Soulmarks

Chapter 1: Overprotective

When a wheelchair confines you, the world sees you differently. Before the accident, I was, as described by my grandmother, as a "young and independent young lady." I was a straight-A student, volleyball star, and had lots of friends. But the moment that I lost my ability to walk, everything changed.

It defaulted everyone to feel sorry for me. It felt like months before all the apologies ended, and everyone finally knew of my fate after the accident. But then came their unwanted feelings of obligation. When you're in a wheelchair, everyone tries to push you and do everything for you, and I'm treated as if I am incompetent. Does being in a wheelchair mean that I've lost my brain as well?

Help is great, but ask before you come up behind me and start pushing me. They don't even know where I'm going, half the time, and so I end up further from my destination than when I started because every time I try to speak up for myself, they baby talk to me.

Living like this has been exhausting. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by telling them to leave me alone, but I don't know how much more handicap help I can take.

But while my family and other strangers became kinder, the others close to me grew further apart. No longer able to play volleyball, the group of people I had once called friends now ignore me and pretend like we never met. And as far as boys go, I can forget it. Guys didn't look at me much before, and they surely don't look at me now. No one wants to date a cripple.

All of this would seem pretty hopeless, but there's one detail I have yet to expose. The soul mark. Our world is unique. Everyone is born with a birthmark of sorts that we call a soul mark. Every person has a unique soul mark. The only person to share your soul mark will be, as the name suggests, your soulmate.

A soulmate loves you for who you are, right? So whoever my soulmate might be should love me, although I may never walk again. Besides, if they didn't know me before the accident, they have nothing to expect from me.

The issue is that I've yet to find mine. It's hard for me to believe, but a lot of girls have already found their soulmates. As statistics have shown in the past, many girls end up marrying their high school sweethearts. I know this will ring true for our generation when I look at how many of my classmates have already found their forever mate.

But I've examined the soul mark of every guy in the school, and none of them are a match. My soul mark is simple, really. It's a cute little star on my right wrist. Placement of the soul marks has meaning, too. I like to think that my soul mark is on my wrist to signify my love of art. Maybe my soulmate is an artist, or perhaps does something else with his hands. But whoever he is, he's not nearby.

I still remember what Eric, the class president, asked me when I asked to see his mark.

"Why are you trying so hard to find your soulmate? I've seen you asking practically every guy in the school."

"Look at me, Eric. would you want to date me?" I asked. He opened his mouth to say something, but cringed. I could only copy his face, my spirits falling. "Exactly. That's what I thought."

That's why finding my soulmate is so important. He's my only hope in finding someone who will accept this new side of me. He can never compare me to what I used to be.

When I'm finally let off the bus on the last day of my junior year, I can't help but feel a sense of relief. No school means no eating lunch alone in the hall, no guy asking if I was going to "grope him for his mark," (which, I never did, by the way), and not having to listen to the announcements of how horrible the volleyball team did in the games without me.

Part of me has always wondered if my friends hated me more for having to leave volleyball than it was because my personality had changed, as they had claimed.