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Nick first learnt about soulmates in a primary school PSHE lesson on a Thursday afternoon when he was six years old. He remembered thinking how cool and amazing it was that people could be destined to love each other like that, no matter what. The whole idea was so romantic and gave him so much hope for the future, especially after what had happened with his parents.
A few days after that lesson, he'd confronted his mum about that. She'd told him the story; his mum and dad had been friends for a while. They'd known they weren't soulmates from the start, but then they started hooking up and sort of never stopped. At least, until his dad moved back to France and left his mum with his older brother David and him.
When he was ten, marks started appearing on his body. It would just be the odd bruise on his knee or elbow, or a scratch on his leg, maybe from a plant or something. Nothing but the normal day-to-day injuries and nothing that he hadn't had himself plenty of times before.
As he grew older, the injuries and scars became less frequent. Just the odd papercut. A sprained ankle at one point.
It wasn't until November when Nick was in year ten that the soulmate marks started becoming more concerning. It wasn't much at first, just a couple of small rows of cuts on his left thigh, but it was enough to worry Nick.
When the cuts had turned to scars, though, and no new ones had appeared, Nick decided to try and stop thinking about it. If it was just a one-time thing, it wasn't too bad, was it? He had nothing to worry about, as long as it didn’t continue. His soulmate was fine.
Okay, his soulmate was not fine.
She'd started cutting again, and it had got much worse than Nick had ever expected. The jagged, methodical cuts weren't just on his thighs anymore, but his arm too, his right one mostly. They were easy enough to cover up that not even his mum had noticed yet.
But that fact made him worry even more, because it meant he may never know who his soulmate was. He kept looking around him and trying to work out who it could possibly be, but every girl he knew was eventually ruled out. And obviously, it was likely he hadn’t even met her yet; they might not meet for years, but he couldn't help hoping.
Then the cutting seemed to spiral completely, getting worse than Nick would have ever dreaded, and Nick wanted nothing more than to give his soulmate the biggest hug he could manage. There were moments when he worried for her life and hoped that someone she knew was at least trying to help. He wished more than anything that he could be that person. But he still didn't know who she was, and he was meant to be revising for exams, which was making it difficult to focus on finding her.
Nick started hearing rumours of some year nine who had come out as gay towards the end of April, and it seemed to be all anyone could talk about for ages. Harry, Ben and the others wouldn't stop talking about and throwing things at the "f*ggot" in the year below, and Nick couldn't stop feeling so fucking uncomfortable every time it was brought up.
One day after maths, Nick actually saw the gay boy -- he didn't know his name; he wasn’t sure even Harry and Ben did -- in the corridor. He was on the floor in a corner, where most people probably wouldn't notice him, crying. Nick didn't even consider ignoring him.
He was standing in front of him within the blink of an eye. "Hey, um, hi, are you okay?"
God, that was such a stupid question. Why did he say that?
The boy looked up, and Nick hated that his first reaction seemed to be to try and shuffle away. Alone, the fear and resignation in the boy's eyes would have been enough for Nick to do just about anything to help him, but together, they just about broke his heart. Nobody should ever look like that.
When the boy didn't say anything and just kept looking at him, Nick said, "I -- I don't want to just leave you here. Is there anything I can do?"
The boy shook his head, his dark curls falling in his face. "I'm okay."
"No offence, but then why are you in the corner of a corridor crying?"
That just earned him a half-hearted glare, and Nick couldn't hold back the little laugh it caused. "Sorry. How're you getting home?"
"I normally get the bus."
"You haven't missed it, have you?"
The boy shrugged. "I can just walk if I have, it's okay."
“At least let me walk with you outside,” said Nick.
The boy stood up, bringing his bag with him, but was still eyeing Nick warily. “You’re friends with Harry Greene.”
“Um yeah. I wouldn’t say we were best friends or anything but yeah.”
“How do I know this isn’t just a trap?”
Nick tried to think of a better answer, but he couldn’t really come up with anything so just said, “I suppose you don’t, and my word obviously means nothing to you, but I promise you it isn’t. I just saw someone who was obviously upset and wanted to help.”
“Okay.”
With that, Nick and the boy left the school together. The silence felt a little awkward, but maybe just because he didn’t even know this guy’s name.
For the rest of the evening and the following week, Nick tried not to think about the encounter, but it was difficult. Something about the boy intrigued him, and he found himself looking out for him around the school. The boy was impossible to find, though. He seemed able to hide and disappear like smoke in the shadows.
Yet as his attention was taken up with trying to find and talk to the mysterious boy in the year below again, there was still those background thoughts and worries about his soulmate. Nick’s only comfort was that while the self-harm hadn’t got any better, it hadn’t worsened either.
