TNP's 1st One-Shot Story Writing Contest Pt. 2

Entry #148

Undoing Fate

by Nate Yeranoa

On their eigteenth birthday, people can see their soulmates' names on their chests. I saw mine last week. His name is Sean.

The day I visited him, his parents took me straight to his bedroom. The room was badly lit and furnished with vintage fourpost bed, a white wallpaper printed with interlacing ivies and a Moroccan red carpet. Under the afternoon light coming from the dusty windows, smokes floated around like silent ghosts.

Across the room, I could only make out Sean's silhoutte sitting on a black couch while a vape glowed between two fingers.

"Nicole?" he asked unsurely.

"That's me."

He put a hand into his robes, on the chest where the heart is. The silence that followed was defeaning.

After what almost felt like an eon, he broke it.

"Let me be frank. I don't plan on marrying you."

I stood there stone-faced, knowing what he said was a taboo. What will my family would think of me? What would the President do to his aging parents?

"Are you serious?"

Instead of replying, he placed the vape carefully on a desk with a framed picture turned face down. Sean patted the space beside him. I went over to sit, the space saw to it that our thighs were touching.

He reached a hand on my face. I held my breath as his soft hands began to study my features. I could see the color of his hair. It was copper brown.

"What are you doing?" I asked, confused at his actions. I tried to see into his eyes and see what color they are but he looked away.

He pulled back and grabbed the e-vape. Thick clouds of smoke swirled in waves from his mouth.

"You will do," he said with finality.

I took it as my cue to leave. I admit I was a little hurt, feeling rejected. My friends hit it off with their soulmates at first meeting while here's Sean dropping me at first sight.

The days that followed went like a blur. I kept on visiting Sean and my parents asked me what he looked like. They nagged at me to make him come over for dinner. However, Sean always meet me in the dark and nothing could be got out of him except for the usual short, impersonal replies.

Once, I found him playing a melancholic piece of Schubert on the piano and I striked a match to light a candle since there's no working bulb in his room.

"Blow it out."

The coldness in his voice made me stop short from reaching the candle's wick. Under the few seconds of mellow light, I saw his pale face and slightly freckled cheeks which oddly reminded me of summer. The fire died out and the room became bathed in shadows and silver moonlight once again.

"Nicole," he called out softly after a long, charged silence. "Do you love me?"

"I'm your soulmate," I replied flatly. I don't understand him. He's so queer and moody.

"That's not exactly an answer to my question."

"I have the right to love whoever's name appeared on my heart."

He played for awhile, the music mirroring my mood. Better keep my feelings for him to myself.

"When you love someone, you'll do anything to make them happy, right?"