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Allison looks to her right and then to her left. She has a choice to make. The redhead in the flowery dress or the dark-haired woman in the leather jacket. Both women are beautiful and could obviously use another drink. They’re scowling down at the bar, playing with their empty glasses. Maybe she should buy a drink for both of them. If she was having a bed day, she knows she wouldn’t mind-
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,’ Flower Dress hisses.
What? Who is she talking to?
‘It’s not like you told me about yours,’ Leather Jacket spits back.
Is this- Are they fighting? Did she just sit down between a fighting couple? Allison groans inwardly. Only a minute ago her night had looked so promising.
‘I’m sorry for feeling like a freak and not wanting my soulmate to leave me.’
Great, she sat down between fighting soulmates. This night really is going downhill fast.
Flower Dress turns, surprised to find someone sitting on the stool next to her. But before she can say anything, Leather Jacket starts talking again.
‘So it’s okay if you do it, but I’m a horrible person for not telling you for the exact same reason.’
Flower Dress doesn’t say anything, she simply squints her eyes, moves forward a little so she can burn a hole in her soulmates head with her stare.
She should probably leave, Allison thinks, but she really wants to know what is going on. They’re soulmates, what could be so bad that they think the other would leave them? She moves back a little to make it easier for the two women to yell at each other.
‘You’re right,’ Flower Dress concedes. ‘That’s not fair from me. But I was scared. I’ve looked everywhere and there are no reported cases of people having more than one soulmate. I don’t know what it means that I have two names on my arm. What if it means that I lose you?’
The woman has two names? There are more people with two names? Allison had woken up on her sixteenth birthday with one name on her arm, but a little over a year later, another name had joined it. She’d never told anyone, not even her parents knew.
‘You’re not going to lose me, Lyds,’ Leather Jacket says softly. She reaches her hand out to Flower Dress, who grabs it. This is getting a little awkward now, but it’s probably too late to leave. ‘I don’t know what it means either. But maybe it simply means that the universe knows we deserve a lot of love.’
They both have two names? That can’t be a coincidence, right?
‘I’m sorry, I just really need to ask you this. Do you both have two soulmate marks?’ she asks.
Flower Dress lifts her eyebrows in question. She’s probably wondering why this person she doesn’t know is asking such a personal question.
‘It’s just, I also have two names,’ Allison continues.
‘Maybe it’s more common than we thought,’ Leather Jacket muses.
‘It could be that people are too scared to say anything about it. Like we were,’ Flower Dress says. She pulls back her hand so she can sit up straight. ‘People like to think there is only one one. So it would make sense there is a stigma around having two names.’ She holds out her hand for Allison to shake. ‘I’m Lydia.’
Allison can’t lift her own hand, her heart skipping a beat as she allows herself to feel hope for the first time since the second name appeared on her arm. She’d always assumed it meant she would have to choose between two people, but maybe she doesn’t.
She turns to the woman on her other side. ‘Laura?’ she asks, has to ask.
‘How did you know?’ Laura frowns.
Allison rolls up her sleeve, revealing the two names on her arm. One in a neat cursive, the other a hurried scribble.
‘Allison?’ the two women say in chorus. Lydia pulls down the collar of her dress to reveal the two names on her collarbone. Laura moves aside her hair to show them the names written on her neck.
And there it is, her name, written in her own handwriting, on two different people.
Allison reaches out her hand to trace along the writing on Laura’s neck. She feels a warmth spreading through her body, starting from her fingertip. Laura closes her eyes with a sigh.
‘We should probably move this elsewhere,’ Lydia states. Her eyes are locked on her name, written on Allison’s forearm, a smile on her lips.
‘I live next door,’ Laura grins.
Allison hops off the barstool and grabs Laura’s and Lydia’s hands. The warmth that shoots through her the moment she touches their skin, makes her stumble. She quickly recovers and starts pulling the women to the door.
She’s always hated making choices anyway.