Amelie still can’t get used to her large friend group.

It’s like she woke up one day and there they were. Her loud, chaotic friends.

She wouldn’t want it any other way.

So she sits at Jeremiah’s dining table with her friends crowding around the too small space.

She’s squished between Ria and Bell. Going in order, next to Bell is Cross, then Roman, Jeremiah, Zac, Liam, Tharen, Lou, and Jones.

Tharen looks uneasy. She knows that all too well. It’s probably how she appeared when she first sat with all of these people for the first time. The poor guy doesn’t even know anyone, except for Liam and a brief interaction with Bell and Jeremiah.

Though from what it sounds like, Bell has a bit of a rough experience seeing him. She didn’t tell them all the details, but Amelie theorizes it has more to do with Tharen’s dad than Tharen.

They already went through Jeremiah introducing everyone, using his own nicknames that he never actually calls them unless for this very situation. Now it’s onto what Amelie assumes will be the interrogation period.

Asking questions.

Getting to know him.

Or at least that’s what she always saw in the movies.

“What’s your power?” Jones questions, graciously starting Tharen off easy. Liam told them before the dinner, but Jones is trying to be nice.

“I can sense soulmates. Like get a vibe kind of,” Tharen answers.

He leans back in his chair, his arm casually thrown across the back of Liam’s seat. Amelie commends him for trying to appear comfortable, though she can see he isn’t.

“He sees strings,” Liam adds.

Strings? That isn’t what she expected.

When everyone looks to Tharen for an explanation, he says, “In my eyes, I see physical connections.”

“Is that the only explanation we get?” Roman teases. Though Amelie will admit that she also doesn’t quite understand what Tharen sees.

How do you see intangible connections?

Tharen sits up a bit. He stays silent for a long drawn out moment.

Then he begins to clarify, “Bell and Cross, I see a strong string between you. Same between Jeremiah and Roman. I even see it with me and Liam now, though I couldn’t before. Ria and Amelie, there’s one. For people who haven’t met their soulmate yet like Lou, Jones, and Zac, I can see that in the absence of a string.”

One thing sticks out to Amelie. She stopped hearing anything after her name.

It’s as if her heart stops and everything becomes muffled.

Ria and _her_?

That can’t be.

Like Amelie wishes with her whole heart to be fated to Ria, but it just wasn’t in the cards from them. They make their own destiny. At least that’s what Ria tells her.

Amelie always felt this barrier though. Like a hurdle since they weren’t soulmates.

So her heart starts up again and quickens at the thought that maybe they are.

“My soulmate died,” Ria brings up, her voice cutting through the fog. There isn’t sadness in her tone, just justifiable confusion.

Amelie remembers Ria talking about Lizzy. That she doesn’t feel the heart ache that is common with time apart from your soulmates whether by distance or death.

This soulmate whisperer doesn’t appear surprised by Ria saying that. “I can see that. A broken one. But there is a clear connection between you two.”

Even though she has no soulmate powers, she glances between herself and Ria, as if she was trying to see what Tharen see.

“Really?” Amelie asks. It comes out softer than she intended, a whisper of hope.

He simply just nods.

“Have you ever seen the string between two people who weren’t mates?” Lou questions.

“I don’t normally gab a lot about what I see,” he shrugs. “But not that I know of.”

Amelie slouches in her seat, her fingers twisting in her hair.

Her and Ria. Ria and her.

They fit. Just like puzzle pieces. That’s how it felt the moment she met Ria in her dream. Maybe there was a reason for that.

Unofficial soulmates?

Amelie used to hate that word. Soulmates. It created this bundle of nerves, bitterness, and anger in her gut that threatened to explode. Piper and Blake and society really messed her up. But Ria took that all away. The pain, the doubt, everything. She compacted it and produced a diamond.

Her gaze is unfocused, consumed with racing thoughts.

She is brought back to reality when a hand stalls her fidgeting fingers.

“Maybe Tharen can see true soulmates. Ones that even the universe doesn’t acknowledge,” Ria says, sending a megawatt smile to Amelie. One that turn her insides into jello.

Unofficial soulmates? Yeah, Amelie could live with that.

———

(Liam telling Zac will be its own post at some point. It’s too important not to be. I just wanted Tharen to meet everyone already!)