Binding The Soul

The Journal

Seven-year-old Billy Hargrove sat watching the waves, hiding from his abusive dad.

He had always been abusive but when his mom took off it became twice as bad.

Daily beatings, both physical and mental. He always had to find a way to make Billy feel less than human.

He had spent the day with his friend Argyle and his grandmother and celebrated his birthday which his own father didn't even care to remember.

He was about to head back to the horror house when his hand brushed over something.

Looking down he saw a black leather book with the words soul mate written in fine ink on the front.

He couldn't believe it. He had heard about the soulmate journal but he never thought he would get one or at least Neil made it a daily affirmation that no woman would ever love him and his son was no fag.

The story was that on your seventh birthday, you would get a journal to connect you to your soulmate to learn more about each other. No one knew where they came from or how they worked but they always knew who your soulmate was.

Slowly, Billy picked up the journal and opened it. Inside was a paper that read:

"Congratulations on receiving your soul mate journal. While this is meant to be an easy way to get to know your soulmate there are some rules that come with it.

You can't write your name, address or other personal information, if you try it will show up as a black square like a redacted message in classified documents.
You can't steal anyone's journal... no matter what.. it'll always return to the original owner
If you or someone else tries to destroy the journal it'll physically harm both the soulmates.
The pages never run out.

Please enjoy your journal and don't be afraid to follow the path to happiness".

Billy hid the journal in the bag he was carrying and ran home.

Sneaking into his window he shut and locked his door.

Pulling the journal out and a pencil from his backpack he eagerly wrote "hi" and waited.

Nothing. But it was late so maybe they were asleep.

Every day after school he would check again and nothing.

Being only seven Billy didn't understand patience very well so when he heard nothing after a week he figured his dad was right and threw the journal into a drawer.

Billy's life got even crazier at the end of the month, he all of a sudden had a stepmom who was also a drunk and a sister who was only three years old.

He started taking Max everywhere with him because he didn't trust Susan to take care of her.

Max would spend the day at Argyle's where after school they both learned Spanish and Billy got help with his homework.

The beatings got worse for Billy since now he would take them for both him and Max. No matter what she would never be hurt the way he was.

As the years passed Billy became more and more protective of Max so he found himself in more and more pain.

When he was fourteen he dug out his journal and ignoring the writing that had started appearing he tore out the pages in the back.

That's the day he found out rule number 3 was serious because a light black mark in the shape of a tear appeared above his right eye.

Shaking off the shock Billy put his plan into motion.

He would fold the pages into envelopes and put pain meds in them. As soon as he switched the paper envelope for the money the envelope and pain meds reappeared in his room which was good since the beatings were getting worse and worse. He was seriously worried he would end up in the hospital.

The money went to getting things for Max that a now ten-year-old would need.

By sixteen he had been able to not only keep up with items for Max but was able to put money away for a way out once he was eighteen.

That same year though his father moved them to some piss ass small town in the middle of shitville Indiana called Hawkins.

He kept most of his shit packed up including the useless piece of shit journal.

Depression struck hard as he missed his friends, the ocean, the city and just everything about California.

This dystopian crap hole had nothing except, for one thing, Steve Harrington.

He was like a living doll. The most beautiful person he had ever seen. He had perfectly styled brown fluffy hair, big brown eyes that gave away all his emotions and then there were his lips. He wanted to kiss those perfectly kissable lips.

He spent the rest of the year picking and teasing Steve but it was the only way he knew how to spend time with him.

If he even attempted to follow his feelings his father would downright kill him.

Senior year flew by and once he turned eighteen he packed up the shit he and Max would need and left hell home for good.

They found a nice two-bedroom apartment for cheap and started living safely for the first time.

He got a job as a lifeguard and swimming teacher during the week and on the weekends he would wait tables at a high-end restaurant in Indianapolis.

On his first day off he started to unpack things that weren't essential and found the old black journal.

Max had hers and her and her soul mate had been writing to each other every day since the day she got it.

He was happy for her.

He touched the tear mark on his eyebrow and sat down on the bed and opened the journal.

His soulmate had gone to town writing about how their parents were never around and then this guy shows up out of nowhere and becomes a pain in the ass.

Billy wanted to kick the guy's ass for messing with his soulmate but he didn't even know anything about them.

"What the hell, it can't hurt anything," Billy said picking up a pencil and after the last entry by his soulmate, he wrote "Hi" and put the book down.

Sighing he didn't really expect a response since it had been so long. The person was probably pissed to the brink of exhaustion.

He then got up, went and picked up Max from Jane's house and some Chinese food and headed home.

When they got there he got the food out and as they started to eat he nonchalantly opened the journal to where he had last written and saw a response to his. A simple "Hello?" was written.

He did everything in his power not to spit out his food. What the fuck do you say to someone you have been basically ignoring for years.

Taking a deep breath he grabbed a pencil from the table and wrote.

"I read about the shithead who was making your life miserable. Hope he's done now and if not I can come and find him" Billy wrote back then picking up his chopsticks continued to eat and waited ignoring the snickering from Max.