The Soulmate System

30. A Theme of Unresolved Issues & Role Reversal

The reunion started out nice. At least to Bryce, it had. He met Dylan's extended family and helped catch them up on Dylan's life.

Half an hour with Dylan's relatives had produced a tinge of anxiety in the man's chest, but he didn't know why. Bryce Houghton was an outsider; a spectator to events he could scarcely partake in. But he knew he wanted to be there for Dylan.

If his father had shown up, it would've been another story.

Bryce studied the new people around him. Bryce had the urge to remember these faces, these people who loved, tolerated, and even hated his Soulmate.

It was when everyone sat down at their tables that Bryce became scared. He had listened to Dylan's Aunt Bee talk about how he had been a fussy child, having broken his arm twice in the same place, the second time out of sheer absentmindedness. Mrs. Matthews followed up with a schoolboy crush he'd had when he was nine, on a girl who sat in the back and drew in a notebook with a permanent marker. Dylan's mother laughed. "I guess you ended up with an artist, huh?" she teased.

"You never told me that you liked people before," Bryce whispered.

"Yes I have," Dylan insisted.

Bryce closed his eyes momentarily for contemplation. "No, you haven't. You talked about some guy who asked you out at university, and that's about it."

"Huh," Dylan replied, before turning back to the conversation.

"Have you ever seen anyone before Dylan, Bryce?" asked a brunette sitting beside Mrs. Matthews.

Bryce recoiled unintentionally. "I...I'm sorry, have we met?"

"I'm Sarah. Dylan's sister," she stressed, reaching across the table to shake his hand. "I didn't know Dylan had a Soulmate."

"I didn't know his sister had a name until now," Bryce noted, his tone jabbing Dylan slightly.

"He also has a brother," Sarah noted. She pointed to a man in his mid-twenties, talking loudly with some of the younger cousins at another table.

"You have a brother?" queried Bryce.

Dylan blinked. "I've told you about him before."

"No you haven't."

"Oh. Well, I have a brother," Dylan nonchalantly brushed off.

Sarah began laughing. "What, you haven't told him about how jolly we were together?"

Dylan clenched his jaw, and his fists. "Don't you dare, Sarah."

Sarah couldn't stop laughing; it was escalading.

"It's a cute story!" Mrs. Matthews added.

"Mom, no," Dylan insisted.

"When he and Sarah was younger, they walked around the house in a Santa Claus beard because they thought it would...how did you phrase it?" she asked.

"Mom, no."

"We thought that we would know what we were getting for Christmas," Sarah finished, her laughter sounding like an air horn.

"I didn't know that," Bryce remarked, smiling slightly. The conversation continued on, no one having heard him, and Bryce suddenly felt Dylan was out of reach.

It was there when Bryce began feeling an uncomfortable twisting in his stomach.

More stories were passed around over the buffet food, exposing Dylan's past. He had indeed broken his arm twice, but one time had been when Sarah pushed him off the slide at the school's playground. As a birthday present, he had been a slave to David. The same David had insulted Dylan's Glow once upon a time, and had been grounded for it.