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The door to the suite slammed shut, startling Allison. The phone slipped and tumbled to the floor, screen blacking out. She scrambled to put it back, almost throwing it onto the vanity in her haste to get to the bathroom. The door to their room opened just as she turned the lock. She bit her lip, listening to the sounds of someone moving around the room. The heavy thud of shoes hitting the ground meant it was probably Renee taking her boots off, since Dan always toed her keds off by the door.
Fuck, Allison thought, mind blanking. She hoped the phone hadn’t broken. Money wasn’t a problem, but Renee’s suspicion would be.
It had been completely accidental, opening her phone. She had just been moving things on their shared vanity around, when a subtle click and flash let her know she’d opened Renee’s phone with her own fingerprint. For a few seconds, she’d just stared. Renee’s face smiled up at her from the home screen, an older woman’s arm wrapped around her shoulders while they stood on a hike trail, hills spanning behind them.
Then, the panic hit.
She’d never put her fingerprint down in Renee’s phone – it left her with one more likely but distressing conclusion. Soulmates shared thumb fingerprints, so—
Soulmates—? Her mind had buzzed.
They were soulmates. And then she had dropped the phone.
Allison had never told Seth about the thing.
“No secrets,” he’d whispered into the crevice of her collarbone, sounding small and tipsy. That memory was marked with water and time now, creased where it strained under the flexing of her folding and unfolding.
And she’d replied, “Of course,” closing her eyes with her palm over his heartbeat.
It was an easy assurance, one that made them giddy and soft, biting back smiles. Back then, she’d never dreamed of violating their agreement. Back then, her secrets had only been her own to give or share.
Soulmates could be platonic. It wasn’t as common as having a romantic soulmate, but it was a thing. She’d never doubt that it was platonic, except—
There had been Clarice, a simple and childish crush that was vaguely reciprocated. And Alexa, highschool heart throb who’d given her a parting kiss when she left that hellhole for Palmetto. And other girls who she’d traded kisses with behind the bleachers, ones she had dreamed vaguely about holding hands with. The damning flutter in her stomach when Renee had reached out to push a stray lock of her hair back over her shoulder.
There was also something else she would never admit. No way. Her secret was supposed to go to the grave with her, after she’d squashed the life out of it with Exy and Seth and classes. The idea still made her face flame, but when she’d arrived at Palmetto, she’d developed an almost-crush on Renee for a week. Barely there.
It was a distant thought and an insignificant memory, because it had been nothing but freshman nerves. A desire to impress that she’d worked so hard to repress. Renee had just been so pretty and self-assured, the first person who’d been nice to her at this new place. She’d stared at the round curves of her muscled shoulders in the locker room and the cross necklace dipping down her collar onto tan skin, thought of her approving smiles, then felt guilty about it all and erased it from her mind. And then Seth happened, and it didn’t matter.
And it still doesn’t, she told herself.
Or, she thought as she greeted Renee from the sofa seconds later, head rushing and heart pounding, maybe it did. Or it could. Renee flashed a wide, eye-crinkling smile at her, and Allison sank further into the sofa, alarms blaring in her mind. She was so over.