"Love someone who is kinder to you than you are to yourself".
~Nikita Gill
Alex
My eyes drifted to Hunter who was sitting in the front seat. I agreed to this for him. For him. I told to myself, trying to ease my own nerves. Aurora next to me was currently trying not to fall asleep but we had been on the road for the past two hours. I was beginning to feel sleepy.
"We do this every year. And as gruesome as it sounds, I promise you it's not. If anything it helps," Hunter said, once again to me. I nodded agreeing.
It did sound gruesome. But it also sounded healing. From what Hunter had told me, they needed that. They all needed to heal. His father was wearing his usual frown, only now he seemed more skeptical. I couldn't –and didn't want to- imagine what he was going through right now. Even the thought of it, I shivered.
We were currently driving up to Aaron's hometown. To Aaron's and Estelle's, Hunter's mother, hometown.
Hunter had told me all about their love story. Aaron and Estelle were neighbors since before they were born. Their houses were almost attached, Aaron's and Estelle's bedroom windows were three feet away from each other.
They had grown up best friends and when they both reached puberty their bond was formed. Around the same time, Estelle was diagnosed with manic depression. They moved here when they both turned twenty-three and Hunter was born when they were twenty-five. Which meant she had killed herself when she and Aaron were thirty-nine.
Today... today would have been the day she turned forty-two. Aaron's and Estelle's family had this tradition of gathering twice a year. On Estelle's and Aaron's brother's birthday in memory of the two members who had killed themselves. When Hunter had mentioned the "tradition" I had promised I would come along.
I only realized it after it was too late though. I was going to meet his family. All of his family. Even great-grandparents. From what Hunt had told me, all of his family was accepting and supporting, but I couldn't help but be nervous. What if they didn't like me?
I had spent around two hours just watching myself in the mirror, worrying about the way I looked. I had finally settled on wearing a pair of jeans and a maroon, button-up shirt. And while I was happy with my choice of clothing –Hunter's whistle was more than reassuring- I was nervous.
And on top of that the marks that Hunter had left on me at our three month anniversary were still visible. God, I would never forget the looks I had gotten that Monday after getting them. Everyone at school had been staring at me as if I had grown another head. And none of my friends would let it die anytime soon. That first day I was pretty sure I was going to pop a blood vessel from all the blushing I had been doing. Not to mention how my parents had reacted. They almost bit my head off.
So here I was, fourteen days later, with halfway faded hickeys, dressed on point, heading towards the birthday party of a dead person... and meeting the extended family of my soulmate. Fun.
The two houses were in a suburban area with big front gardens and picket fences. As soon as we got out of the car, Hunter came and took ahold of my hand, winking at me while doing so. We walked up to the door and a few moments after knocking, an elderly woman opened the door.
She had a softly wrinkled face, silver hair and wore glasses. But her clothing showed class I rarely saw. My mother's parents were kinda classy, always in tailored suits and skirt suits. My father's parents also had the same style –Grandpa Clifford preferring vests, though-. But this woman took class to a whole new level. She wore a dress that seemed of royal caliber, long satin in the color of the deep sea, which made me rethink my clothes.
Hunter is also wearing jeans and a button-up.
Aurora was the first to react, hugging her. The woman immediately lit up with a smile and hugged her back.
"Little princess!" she exclaimed and cupped her face. Then she looked at Aaron.
"Elaine, how are you doing?" he asked her and lowered to give her a kiss on the cheek, seeing as he was at least a head taller than her.
"Oh, I'm fine, my dear. How are you?" she asked back.
"We're good..." he said and walked in, going to stand behind her. Her blue eyes then wandered to me. So this is where Hunter gets them?
"Hunter... who is your friend?" she asked, for a moment her voice turning ice cold.
"Grandma meet Alex, my soulmate," he told her with a smile. Her eyes ran over me thoroughly, making me gulp. I could only imagine what she thought of me. Finally, she smiled at me.
"Nice to meet you! What took you so long?" she said.
"Um..." I replied not really sure what to say.
"Come on in, let's meet the rest of the gang," she told me and pulled both Hunter and me inside.
"I'm going to go ahead and apologize for all of them..." Hunter told me through our bond as we headed through the house to the back yard.
"No need, I'm just confused... old people don't really dig the whole rebel style," I said.
"Well, out of all of them, Elaine is the toughest. So, you're doing great," he replied and pulled me closer, our hand still intertwined.
Elaine stopped by the porch and cleared her throat and getting everyone's attention. There were around a dozen people in the garden, mostly adults, holding beers or wine glasses. "Everyone, meet Hunter's soulmate!" she exclaimed, bringing color to my face.
"Elaine is the toughest?" I repeated through our bond and Hunter just gave a small laugh out loud. Aaron and Aurora walked off, leaving Hunter to introduce me to everyone.
The first ones to approach us were two old men, both older than Elaine, who was talking with a young woman. They were both wrinkly and wore welcoming smiles.
"Alex, this is great-grandpa Stefan," Hunter began, touching the shoulder of the man with the most wrinkles, who walked with a cane.
"I'm Elaine's father," he told me.
"He's ninety-one and Elaine is seventy-three, in case you were wondering," Hunter said.
"And I'm Jean," the other man said, with a faded accent, "Aaron's father".
"It's nice to have you in the family," Stefan told me and started walking away. As Jean was leaving a couple approached us, both in their sixties.
