A tale as old as time,
told in the stories they read to us before bed;
in classrooms, when they reach for the History textbooks.
We were once connected, the story goes,
four arms, four legs, two faces,
but out of fear of our power, the Gods split one into two.
That’s the reason for the black hourglass inked on each of our wrists.
For when your lips touch the lips of your other half,
the ink disappears, and you will know that you are whole again.
Be careful, they always said,
if you turn twenty-five and still haven’t found your other half,
your heart will stop in the night. You would die.
Peacefully, they said, before repeating, but you would die.
Peacefully; that’s the word I hold onto now.
[…]
When I was young, Mom and Dad would cry at night.
I could hear it when I brought my ear to their bedroom door.
A quiet cry, full of grief.
Why did they grieve?
Why couldn’t they smile like they did in their wedding photos?
The vacation photos?
All the photos they took in the years before I was born?
Over time, they grew distant, cold.
Over time, I started to understand why.
[…]
You already found your other half? asked the kid in the playground;
you’re so lucky, the kid continued, I can’t wait to meet my soulmate.
Lucky, the word echoed in my head as I bit back a laugh.
What are they like? The kid asked. A familiar question.
Nice, I replied.
I was always good at lying;
it was easier than explaining that I was condemned from the start.
Why am I like this? I used to ask the Gods in the sky. Are there others like me?
Why did you make me like this?
What’s the point of making friends?
What’s the point of doing good in school?
Of learning how to live, to love, how to smile,
if I am to die at twenty-five, no matter what I do?
The thought used to keep me awake,
staring at the ceiling in the darkness of my bedroom at night.
Nowadays, the thought is a nuisance;
one I can push away even on the most sleepless of nights.
[…]
My youth was spent in and out of doctors’ offices.
Doctors, young and old, experienced and new, all running tests,
asking questions, poking at my wrist,
x-rays, blood samples. No one could find a diagnosis.
Eventually, Mom and Dad gave up.
I’m so sorry, said the aunts and uncles and family friends at every gathering,
I didn’t know if they were talking to me or Mom and Dad.
Have you tried doctors? Wang Shushu always asked.
Yes, Mom replied.
What about the doctors in Beijing? They good. Better than ones in America.
Dad would only shake his head, saddened.
Chen Ayi always asked me if the mark had appeared yet,
it has to, she’d always say. The others would nod in agreement.
Why is it so bad?! I snapped one day. Why can’t I just be me without a soulmate?
Everyone went silent.
I never raised my voice again.
[…]
It was in my third year of high school that the rumour spread:
I saw Harry Wu kissing someone behind the bleachers.
Someone who isn’t Alyssa Yang. His soulmate.
These scandals happened once or twice.
When they did, word always spread quickly in our town;
the girls who were cheated on were always teary-eyed,
shoulders slouched, quiet at the back of the class.
Alyssa seemed okay, though. I asked her why that was.
Harry and I are just friends, she said.
I blinked, confused. But… you’re soulmates.
We are, she agreed. And I love him with all my heart. Just not… like that.
Like that? I asked.
I don’t want to kiss him, she explained. But I love him.
So you love him like a friend, then?
She pondered the question. More than a friend.
So a best friend?
More than a best friend, Alyssa replied. But not quite like a lover.
Even now, I still struggle to wrap my head around those words.
[…]
I was born without one, I said to the boy in the cafeteria.
We’d been speaking ever since I moved here from my last town;
he was the closest I’ve ever had to a friend.
Are you sure? He asked and my heart sank. How is that possible?
I don’t know, I admitted, my mind already racing for ways out of this conversation;
for ways out of this school, this town, before my confession spread.
Let me see, he said. I showed him my bare wrist.
Are you sure you didn’t already kiss your soulmate? He asks.
I shook my head.
Maybe when you were young. Accidentally? And you just don’t remember?
I shook my head again.
It’s impossible, he repeats, to not have a soulmate. How will you ever feel whole?
I do feel whole, I wanted to shout.
Don’t tell anyone, I said instead.
Okay, he says, I won’t. I promise.
By next week, news had already spread; I was the town freak once again.
It was an accident, he said. I’m sorry.
I didn’t really care.
Four years later, I was off to college.
That was the last time I ever told anyone.
[…]
Is this love? Is this how it feels to have a soulmate?
I wondered to myself, looking at the girl across the table.
She’s pretty; I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
Raven hair, monolid eyes like mine.
Everyone around her was laughing; she was smiling.
Did she say something funny?
I was sure that she did; she seemed like the funny type.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
I kept my eyes on her; I couldn’t help but smile as well.
I let out a little giggle.
Butterflies, they always described it as.
Were butterflies what I was feeling?
No, I don’t think so; my stomach didn’t feel funny.
Did I want to kiss her? I don’t think so.
Did I want to lay with her? To hold her?
To marry her? Start a life?
The image struck my mind: me and her, a dog, kids, a picket fence.
I quickly looked away as my breath got heavy.
Was I suffocating?
No, I decided, she’s not my soulmate,
I don’t want to be with her.
But what did I want? To be her friend, perhaps?
To be her?
No, I thought, none of that seems right either.
Maybe it wasn’t a crush. Maybe I just wanted to look at her,
to be in her presence, to absorb her energy,
to just observe.
What an odd feeling, I thought to myself.
[…]
After I turned twenty-one, I found I often woke in unfamiliar sheets;
sometimes with the sun streaming in,
through the thin curtains still drawn over bedroom windows.
Other times I woke on couches; clothes still strewn on the floor,
my body aching for the hot water to wash away the remnants of last night.
I used to wear long-sleeved dresses and thick bracelets to cover my wrists.
