soulmates

Donuts

"Did you hear? Beth Dawson met her soulmate!" Taylor announces as I climb out of my car. We head towards the sandwich shop together for lunch. "And you'll never guess who it is."

"Oh, it's totally Ryan," I say, shrugging my shoulders. Beth has had her eyes on Ryan for years, and she literally avoided talking to him all this time just so that their first sentences to each other would be the right ones. Not sure how that played out logically in her mind, but it's crazy the things people will do to hold on to hope.

"Nope."

I stop in my tracks and look over at Taylor. "It's not Ryan?"

"It's not Ryan."

"Who is it?"

"Peter Woods!" Taylor exclaims.

"You're kidding."

"No, it's Peter Woods. I almost feel bad for Beth, she wanted it to be Ryan so bad."

I shrug, pushing open the door to the shop. "Peter's a nice guy. He's on the football team, right?"

"Yeah."

We head inside and take a seat. Taylor keeps talking about Beth and Peter and Ryan, then about the football team and how terrible our school is playing this year. My mind drifts to my book- a similar situation happens with my characters. One girl desperately hopes her soulmate is this powerful leader of their people, but it ends up being someone she doesn't expect. In a book, it's exciting and heartbreaking and intriguing. In real life, it's kind of disappointing.

The craziest soulmates I've ever heard of was with that famous actor- Heath Davis? There's this one movie he's in, and the first line he says is "You should've thought about this before you dragged me out in the desert."

Well, some girl in some theatre started crying, because that's what her mark said. And a couple months later she ran into the guy at the Santa Monica pier, and she broke down crying, saying "I can't believe this is happening," and voilá. That was his mark. Happily ever after.

"Anything happen with your book yet?" Taylor asks me.

I take a bite of my sandwich and roll my eyes. "I knew publishing companies were slow but I didn't think it'd be this bad. I haven't heard anything and it's almost been a month." I shrug. "They're probably not gonna publish it."

"You don't know that," Taylor says.

My phone buzzes and I reach down to check it. It's from Ben.

I think I found the girl. I haven't talked to her yet but I really think I found her.

I show it to Taylor. Her eyes light up. "That's so exciting!" she squeals. "I can't wait until he does meet her. He's such a sweetheart. Whoever she is, she'll be extremely lucky."

Taylor isn't as cynical as I am when it comes to soulmates, but she's not a steadfast believer like Ben. Her mark is so simple, though- "Hi." That means plenty of people in the world could potentially be her soulmate.

We finish eating and part ways, and I go home to get ready for work. I'm working late tonight and probably won't be home until early morning, so I load up on homework to do in my downtime. Night shifts are always kind of slow.

I drop on the couch, checking facebook before changing into my work clothes. Lily's baby got a haircut, it's snowing at my cousin's house, two friends have birthdays today. Bla, bla, bla.

COMING SOON: Actress Paige Hansen confirms that the King's Angels are returning in a three-film reboot; Director Jim Mason to helm first film.

My eyes widen and my fingers freeze over the article.

(1) MY FAVORITE SERIES IS BEING REBOOTED!!!!

(2) PAIGE HANSEN, who plays TAMARA, is going to be in A REBOOT OF MY FAVORITE SERIES!!!!

But the biggest news, (3) my soulmate mark just became possible again.

I feel like I'm walking in a daze the rest of the day. Who knows if I'm even making drinks correctly at the coffee shop? No one's complaining, though. It's not long before my phone starts going crazy- Taylor knows my mark and is ecstatic about the reboot. A couple other friends hear the news about the movies and immediately think of me. My mom texts and is like, "maybe you'll finally get married and have some kiddos!"

Ben texts one sentence- Told you soulmates are real.

I raise an eyebrow. Haven't met him yet, Benster. I still don't believe in your soulmate fetish.

He texts back a bunch of emojis that take me forever to decipher. Honestly, the guy's an engineering major, but his art minor is the thing that really shows up in day to day life. He's a really good artist- some of his stuff has gone on display at our local art museum, and it's incredible. Paintings of these powerful metaphors and beautiful moments.

I get a picture from Ben- it's real blurry, and obvious he tried to take it discreetly- of this cute red-headed girl sitting at a table in the college library.

That's her? I text. She's cute.

and she's reading Harmony in Shadow

I assume that's some artsy book. Of course that would be a huge thing for Ben. 

good luck I shoot back, then drop my phone in my bag and go back to work. I hear it vibrate again, and again, but there are a couple customers and it's a while before I can go back and look. They're all from Taylor. She's coming up with some crazy ideas for how I'm going to meet 'the one'.

I raise an eyebrow and text back. who cares about 'the one' when i have something better-  donut holes

Do you actually have donuts?

I send her a picture of the box of donut holes sitting on the counter. Since my shift's almost over and the bakers will be coming in any minute now to make fresh food, I get to take yesterday's pastries home.

SOS need donuts, come over to my apartment pllllssssss

I clock out and head to Taylor's.