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At the age of thirteen, your soulmark would appear. It would be the first thing your soulmate would say to you after you got it since in some situations, soulmates have met each other before they were thirteen. The mark would appear on your body in the same place that your soulmate’s would appear on theirs. For Felix Ferne, his was on his left wrist. The words ‘Hey, sorry ‘bout that, dude’ had appeared on his wrist in early August and it was now late September. A lot of people didn’t meet their soulmate until later in life, but it wasn’t uncommon for some to meet in school. This was the case for Felix as he walked through the school corridor, talking to his best friend, Ellen, when he was suddenly knocked to the ground as a smaller body collided with his.
“Watch where you’re going, Airhead!” He heard Ellen sneer. Felix went to get up when a hand stuck out.
“Hey, sorry ‘bout that, dude.” A shorter boy wearing a beige cap on backwards said as he offered his hand to Felix. “Head’s in the clouds today, ya know? It’s my birthday so I’m a little distracted.” He continued as he helped Felix up. “You good?” He asked when Felix got to his feet.
Felix just blinked and nodded.
“I’m Sam, by the way. See ya around?”
Once again, Felix just nodded.
Sam smiled. “Cool.”
As Sam walked away, Ellen turned to her stunned best friend. “Did he just…?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And said your…?”
“Yep.”
Ellen looked over to where Sam was now hanging out with Mia, Trent, Dylan and Jake. “Well…” She said turning back to Felix. “Shit.”
Felix nodded. “Well shit, indeed.”
-/-/-/-/-
At the end of the school day, Felix saw Sam looking down at his left wrist in confusion while talking to Jake. “I dunno, it seems kinda negative…”
“It’ll be fine, mate. Don’t worry about it.” Jake said, reassuring his friend. Looking over Sam’s shoulder, Jake spotted Felix and smirked. “At least you’re not him. Freak probably doesn’t even have a soulmate!”
Felix put his head down and left the school yard. ‘Honestly, if he’s mates with Jake Riles of all people, he’ll probably want a different soulmate.’ He thought, walking home.
-/-/-/-/-
Three years later and Felix had never said a word to Sam. Which wasn’t a hard thing to do with Sam being one of, if not the most popular kid at school and Felix being considered as basically scum of the earth by majority of his classmates. The closest thing to interacting with each other was being in some of the same classes and even then, they were never put together for assignments.
“Sam Conte and… Felix Ferne.”
Until now.
-/-/-/-/-
The assignment was to interview your partner and write about their life, their interests, their disinterests, so on and so forth.
“So…” Sam started. “What do you like to do?”
Felix looked down at his notebook and shrugged.
“Okay… what don’t you like to do?”
Felix shrugged again.
“Dude, I can’t really do much if you don’t talk to me. All I know about you is that your name is Felix Ferne, your best friend is Ellen O’Donnell and you have a little brother named Oscar. And those are things that everyone knows.”
Felix ripped out a page of his notebook and gave it to Sam.
Sam looked down at the piece of paper with the title ‘FELIX FERNE FACTS’ written at the top and several dot points below. “Oh, ah, okay. That works, I guess… So, my name is Sam Conte and I’m the youngest of three, all boys. I like to skateboard and draw…”
Felix wrote down everything Sam said and left immediately after the bell rang. ‘At least I never have to interact with him again.’ He thought.
-/-/-/-/-
Felix was sure that once their assignment was done and handed in, that would be the end of it, yet, Sam continued to talk to him in the classes they were in and even at his locker from time to time.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sam said to him one day as they were leaving class. “we should hang out sometime.”
Felix raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me like that, Fe. I’m just saying that we should get to know each other better, more than just the basic facts. Plus, you promised to show me your guitar skillz, I have it in writing, see?” Sam said, holding a piece of paper with Felix’s handwriting on it, saying that he promised Sam that he’d play guitar for him sometime.
Felix grabbed out a pen and held out his hand, indicating that he wanted the piece of paper. Once Sam handed it to him, Felix flipped it over, wrote on the other side and gave it back to the shorter boy.