Over time, though, I found myself drawn to the older men, the cruel men.
The ones who wouldn’t care, perhaps wouldn’t even notice,
the lack of the hourglass on my wrist.
The ones who wouldn’t care if I had already found my soulmate,
the ones who wouldn’t care if I was cheating; they likely were too.
I felt nothing with them.
But then again, did I ever feel anything with any of them?
Any of the men and women,
even the ones who were gentle? Kind?
Even the ones who really believed in the slim chance that I was the one?
[…]
Those nights were the only times I’d allow myself a sense of intimacy;
allow myself to feel the skin and lips of another,
the heat of another body sleeping next to mine.
In the earliest of those nights, I’d reach for the flashlight on my phone,
I’d look at my wrist, wonder if the mark had finally appeared,
if perhaps I was just a late bloomer.
There was never such luck.
Soon, I lost track of the number of bodies I allowed on my own;
it was then that I stopped checking for the mark.
Nowadays, I leave before the other body wakes,
a heavy feeling in my chest because I miss the nights,
where I would just lay in the sheets of another,
and watch the rise and fall of their chest as they breathed.
[…]
We weren’t compatible, said the red-haired girl; I think her name was Erin.
We sat at her kitchen table, bowls of Fruit Loops and milk in front of us;
it reminded me of my youth.
What happened? I asked, curious.
We tried to make it work, Erin explained. But we were too different. We always fought.
That didn’t make sense to me.
Your soulmate is forever, they always said.
Your other half. The one who will love you easily.
Forever.
I assume it was the same for you, she said, looking at my wrist.
I pulled my wrist under the table, suddenly self-conscious.
Me too, I lied, we tried to make it work. It didn’t.
I finished the last of my cereal and then stood up.
Last night was really fun, she said. Can I see you again?
I shook my head, gathered my things;
I took the bus back to my apartment.
[…]
We kissed once, said the older-looking man at the pride parade.
We were both twenty-four, he went on, almost twenty-five,
neither of us quite liked it. But we didn’t want to die either.
I looked at him with his arm around the dark skinned woman;
they looked happy — in love. I furrowed my brows in confusion.
What do you mean you didn’t like it? I asked.
We made a promise, the woman explained. To spend our lives together,
just not in the traditional husband and wife way;
We’re committed to each other. We live together. We have kids. A dog.
More than friends, the man said, but not quite lovers.
Not quite lovers, I said, echoing the words Alyssa said all those years ago.
Hard to wrap your head around, isn’t it? The woman said.
It’s hard to explain as well, the man agreed. But we know what we are.
And that’s what matters most, the woman finished.
Soon afterwards, I followed my roommate home.
Not like I’d wanted to come to this parade anyway.
[…]
What’s wrong? I asked the boy crying on the front of the campus steps.
I’d seen him a few times, in one or two of my classes.
We never spoke much — just once when he lent me a pencil and eraser.
He didn’t meet my eyes as he wiped away a tear.
I kissed my girlfriend, he said, for the first time,
we wanted to wait until the day one of us was close to turning twenty-five.
That wasn’t uncommon: waiting;
often something done by the most hopeful of romantics.
I’ve always found it to be risky, betting your life on one person.
The boy held out his wrist, revealing the hourglass mark still inked to his skin.
It was supposed to be magical, he sobbed. She was supposed to be the one.
I’m sorry, was all I could bring myself to say.
You’re lucky, he said, gesturing to my blank wrist.
I could only bring myself to force a smile as I walked past him,
up the steps, towards the door of my next class.
He died the next week on his twenty-fifth birthday.
I hear his family scattered his ashes in the local lake.
At least he went quietly, his friends said,
In his sleep. He went peacefully.
[… ]
Peacefully, I whisper to myself now in the dark,
I lay in bed, watching the seconds tick by on the clock on my wall.
2:48, 2:49…
I was born at 2:57am on this day, almost twenty-five years ago;
I used to cry a lot in my youth; pick at my blank wrist until it bled,
I used to pray at night, to beg to be just like everyone else.
But now, as death draws nearer, I feel an odd sense of clarity.
Pity, you always tell me, pity you can’t fall in love.
But have you ever wondered if maybe I like being on my own?
If maybe, just maybe, I don’t need another to make me feel whole?
You’ll be lonely one day, you say, you’ll change your mind.
And maybe that’s true. And maybe it isn’t.
That’s the thing, though, I whisper aloud now to my empty room,
who I could be one day, what I could want one day,
none of it overrides what I want now.
What do I want now? I ask myself with one final bit of breath.
I think back to the look of grief in my Mom and Dad’s eyes;
I think back to the sterile smells of the hospitals and doctors’ offices;
I think back to the nights spent with strangers in dim rooms;
I think back to Alyssa all those years ago;
I think back to the man and the woman I met at the parade;
more than friends. Not quite lovers.
I think I finally understand those words now.
Because maybe when you take out the heat of the burning passion,
intimacy becomes the purest expression of trust.
And maybe when you remove the blinding pull of attraction,
love becomes but a choice that you make every day,
a choice to know someone, to see them for who they are,
and to always choose to stay regardless.
Maybe it is possible to love differently without it being wrong.
[…]
2:55.
I shut my eyes.
I wait for the blanket of darkness to wash over me.
I hold my breath.
I count in my head.
1… 2… 5…
8… 20… 50…
60…
Am I dead?
I open my eyes.
I blink, confused.
I check my phone as well, sure that the time on my clock is wrong.
But as the screen illuminates, I let out a shaky breath.
The numbers on the screen read 2:58.
Header Image Source: UnSplash
