The Soulmate Theory

by Sarah A. Bailey

She looked beautiful, though. Her thick auburn hair and the way it flowed down her back in waves, tapering out towards the bottom. Her skin looked like a painting, without a flaw. Little freckles sprinkled like cinnamon across her bare arms and the bridge of her nose.

Penelope, I’m in love with you. I know you’re leaving tomorrow but I can’t let you go without telling you.

The kind of kiss that made my skin feel like pinpricks whenever I thought about it, even now. The kind of kiss I’ve been wanting to replicate since the day it happened but have yet to experience anything that even comes close.

“But sometimes when I think about how the world was created, I think that if there is a God, they made the Pacific Northwest first. When I think of what heaven would look like, I imagine sprawling cliffs and pine trees.

“Something tells me you’d feel at home as long as you were near the ocean. There are waves within your soul. I think it’s just where you’re meant to be.”

I never stopped loving her. I don’t think there was a time in my life I wasn’t in love with her. I don’t think there is a force on this earth or above that could’ve ever stopped me from falling in love with her.

I think I loved her the day I was born. Maybe even before. I think I’ll be falling in love with her until the day I die. Maybe even after.

“I do believe in soulmates, but not in the way I see it represented in fiction. Or at least I think the kind of soulmates we read about are extremely rare, almost nonexistent.”

When the Big Bang happened, they were blasted across the universe and separated from each other. Ever since then, each pair of atoms has worked to find its way back to its other half…

“I heard once that some scientist said that if romantic soulmates were real, only ten percent of people would find them in their lifetime. I actually feel like that might be in line with this theory, you know? A one-in-eight-hundred-million chance of finding that person.

“I know you, Penelope. You’re not the sum of your mistakes. You’re caring, thoughtful, empathetic. You’re good, all the way down to your bones. Don’t let this one thing eat you alive.”

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving,’”

“Stop drooling or Macie’s going to make me dress like this all the time.” “That threat gives me zero incentive to stop drooling,”

“What’re you doing?” I asked. “Walking next to the street,” he said offhandedly. “Why?” “It’s safer for you.”

“Seeing another man’s hands on you is fucking infuriating, Penelope.”

“Penelope, when I kiss you, I need you entirely sober. The only thing I want intoxicating you is me.”

“You’re all I ever wanted, Pep.”

“How long did it take you?” I looked at him, eyes narrowed in confusion. “To fall back in love with her.”

“Maybe that’s why they say, ‘til death do us part.’ It’s the only promise we can make. We don’t know what will happen after that.”

I wondered if just a lifetime with him would be enough. Not as a friend, or neighbor, or even a lover, but as a person. Would I get to know him beyond this life? Beyond the bodies that we're in right now? Not knowing the answer to that question terrified me. Because I wanted to know him in every lifetime.

He tasted like wine and the ocean. He tasted like the sun, the stars. He tasted like home.

“I’m going to need you to tell her we got a first-class upgrade. She thinks I booked us in the main cabin.” The young man paused and looked me over. “You want me to lie to your girlfriend for you?” “Well, she’s not exactly my girlfriend. Yet. And she’s actually kind of mad at me right now. If she knew I upgraded her flight and paid for it without telling her, it would just make things worse.”

“You do. Some people get teeth, some people don’t. Sometimes you grin, other times you smirk. Your mouth leans to the left or to the right. Your eyebrows raise or fall. Your nostrils flare. They’re all a little different depending on who you’re smiling at. But, once you create a smile for someone, it’s always the same. It never changes.

“The first time you smiled at me like that we were nine. I fell in love with you at nine years old and not a goddamn thing has changed since then, Pep. None of it. I loved you then, and I love you now.”

“I have a tendency to overinflate. Overthink. Overstress. Over worry. Then, I find myself floating up into space, trapped within the chaos of my own mind. I might do that, with us.”

“I knew I wasn’t capable of falling in love unless you walked back into my life.” I exhaled deeply. “And I’d wait five years again. Ten. Hell, I’d wait this whole lifetime for you if it meant I could have you in the next one.” I looked at her again. “You are what I’ve been conspiring to achieve, Penelope. You. Always you.”

“Carter, you are not a ray of sunshine, you are the entire sun. You bring joy, brightness, and warmth to everyone you come across. You deserve the sun, too.” She looked at me, finally. “But, if you’re the sun, then I’m the moon. Dark and dull.”

Because she was the moon and I the tides. When her lips touched mine, I felt the heat of the sun and the force of the stars.

“Penelope, I am on my knees for you. Seeing you like this, spread in front of me…” He shook his head as if words were lost on him too. “Fuck. You have no clue how long I’ve waited for this.” Echoing the words he’d said on the plane, “Let me show you what you’re worth. Let me fucking worship you.”

“I let you go once. You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m doing that again. I go where you go, baby. I’m right where you are.”

“Let me show you that you can have both. You can prioritize your education, and your career, and I will still be here. I’ll help you see that all of it has a place in your future, including me. You don’t have to choose. Never again. You will always, always have me.”

To slip just out of consciousness in the middle of the night and be unaware of almost everything around you except for the breathing of that other person.

“He dulled your brightness,” I said. “He didn’t want you to shine brighter than he does.”

“It does not mean they don’t miss you. That they don’t wish you were here. It means that they love you enough to let you go.”

I’ve known since I was old enough to understand what marriage meant. It was going to be you or nobody at all.”

“Would you have liked me on my knees for you back then? I know you like that now.” I pressed my lips against her navel. “Do you like me down here, Penelope? Do you like seeing me beg?”

“And look how good you take it, baby.”

“It’s okay, Pep. They all knew you and I were inevitable. They always knew this was meant to happen,”

Because it hurts less to hate yourself than to believe you deserve love and realize you don’t.

I wasn’t the type of person who could be loved and accepted unconditionally, I never had been and had always known it.

A burden and a disappointment. A person incapable of being truly loved, that look on Carter’s face being all the confirmation I’d ever need that those deepest fears held true. He’d never forgive me. If even he couldn’t love me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find someone who could. And I didn’t want to. I’d only ever wanted him.

“I used to think that God put me in the emergency room that night just so I could find her. So that she could find us, find our family. But I think maybe God put me in the emergency room that night so that she could find you too.”

When she was hating herself, I still loved her. I didn’t love any old version of her, any hope of someone she’d someday become. I loved exactly who she was when I met her, and in her mind, that person was the worst version of herself she’d ever be.”

“I accept every single piece of you. All of your past, all of your future. Every tear, every scar, every wound. There is nothing you should bear alone. Never again. Everything that is yours is also mine. You are mine.”

“I’m not going to get all cliche here, but if you ever pull some stupid shit like that again– if you tell her anything other than how beautiful, smart, and good she is, I’ll kill ya.”