“‘You said skills with a z, didn’t you?’” Sam read out loud. “Uh, no I didn’t…” He scoffed. “Anyway, I’ve got to go, but text me your address and I’ll come over… Saturday?” He asked.
Felix smiled and nodded.
“Saturday. Cool, Seeya dude!” Sam did a pair of finger guns as he walked backwards to his mum’s car.
Felix shook his head, smiling. ‘What. A. Dork.’ He thought.
-/-/-/-/-
Late Saturday morning, Sam walked up the driveway of the Ferne’s house and knocked on the door. Oscar wheeled his way over to Sam from the side of the house. “Uh, can I help you?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m Sam, Felix’s friend and you’ve gotta be Oscar, right?”
“Oh, yeah, Felix told me about you. Follow me, his room is separate from the rest of the house.”
“He told me about that, well, wrote it anyway.”
Oscar stopped outside of a room with a glass sliding door and curtains covering it and the windows. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He said, wiggling his eyebrow before laughing and wheeling over to the front yard.
Opening the door, Sam heard a voice.
“Shut up, Ellen! It’s not like that and you know it! We’re just friends.”
Pushing past the curtain, Sam entered Felix’s room, seeing Felix sitting on his bed, guitar in his lap and talking on the phone.
“What the fuck?”
Felix looked up to see Sam standing in the doorway. “Shit. Ellen, I’ve got to go, okay. Talk to you later.” He said, hanging up.
“So, you can talk? This whole time you could talk?”
Felix didn’t reply.
“What the fuck, Felix?”
Felix still didn’t reply.
“Nope. No. You can’t just clam up again, dude. Why didn’t you talk to me in school? Why have you never talked to me ever? If you hadn’t noticed, Felix, I’m trying to be friends with you!”
Felix just looked at the ground, not uttering a word.
“Felix,” Sam said, putting a hand on the taller boy’s cheek. “why won’t you talk to me?”
Felix took a deep breath before looking at Sam. “Because, you wouldn’t want me to.”
Sam froze. He knew those words. Looking down at his left wrist, he saw them written on his skin, the same words he’s had since his thirteenth birthday. ‘Because, you wouldn’t want me to’
“How…” He backed up a little, bringing his hand down from Felix’s face. “How long have you known?” He asked.
Felix looked down, rubbing his left hand over his right arm. “Um, do you remember bumping into someone at school on your birthday back in year 7? Brown, shaggy hair, kinda tall?”
Sam tilted his head in confusion. “Yeah…?”
“Well…” Felix trailed off, holding his wristbands down as he raised his left arm. There, on his wrist, were printed the words ‘Hey, sorry ‘bout that, dude’ “That kid you bumped into, was me.”
Sam paused. “You’ve known since before I even got my soulmark?”
Felix nodded.
“And you just decided that I should never know my soulmate? What, am I not good enough for you, or something?”
Felix shook his head. “NO. That’s not it at all. I was going to talk to you after school that day, but Jake was already talking to you and you looked kinda… disappointed with your soulmark.”
Sam looked down at his wrist, reading the words. “Well, you’ve gotta admit, it doesn’t look very positive.”
“Exactly, that’s what you were telling Jake and to make you feel better, Jake said that it could be worse.”
Sam thought about it. “Yeah… I remember him looking over at someone and saying that they probably didn’t even have a soulmate. I wasn’t really paying attention though…”
Felix pointed to himself. “Probably don’t even have a soulmate, apparently.”
“Well, obviously he was wrong.”
“Well, yeah, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed better if I just never spoke to you. And then we got given that stupid assignment.”
Sam punched Felix’s shoulder lightly. “Hey! I liked that assignment, and I like hanging out with you, okay?”
Felix just looked at the floor of his bedroom.
“Seriously, Felix, I’m happy you’re my soulmate.”
Felix smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Sam nudged his head towards Felix’s guitar. “Anyway, you promised me some sick guitar skillz.”
Felix smirked. “You said skills with a z, didn’t you?”
Sam punched Felix’s shoulder a little harder, smiling. “Shut up!”