Then, towards the end of the school year, the cutting slowed almost to a stop. The cuts went from appearing on his body nearly as regularly as once every day or two to once a week then once every few weeks. And within no time at all, it was the summer holidays.
And then, almost in the blink of an eye, it was September and school was starting up again and he was in year 11, preparing for sitting his GCSEs at the end of the year. Pretty much all thoughts of his soulmate had dissipated now, his focus turning to school and his friends and exams.
Everything was going great for Nick by the time Christmas came around. He was now ‘king’ of the rugby team and there was talk that Miss Singh would make him the next captain. His grades were good, better than he could have hoped for, except for maths. And he had a good group of mates. He got on well with most of them and, although he didn’t really care about labels or social status, he was pretty sure he was now considered “popular.”
The letter arrived from school about their new vertical form groups a few days before they went back. Nick was to be in Hamlet house with Mr Lange as his tutor; he’d always seemed nice enough when he'd covered some of his history lessons, so that was fine by him.
On the first day back at school, everyone was told to make their way straight to their new form rooms, so that was exactly what Nick did. He filed in behind a pair of year eight boys and followed them up to Mr Lange's desk.
He looked up. "Nicholas Nelson, yes?"
"Yes, sir."
"You're over there, at the back, next to Charlie Spring. He's not here yet, but he's only a year younger than you. I'm sure you'll get along great."
"Alright, sir."
Nick sat down at the desk, only getting out a pen because there was bound to be admin for the first form back. Nothing interesting was really happening. He was bored, to be honest, so Nick found himself just staring out the window, waiting for something to happen.
He happened to look up just when a boy was making his way over to the table next to him. Nick thought he recognised him from somewhere; he had black curly hair and lightly tanned white skin. It clicked when the boy was about two metres away: this was the boy who'd been bullied for being gay last year. He now finally had a name for the face. Charlie Spring.
Nick watched as Charlie sat down next to him before turning to him and smiling.
"Hi," said Nick.
"Hi."
The next morning, as Charlie was sitting down, Nick said, "All right?"
Charlie hesitated before responding. "All right."
On Wednesday, Charlie was there first because Nick had been hanging out with Harry, Imogen and the others before form. As he sat down, he smiled and said, "Morning."
Charlie said the same back. He looked a little confused, but didn't say anything else so neither did Nick.
The next day, Nick and Charlie tried to walk in the door at the same time. The feeling of the other boy pressed up against Nick was enough to make him freeze as he felt his entire face heating up. "Hey," he somehow managed to say.
"Hey," said Charlie.
Friday morning was the worst. Nick had been doing his maths homework with someone in his class at the front of the room when his pen had exploded everywhere. His first thought was to check Mr Lange's desk for tissues, but there were none, so for some reason, he went to Charlie.
When he got to his own desk, the other boy was staring at the table, seemingly completely lost in thought. There was a dark frown in his eyebrows and something almost dead in his eyes. It was a little frightening.
"Er... Charlie?"
He looked up from the desk, eyes widened.
"You don't have any tissues, do you? My pen... er... my pen exploded."
"Ah, no, sorry," said Charlie.
That was when Mr Lange showed up and seemed to realise what was going on. "Oh dear, Nick, you'd better go clean up in the bathroom. Charlie, can you go with Nick and open the doors for him?"
Charlie nodded, as he stood up and Nick followed him out the classroom. The corridors were pretty much deserted now, making it easy for them to navigate their way to the boys' toilets. As they walked, Charlie held open all the doors, letting Nick pass before overtaking to get to the next one.
"Sorry about this," said Nick as they went through another one.
"It's fine. Hopefully I'll miss some of first period... I have double science." Charlie's voice was quieter than when they'd first met that day in the corridor. He seemed more nervous but at the same time more relaxed and confident.
Nick said, "Ugh, who d'you have?"
"Mr Hutchins."
"Oh my god, I had him last year. He smells so bad of cat food!"
"He really does," Charlie laughed. "So... how did your pen explode?"
Nick was glad Charlie had seemed to relax a little and they were getting along. He wasn't sure why, but similarly that time he'd met him in the corridor, over six months ago, Nick found himself wanting to get to know Charlie more. Some part of him wanted to get closer to him, to become friends maybe. If that was what Charlie wanted too, of course. Nick hoped he did.
After scrubbing at his hands for nearly two minutes, Charlie just watching, Nick turned to him and laughed. "It's not coming off."
Charlie grinned. "You're gonna be blue forever."
"I look like I'm wearing blue gloves."
"You could -- you could make it the new school fashion."
"I'll pretend it's a tattoo," said Nick.
"I think that might be against school rules..."
Nick laughed again and Charlie joined in before deciding to try and help Nick wash the ink from his hands, arms and shirt. Nick let Charlie take his hand in his, but looked over when he felt him freeze, silence falling over the two of them.
