I decide not to chase after her.
I take in the hand-written numbers written on the small, frayed slip of paper, and I smile genuinely for the first time today