"I'm David and this is my wife Marcella, I'm Elaine's younger brother and that woman over there talking to Aurora is our daughter, Samara," the man said.
I could have guessed she was their daughter due to the fact that they looked so alike. She shared the curly hair Marcella had, as well as the dark skin color. But she also shared her father's grey eyes. She must have been a little younger than Aaron.
After them, two other people approached, a man and a woman. The man was bald and had dimples, even when he wasn't smiling. While the woman had long brown hair, a curvy body, and extraordinary eyes.
"I'm Ron and I used to be the soulmate of Elaine's youngest brother," the bald man said and put his hand next to his mouth to hide it from Hunter. "Run, this family is nuts," he warned me, but couldn't help himself and laughed. I laughed back shedding Hunter a sideways glance.
"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.
"You don't have to say it..." Tamaki told her, running his hand over her back. She seemed to disagree.
"I moved on, but I'll never forget Vivian. She was my best friend since Kindergarten. We were practically dating before our bond was formed. When it did form –back when we were sixteen- we were so happy; we immediately told our parents. You see, she was already family before that, so everyone was ecstatic... everyone but her parents. They forced her to go to therapy, sent her to priests for cleansing..." her voice broke and I could almost see tears in her eyes. "In the end, she couldn't take it anymore, so she took her own life". I beat her to it, as a tear started running down my cheek.
"Alex..." Hunter started. Celeste gasped as she saw my tear and I rushed to wipe it away. "Are you...?"
"I'm fine," I snapped at him.
"Just because Vivian's parents were like that doesn't mean that –".
"I said I'm fine". I saw Hunter pulled back a little at my outburst and I sighed.
"I'm sorry... Just know that everyone's here for you".
"I know Hunt".
Around an hour later we had finished eating and everyone but Aurora and Ron's daughters were sitting by the table. We were all chatting away, Hunter had finished telling Celeste the story of how we met –leaving out the part where Matt was one of my friends-. I wasn't eager to tell anyone about that.
"So, Alex..." Ron started, snapping our attention to him, "what's your last name?"
"Eh, Richardson," I replied, not really wondering why he had asked. He seemed skeptical for a second.
"You're not by any chance related to Andrew Richardson, are you?" he then asked. Both Hunter and I froze, a cold shiver running down my spine.
"You know my father?" I asked, my voice small. All chatter hushed and everyone looked at us, but I didn't really care.
"Yeah! I was sure you looked familiar," the man said excitedly. Isn't he feeling the mood? "He's my boss," he added.
Oh, fuck me!
"Damn, if only I had known I'd be spending my afternoon with his son. He's always talking about you, you know". Hold up, what now? "He's very proud of you; always saying things like 'my son's doing this and that'. It even gets annoying sometimes," he went on, unfazed by my perplexed expression. "I don't know why but I pictured you older. You're studying at Stanford, right?"
"Oh, you're talking about my brother," I exclaimed, making him look at me confused now. Now it makes sense.
"Your father never mentioned having two sons," Ron said.
"Of course he didn't," I replied with an annoyed laugh. "If he mentioned that, he'd have to praise me too and he wouldn't be able to do that even if he was hypnotized to do so". Hearing my exasperation, no one pressed on the matter and Ron seemed to regret even mentioning it.
"Do your parents know about you two?" Marcella asked with a warm smile.
"Eh, no they don't..." I said awkwardly. Aaron seemed to go on high alert, as he sat up in his chair glued his eyes on me.
"How come?" David asked back. "Won't they be happy you've found your soulmate?"
"Oh, they will. They just won't be happy about it being a guy". All smiles faded and were replaced with angry glares. Something, though, told me they weren't directed to me.
"You're still in the closet?" Celeste asked, her eyes being the softest right after Hunter's. I just nodded.
"Truth be told, I didn't know I was bisexual until I met Hunter," I said, to Celeste mostly.
"His parents hide behind religion," Hunter muttered, reaching out to grab my hand.
"Just what might happen if they find out?" Elaine wondered, trying to ease everyone. I shrugged.
"I'm not exactly sure... but it wouldn't be too hard for them to send me to conversion therapy," I said. A loud thud made us all jump as Aaron hit his fists onto the wooden table.
"Over my dead body will that happen," he growled. Celeste was holding her right forearm, right over her tattoos. And pretty much everyone bore a disgusted expression.
"Sick people," Jean muttered spiting down on the grass. "I've lived for so many decades. I lived through so many wars. Nothing angers me more than parents abusing their children".
"They don't abuse me..."
"Don't they?" Stefan now asked. "They have driven you to the point of fearing to tell them who you really are. I can't even imagine all the awful things they must keep saying to you".
"Being homophobic toward your own child is abusive," Georgia said agreeing with the two old men.
"Being homophobic in general is abusive," Jean corrected his daughter. "You had to deal with this from outside the family but it still hurt you. I still scarred you," he added.
"They kinda lost me," I told Hunter, feeling as if I was missing something.
"Georgia is trans. She was born male," he answered. Oh...
"Alex, whenever your parents find out if things go awry, just come to us. Our door is open to you. We've learned from our mistakes and no one in this family is going to be taken from us anymore," Elaine assured me, reaching over to me. Everyone agreed with her and with a smile I turned to Hunter.
"Goddamn, I love your family".
"More than you love me?" he asked with a teasing smile.
"Nah, that's not possible".