hate & other words || h.s au

one

I stare at my arm, wishing that my eyes could shoot laser so I could get rid of that goddamn tattoo. The same tattoo that showed up on my skin the day I turned sixteen, immediately turning my day from good to bad. Very, very bad.

Almost seven years have passed and I still can't get over that day. And I probably never will.

Thinking that I'd see the name of my soul mate etched on my skin, I remember how devastated I was when I woke up and saw Harry Styles' name on my arm instead (out of all names, it had to be him? Really?).

Initially I'd thought that someone scribbled it there just to mess with me because everyone that knows me knows I hate him but after scrubbing it over and over again in the shower, I realised that it's not going away. And it won't go away for the rest of my life.

But that's okay because in an attempt to make myself feel better, I convinced myself that maybe I was meant to get the name of my enemy first before I will eventually get my soul mate's name. Other people usually get the name of their soul mate first - my parents, my cousins and almost everyone I know get their soul mate's name on their sixteenth birthday - followed by the name of their enemy a few seconds, minutes or hours later. I don't know what's the deal with that because honestly, I'd rather get the bad news (enemy's name) first before the good news (soul mate's name).

Unfortunately for me, I only get the bad news.

Speaking of which... I look at my other arm and sigh, the disappointment that follows becoming a familiar pain that I've grown used to. It's still empty - no tattoo. Zero. Nada.

I'd like to believe that the name of my soul mate hasn't showed up yet rather than it not existing at all or worse, rather than Harry actually being my soul mate - the mere thought of that makes me shiver.

I know that there are people out there who don't get the name of their soul mate until they're twenty or thirty or fifty. It's a rare case, but it's possible so I cling to that sliver of hope because if it can happen to other people, surely it can happen to me too.

I refuse to accept that Harry is my soul mate. Nope.

There's no way in hell he could be, no matter how many times our parents try to convince us that we actually are. It's either they're blind or they're on some kind of drugs that make them imagine things that aren't real. They think Harry and I are just playing hard to get with each other. They think that the daggers we shoot each other whenever we're in the same room are secret looks we share to communicate. But the most ridiculous thing our parents have said to us has got to be this: you two are soul mates - we just know it!

What we are is nemesis. We hate each other. Of course, I hate him more than he hates me and in case you're wondering, yes, it's a competition. Everything in our lives is a competition.

Harry disagrees with me, as usual, because he thinks his hatred for me runs deeper but my hatred for him? It runs so, so much deeper. I think I hate him the moment we're born a few days apart. He's born first - a fact he gloats over for years - and a few days later, the world was graced by me. I'd like to think that as soon as I was born, people forgot about Harry. I was, after all, a cute baby. I still am cute.

Anyway. Harry, the lucky bastard, has a tattoo on each arm: one of my name, Cleo Ward and the other one of the name Sarah Turner. Since we both agree that we're enemies, Sarah must be his soul mate (he hasn't met her yet but he's convinced that he will soon - another thing that he brags about). Like I said, lucky bastard.

When he turned sixteen, both my and Sarah's name appeared on his arm at the same time (another rare case but probably not as rare as mine) but I didn't know about it until after my birthday. He purposely kept it as a secret, wearing long sleeves each time he went out. But when he found out I only got one tattoo, he no longer felt the need to keep it a secret. Instead he saw it as opportunity to deride me (everything's a competition, remember?) and it worked. In fact, it still works as of today.