(Direct continuation to Soulmates in Hiding)

———

“I know your secret.”

Bell’s heart drops.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she tries to cover herself. She doesn’t have to hear herself to know that it’s not convincing.

“When I revealed I don’t have a soulmate, you looked like a deer in headlights. If you didn’t have one, you would’ve looked relieved to know you aren’t the only soulmate-less perso...

(Continuation of A Soulmate World)

———

Bell is on edge.

She’s never had to keep this big of a secret before, especially from her best friends.

“Everything ok, Bell?” Lou asks, concern directed at her instead of the squirrel that found its way onto their outdoor lunch table. Her, Roman, and Jeremiah are all gazing at her. “Yeah,” she says, but must not convince her friends because they all ke...

visiting great grandma’s house

mail shoved in the china cabinet drawer

spiraled phone extension cord

slender staircase partial rug on wooden floorboard

clawfoot tub peeling back decades of usage

suddenly modernized

kumquat orange painted frontdoor

fannie’s thorn bushes are missing

covered by mats of grass tended to weekly

cluttered kitchen remodeled

into opaque backsplashes of endearing brightne...

After the life changing day Bell had yesterday, she couldn’t wait for school the next day. It is so much easier to pretend everything is normal at school where everyone still thinks her and Cross don’t have powers or soulmates.

“Bell!” Lou calls out from the parking lot.

She has to laugh as there is three stray cats sitting at Lou’s feet.

“It’s ok. Bell likes cats,” she coos to the animals, s...

Still

I feel…….lost

I guess lost?

I’m not moving

Not forward

Not backward

And that’s worse

Not moving at all

It’s been two years

And I’m still in the same place

Seeing you in the chair

that you used to sit

I see you in the negative space

In the shadows during the day

In the bright stars at night

I see your absence in people

In the tears that I cry

In the empty work bench

In the toolkit you g...

My mind is reeling from the smell of burned meat. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to eat anything besides the vegetables, so my hopes are high. I sigh at the possibility of substantial food. Since the Doom I have learned to take everything with a grain of salt, because in every positive thing, there’s always something negative.

“You seem more gloomy than usual,” Maturana eyes me with a hi...

Whoosh!

Marta speeds through the halls, gum wrappers and forgotten homework flutters in the air in the wake of their run. Their coppery hair whipping around them, getting in their face.

How are they always late to math? Even with super speed, somehow they can’t get to that class on time.

It isn’t even like they hate the equations and numbers. They actually like it. Having an equation balance o...

My family crowds around my head, my youngest clasping my hand, my husband stroking my hair. I stare up at them from the hospital bed that's been my unwilling home these last few months, trying to soak in every detail of their faces, every mole, every freckle, every crooked mouth.

Not long now, I think. I can feel death creeping towards me, ever nearer. How odd to finally be at the end of my life...

“Hey Lizzy!!!

“Hey Monica!”

“Ready to go shopping!!”

“Obviously!”

“Ok let’s go!”

“Let me tie my-“

Lizzy turns around and he jaw drops.

“Monica? Are you ok?”

“Why did you stop moving?!”

“Wait did time freeze!”

“Shoe”

“Monica your back!”

“What do you mean, i’ve been here to whole time”

“No i swear time like froze!”

“You must have been imagining things Lizzy.”

“Yeah probably, let’s jus...

He watched as the fly crawled along the edge of his paperwork, an occasional flutter of a wing or pause to clean a forelimb.

How long had he been sitting here, the fly his only source of entertainment and companionship? Fatigue weighed down his bones and slumped his shoulders. He wanted to sleep, but that put him at risk of losing his place.

Cottonmouth. And his eyes were dry from sitting dire...