Afraid of Love

Chapter Two

Natasha was in pure awe. The girl she saw standing in front of her was goddess level beautiful. Is... this what having a soulmate feels like? Natasha still didn't know the girl's name, but she felt her face heat and the rest of the world seemed to fade around the girl timidly standing in the doorway of the lunchroom, trying to figure out where she should sit. She cleared her throat and forced herself to look away. It took her longer than she would have liked to admit to realize the entire room had quieted. The poor girl looked terrified. Alex stood up and walked over, taking the girl's arm and gently guiding her to their empty table. Natasha's mind scattered, thoughts felt sluggish and too fast all at once and she couldn't make sense of any of them. Alex sat the girl next to Natasha and then took her seat next to Lee. Natasha didn't catch any of the friendly words Alex and Lee threw out. She just had to focus on quieting her mind. Not noticing the fact that the tank top the girl wore was in her favorite shade of purple. Not noticing the way her golden hair was perfectly braided in a thick braid thrown over shoulder.

"Um... my name is Calliope. I use She/Her pronouns..." Her voice was soft and smooth, and it helped to bring Natasha out of her panicked thoughts. Alex's voice came back into focus.

"That's a pretty name! This is my friend Natasha. Also, She/Her pronouns, not really sure what's wrong with her. Probably just had a bad day." She didn't trust herself to speak so she just nodded and gave Calliope an apologetic smile. Calliope nodded and went back to quietly eating her food. Now that she'd been brought out of whatever the hell her brain had just gone through, she could think much more clearly and couldn't understand what had just happened. She mentally shrugged and finished her food. She was almost sure now that Calliope wasn't her soulmate. There was no feeling of connection, no certainty that this girl was "the right one". Maybe they could be friends though.

. . .

I have never been the talkative sort. My entire life, I've been extremely shy, and my parents uprooting my entire life to move to the bigger town definitely didn't help things. Of the thousand and one ways I had worried today would go, another girl who hadn't told anyone her soulmate wasn't one of them. In hindsight, it probably should have been. My hometown was much smaller and even there, kids were known not to share their soulmate's name until they were about 20 - the legalized adult age. It shouldn't have been too much of a stretch to think the same might be here. It's a town bigger than any I'd traveled to before; I didn't know what to expect. After I denied the first several people to ask who my soulmate was, people stopped asking. Before the school day even started, I was labeled as 'other'. So much for that fresh start Father had promised me. The first class was a little slice of hell. The teacher was nice, sure, but they had called me to the front of the class to introduce myself. I stuttered my way through my name and pronouns, but then stopped, unsure of what else to say. Mx. Green smiled warmly at me and told me I could go back to my seat. The students didn't seem to hate or ridicule me all that much, but I still felt my face heat as I sat down, sure I'd made a fool of myself at this school. Again. The worst of it was lunchtime. I struggled to find the cafeteria, and when I did, I seemed to be the last person there. I stood in the entryway, trying to figure out where to sit, unconsciously shrinking into myself. My eyes darted around the room to find one friendly face. One person I hadn't met or seen today that might not hate me. A girl with strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes stood and gently took my arm in her hand. She led me over to her table, mostly empty aside from a boy with short black hair, buzzed on the sides, and a very pretty girl with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and freckles that dusted her nose and cheeks. The first girl introduced herself as Alex, She/Her pronouns, and smiled at me warmly. The boy introduced himself as Lee, He/Him pronouns. Apparently, the two were soulmates. They looked expectantly at the second girl who was dutifully eating her food and pointedly not looking at me. Had she heard about me already and the other two had not? Was she about to look up and expose my strangeness? Did she hate me already? But no, she seemed to not notice me, nor her friends looking at her. So, I introduced myself.

"Um... my name is Calliope. I use She/Her pronouns..." I had meant it to sound cooler and more confident, but it had come out as more of a timid mutter. Alex seemed to hear me anyway since she smiled at me again.

"That's a pretty name! This is my friend Natasha. Also, She/Her pronouns, not really sure what's wrong with her. Probably just had a bad day." The girl - Natasha - looked up then. She didn't say anything, just nodded slightly and smiled apologetically at me. As if by instinct, I nodded at her, then went back to eating. Try as I might, I could not stop worrying about her. Her purposefully blank face arose in my mind again and again, no matter how many times I tried to banish it. I sighed inwardly and did my best to keep my anxiety off my face for the rest of the day.