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Three days. Three days, six hours and seventeen minutes, to be precise.
Three days until Charlie is supposed to meet her “soulmate”, and all she wants to do is pack up her laptop and some clothes and run far, far away.
But even if she did, she’d meet her soulmate wherever she ended up anyway, and that’d be where she was supposed to be all along, right?
Charlie’s really not sure how it works in the metaphysical sense.
Her parents aren’t even bothering to disguise their excitement. They keep shooting her these sickly-sweet condescending smiles, sharing knowing looks when they think she’s not watching. They’ve decided it’ll be the end of this “phase” she’s going through and she’ll instantly fall in love like “normal girls” do, and get married and settle down and –
And she’s going to throw up if she doesn’t stop thinking about it.
Three days. All these years she’s avoided confronting it, shoving aside her fear because hey, lots of time left. Plenty of time to figure out what she’s going to do.
But now it’s caught up to her, and there’s nowhere left to hide.
She wonders how many people have successfully divorced their soulmates.
Three days.
– – –
Ten minutes. There’s ten minutes left before this tattoo disappears and her freedom disappears and she’s stuck with some – well, at least she can hope for a girl so there’s the possibility of sexual attraction, right? The universe wouldn’t be cruel enough to stick her with some random guy. No way.
She’s found her way to the park, just wandering with her hands stuck in her pockets, staring at the path under her feet and kicking at rocks. She meant to just walk at random, let her legs take her wherever she’s supposed to be, but of course she just ended up here. She always ends up here. It’s the most comforting place she has to go, the one place where she’s always allowed to be herself, even if nobody from her troupe is here today.
She’s staring pensively at the marks on her wrist instead of where she’s going when it happens. The tattoo begins to flicker and she gasps and stumbles in shock, and then she’s falling into a strong pair of arms.
"Woah, there,” the woman that caught her says, bracing her feet so they don’t both fall.
Charlie looks up and opens her mouth to apologize, but nothing ends up coming out. The woman is beautiful, with wavy brown hair cropped short, soft-looking pink lips slowly curving up into an amused smirk, and for a second Charlie is content to just look, but – shit. Her eyes dart back down to her now blank arm. “Oh, fuck,” she mutters, pulling away to stand on her own and taking a step back.
The woman’s eyes widen. “You’re…” She rolls up the sleeve of her jacket and checks her own blank wrist. “You’re my soulmate.”
She doesn’t look any happier about it than Charlie feels. Maybe she was expecting something different? It’s not like Charlie exactly dressed up for the occasion, but she can’t look that bad.
“I’m, uh, Charlie.” She reaches out to shake the woman’s hand, which, awkward? All the stories she’s heard involve falling into each other’s arms and kissing each other’s faces off and all that crap.
“Dorothy.”
“Look,” Charlie begins. “We might as well get this out of the way. I’m –”
“I’m not going to be what you want,” Dorothy interrupts.
“Huh? I mean, I don’t want – I’m not going to be what you want either. I don’t do, uh…”
“You don’t understand,” Dorothy says, running her hand over her face and shaking her head. “It’s hard to explain, but…”
“I’m aromantic,” Charlie blurts out.
Dorothy blinks, brow furrowing in confusion, and narrows her eyes at Charlie. “You’re a what?”
Charlie swallows hard. “Aromantic. No romantic attraction or romantic feelings or whatever. I love my family and I love my friends and everything but I don’t…I don’t love like that.”
Dorothy’s mouth falls open, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. For a moment it’s just awkward silence, and Charlie wonders if it’s too late to run.
Then Dorothy finally blinks, coming out of her daze. “There’s a word for it?” she whispers, and she looks like she’s going to cry but Charlie thinks – hopes – she knows why.
“You too?” she asks quietly, heart pounding in her ears and hope swelling in her chest.
Dorothy laughs and nods, and then the tears are spilling over her cheeks and Charlie has no idea which of them moved forward first but they’re hugging, laughing and shaking with relief.
“Platonic soulmates,” Charlie whispers when she can breathe again. “I didn’t think it could happen. Every other aromantic person I talked to online just never had a tattoo at all.”
Dorothy shakes her head in wonder. “I didn’t even know…so we’ll be, what, friends?”
Charlie grins. “Hell yes. Destiny has spoken, and we are gonna be the best of friends. This is gonna be so awesome.”
Dorothy nods with a watery smile, and Charlie is still so overwhelmed with relief that she squeals and hugs her tighter.
“We have so much to talk about and find out about each other,” Dorothy says, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand.
Charlie looks around the park, seeing a collection of people beginning to gather under the trees at the far end - they’re not hers, but she recognizes them, has played with them before.
“Okay,” she says, slinging an arm around Dorothy’s shoulder and leading her towards the group. “First – and this is very important – how do you feel about LARPing?”