Jefferson
Everyone knew that soulmates were decided with complicated codes and commands put into the chips that everyone has. The chips gather data and over the years, the things gathered from behavior and thoughts connect everyone to someone else. Someone, no matter how far across the globe, would always connect to someone else and that was just how the soulmates worked.
So it was no wonder why Thomas wanted more than anything to find out why he didn't connect with anyone. What made him so special that he didn't connect with literally anyone, anywhere? It confused him. He was special in the way that a mother would say to their toddler, but that was about it. He wasn't some new type of human, he didn't have any new or unusual traits, hell he was barely an outspoken person. He still hated giving speeches or failing assignments, so what made him different?
"Tommy?" Mary asked, waving her hand in front of his face. "You okay over there, buddy?"
He nodded and shook away his thoughts. "Yeah, fine, just—"
"Stop," she interrupted. "I'm literally your best friend and I've known you since you were born. Think over your lie and at least make it believable."
'Typical Mary,' Thomas thought. No one could lie to her in their house, she knew all her siblings like the back of her hand and all of them knew it.
"You're thinking of the soulmate thing, aren't you?" she asked quietly when he didn't finish his excuse. "Tommy, you can't live on that!"
"I know! I just, I don't know, I need to figure out why I don't have one." He pushed his spoon around absently in his tomato soup. It seemed like it'd taste good when he got home, but now it just seemed like flavorless red goop.
"We've tried figuring it out, sometimes people just don't have soulmates," Mary reassured.
Thomas stayed quiet. It was the same conversation they'd had a million times over, nothing new.
"Tell you what," Mary practically shouted as she stood up from the table. "why don't we go out and do something? Just me and you."
'Just me and you' was definitely an interesting sentence from a girl living in a house with nine people other than her, especially with most of those people being siblings that want to tag along to everything. Not to mention the fact that they had one car and they'd have to run leaving the house by their mother, which would lead to at least one of the little kids demanding to come with.
Still, loving the idea of relaxing with his best friend for a little while, he smiled and nodded.
"Alright! You go get the keys from Mama, I'll get Jane to distract everyone else," Mary directed. Thomas admired how she made everything seem so exciting. He knew they were probably just going to a restaurant or a movie or something, but she made it sound like they were planning a heist. It was arguably one of the things he loved most about his sister, everything was that much more interesting with her around.
Thomas dumped out his tomato soup and went over to his mama's room. The door was cracked open so he slowly pushed it open and poked his head in. When he saw that she was just dealing with the twins, he stepped in fully. Immediately, Anna jumped into his arms.
"Hey, Mama," Thomas laughed, hefting his sister onto his hip. "Me and Mary are goin' out, okay?"
"Where're you goin'?"
"She wouldn't tell me." Anna pushed to get away from Thomas, so he let her down. "We'll be back in time for dinner, I promise."
The woman nodded before turning and tapping Randolph on the hand for touching something he shouldn't have been. "Yes, that's fine. You'd better be here before dinner's ready, though."
"We will!"
She tossed Thomas the car keys and gave him a smile before saying, "Would you tell Lizzy to come get Randolph before you go?"
"Sure thing, Mama," he replied, returning her smile.
He walked out of the room and waited until he was in the kitchen to yell at his sister to come down to get the toddler. It took a second, but someone came jogging down the stairs. From the sounds of it, she wasn't all that happy. Thomas, being the good brother he was, smiled innocently at her like he didn't know it would annoy her.
"Mama says you have to watch Randy," he hummed, shoving the keys in his pocket so she couldn't announce his plan to the house.
"And why can't you do it? You aren't doing anything," the girl scoffed.
"I am doing something actually!"
"Oh yeah? What?"
"Not babysitting."
Elizabeth groaned dramatically as Thomas ducked out the door. Mary was already sitting in the driver's seat, waiting for Thomas to finish getting the keys. Getting out of the house was surprisingly easy considering how close everyone was in their house. Jane was probably keeping at least some of the little kids occupied upstairs, making an easy escape for Thomas and Mary.
"So," Thomas started once he was in the car and buckling his seatbelt. "where're we going exactly? Mama wants us home before dinner."
"We will be," Mary assured. She had a mischevious grin on her face that Thomas never figured out if he should trust or be scared of. Probably a little bit of both. "Don't worry we're just going to the store and stopping by somewhere else."
Thomas, still feeling unsure of whether or not he should trust his sister, only nodded. She'd never put him in any actual danger, so that was already out of the equation, but there was that part of her that encouraged Thomas to get into a little bit of trouble. Nothing serious, just enough to get him to have a little bit of rebellious fun. Sneaking out to a public place, mostly.
With that in mind, he sat back and enjoyed the ride as much as he could until they stopped at a convenience store. They went inside and bought some candy and snacks and back to the car they went, for another ten minutes of driving. Thomas tried a couple more times to get a specific location, but each and every time he asked, Mary would give him the same answer word for word.
To say he was confused when she pulled off the side of the road and parked near a ledge overlooking a bride would be an understatement. Without a word, though, she got out and hopped onto the roof of the car.
"Pass the bag up," she demanded, holding her hand down in front of Thomas's window. "Now get up here."
He followed her lead, but he sat on the hood of the car in front of her. Without wasting any time, Mary started braiding Thomas's hair. He didn't argue it, she did it pretty much whenever she wanted to, and she never pulled too much so he didn't really care.
"So how was school?" Mary asked, popping a couple M&M's into her mouth.
"Really? You take me to look at a bridge and you ask me how school was?"
"Yeah, you're right. How do you think their day was?" The girl stopped braiding and pointed to the bridge, where lines of cars were passing smoothly by each other.
"Their day?"
"Their day," she repeated. "Y'know, some of them are coming from work, others are going. Some just got the worst news of their life, and some heard the best."
"You're about to get philosophical aren't you?"
She ignored him and continued talking. "You can't stay on not having a soulmate, okay? We've been talking about it for years, and I know you hate it, but look at them over on the bridge. They don't care if you have a soulmate or not. These trees don't care if you do. Randy and Anna growing up and getting older don't care. Nothing around you cares, so why do you?"
"They don't have to deal with being the only one in the family that doesn't have a soulmate," Thomas argued.
"The world doesn't care, Tommy. It's gonna keep moving, and things are gonna keep happening, regardless of whether or not you have a soulmate. It's time you stopped living on it, okay?"
Thomas sighed. He hated when she was right. No matter how well they got along, he still hated admitting to his older sister that she was right.
"Can we just enjoy the candy and not talk about this? Please?"
It took a second, but Mary finally agreed to stay quiet about the topic. There was no one else in the world Thomas would rather go to to talk about his problems, but the topic was just exhausting him. He was out of the house with snacks and he wanted to take the opportunity to relax. So the two talked about other things instead. The conversations flowed easily and it was the perfect distraction from his issue that Thomas needed.