"Charlie, are you okay?"
"Um..." Charlie's fingers were tracing slowly over a couple of the thin, pale scars on Nick's forearm. His touch was gentle and felt like feathers dancing over his skin. It was so soft it was kind of tickly. "Where did... what...?"
Nick anticipated the question and said, "They're from my soulmate. I didn't do that, I promise."
Charlie was looking at him oddly. "Your -- your soulmate?"
"Yeah. They just appeared, you know."
The look on Charlie's face didn't change as he nodded. Nick was about to say something else to try and find out what was going on, when the bell rung.
"Was that the first or second bell?"
Charlie took out his phone to check, and his expression darkened. When he didn't say anything after quite a while, Nick tentatively said, "Um, Charlie?"
He looked up in surprise. "Huh? Oh, er, yeah. First bell."
Just as they were about to leave the boys' toilets, Nick blocked the door from Charlie. "Are we -- are we friends now?"
"Friends?" said Charlie, voice almost inaudible before he cleared his throat. "Yes. Yeah, if you want to be."
Nick grinned. "Great."
Once that had been settled, Nick and Charlie were basically inseparable. Whenever they passed each other in the corridors, they'd smile and say hi or wave. Mr Lange was constantly telling them to shut up in form time because they always managed to find something to chat and laugh about. There was an incident in the corridor when Nick flicked Charlie on the forehead before ruffling his hair, startling a laugh out of him. They'd see each other across the school and wave with beaming smiles on their face.
Then Nick saw Charlie racing at least one hundred metres of everyone else on the track one day in P.E. and asked him to join the rugby team. Only because they needed an extra player and Charlie would be perfect, considering how fast he could run. That was definitely the only reason.
It was after one of these rugby practices that Nick noticed something seriously off about Charlie. He'd checked his phone while chatting to Nick and had zoned out for a minute, without any mention of why.
Once they were changed, Nick let Charlie leave before him, watching as he headed towards the music block. Something didn't sit right with him about whatever was going on, so after sending a quick text to his mum to let her know he'd be a little late, he followed him.
Nick made sure to hang back quite a bit so Charlie didn't see him. But when he heard voices -- one definitely Charlie's -- he rushed forward before he even realised he was eavesdropping.
"Don't touch me."
"God, what is your problem," said the other voice. Nick recognised it, but where from? "I'm trying to be nice."
"I said I don't want to meet up with you anymore --"
"Yeah, I don't believe you."
There was a slight pause. "What?"
"I think you're scared of us getting caught." Nick now recognised the voice as Ben Hope in his year.
"Why would I be scared?" said Charlie, starting to sound angry. "Everyone in the school already knows I'm gay! You're the one who's scared of getting caught. You're not even my boyfriend! I've seen you with your girlfriend at the school gate! You don't give a shit about me. You just found the nearest guy who was willing to make out with you and went for it."
"You went for it too. Don't be angry at me for not wanting to come out yet."
What the fuck was going on? Nick was so confused -- since when had Ben been queer. As Charlie had said, he had a girlfriend.
"I'm not angry about that!" said Charlie, voice risen. "I'm angry because you never even slightly cared about my feelings. We only ever meet up when you want to, where you want -- when you feel like making out with a boy. I could be anyone! You don't give a shit."
"That's obviously not true," said Ben.
"It is true! You just heart the rumours about me and were like 'oh good, there's finally a gay boy I can safely get off with'." There was the sound of movement, then Charlie's voice was cut off as he said, "What the f--"
Nick had no idea what was going on, but as he heard Charlie saying "Stop it!" and "Don't!", he didn't need to know. He rushed forward to see Ben pushing Charlie up against the wall, his lips on him as Charlie was clearly trying to push him away.
Nick grabbed the back of Ben's blazer, pulling him backwards and turning him to face him. "He told you to stop, you fucking prick!" Then he pushed Ben away from him, a little harder than he'd intended, but he didn't care. "Go on, fuck off!"
Ben walked away, Nick glaring at his back until he was out of sight, then he turned to Charlie. "Are you okay?"
The other boy was crying even as he answered, "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Charlie looked away. "...did you hear all of that?"
"Well... most of it. I just... kind of followed you... you seemed really stressed out while we were getting changed. I just started getting worried... er... so yeah... I just wanted to check everything was okay."
"Sorry," Charlie stammered out.
Nick was shocked. "You have nothing to be sorry about!"
"Sorry."
"You know, you say sorry a lot."
Charlie looked at him, but Nick interrupted before he could open his mouth. "Don't say it."
"I kinda wanna say it," said Charlie, smirking slightly.
Nick grinned, glad he'd managed to cheer the other boy up. "Don't."
Charlie laughed.
That evening, Nick messaged Charlie on Instagram to make sure he was okay, and Charlie told him about everything that had happened with Ben up until that evening. How he'd talked to him in a music practice room in September and they'd been meeting up since. How Ben never seemed to really care about him and avoided him while in school. And how Charlie had tried to break up with him, but Ben had kept pestering him.
At the end of his story, Charlie said sorry, i know he's your friend.
Well, he's not anymore!!!
Their conversation ended with Charlie sending Nick a red heart emoji, which Nick stared at for a lot longer than he should have if it just came from a friend. Oh shit, was he getting a crush on Charlie? And if he was, what did that mean for his soulmate?
Two months later...
nick, can we talk??
Yep! Are u ok? Shall we meet tomorrow?
sounds good
This was perfect timing as Nick had something he wanted to discuss with Charlie too. He thought he was finally ready to tell him he thought they were soulmates.
His suspicions had started when Charlie had been injured in their rugby match against the St John's sports school. He'd shown Nick the bruises on his arm and they'd looked scarily familiar to Nick, who later realised he had the same in the same place.
Then when Nick had had a fight with Harry after he'd been making fun of Charlie in the changing rooms, Nick noticed the same bruises on Charlie's shoulder in the exact same shape and place as his.
His soulmate's cutting had started up again after Nick's big fight with Harry at the cinema and Charlie's argument with Tao, and that was enough for Nick to be sure. Especially after Tao told him about Charlie's tendency to believe just his existence was annoying for other people.
Anyway, he'd had enough clues to make him ninety-six percent sure that Charlie was his soulmate, but with that knowledge had also come the realisation that all those cuts and scars had also been Charlie.
And now he needed to talk to him. Because he couldn’t have Charlie, his soulmate, thinking the thinks Nick knew people thought when they did that to themselves.
Nick and Charlie met up at Charlie's house the next day. Charlie must have made sure his family were out or stayed away because they weren't interrupted during their entire obligatory Mario Kart tournament. After Charlie had beaten Nick a total of four times, they finally stopped, both lying back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.
"So, you wanted to talk?" said Nick.
"Um, yeah," said Charlie. Neither of them had moved. "It just... I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out or anything."
Nick rolled over to face him. "Char... what is it?"
Charlie was avoiding his eyes; that much was obvious as he stuttered out an "Um..."
"I had something to tell you too."
"You did?" said Charlie.
Nick nodded.
"Okay... um, you can go first, if you like."
Nick nodded again in an attempt to steel himself. "Okay, um so, please don't freak out." He let out a little laugh. "I think... and I might be wrong, but I think we're soulmates."
There was quite a long silence before Charlie let out a laugh. He brought a hand up to try and stifle it but he was unsuccessful.
"Sorry, it probably sounds really stupid now that I --"
"Nick," Charlie interrupted. "Nick, I'm not laughing at you. I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, honest."
"Then why are you laughing?"
"Because that's what I wanted to talk about," said Charlie.
"Oh."
Charlie laughed again. "Why are we like this? I've been wanting to tell you for ages, but I didn't know how you'd react because I was scared you'd be disappointed and --"
"Hey, Charlie. How could you ever think you just being you would disappoint me," said Nick, taking Charlie's face in his hands. "I love you. You mean so much to me and the fact that we're soulmates has only made me more sure in my love for you."
"Same to you," said Charlie quietly.
Now was Nick's turn to laugh. "Is that all you're gonna say? I give that corny rom-com line and that's all you say?"
"Yep."
Nick shot a mock glare at Charlie, who just laughed again before leaning in to give him a kiss. Their lips locked as they kissed each other deeply then pulled away, ending up with staring each other in the eyes for a long few minutes.
"So um, I think we need to talk," said Nick. "Like, a serious talk."
Charlie's face fell and their eye contact was broken. He was now staring somewhere around Nick's chest.
"Look, we don't have to if you're not ready, but... but now that we both know we're soulmates..."
"No, it's fine. I get it. I'm sorry."
"Char, why are you apologising? We've talked about the S-word."
Charlie's voice wavered slightly as he said, "For what I did... to you..."
"What did you do?"
"You know with all the... all the scars. I should've... everything I did, I wasn't just doing to me, and I'm sorry. I know it's disgusting and I know --"
"Charlie --"
"You have every right to hate me, to think it's gross and looks bad --"
Nick shut him up by kissing Charlie gently on the lips. He gave him the chance to pull away, but knew he wouldn't. When they finally did, Charlie had a cute, pink blush on his cheeks and nose.
"I love you, Char." He kissed him again. "Nothing's going to change that." Another kiss, this time on the tip of Charlie's nose, which made him smile. "Can I ask you to promise me one thing, though?"
Charlie nodded. "Yes, anything."
"If you ever feel like this" -- he gestured to his and Charlie's arms -- "again, please come to me. Just talk to me."
"Okay. I can do that."