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Max is five years old when the first flower appears.
Luna, his sister, is the first one to find the new detail on her twin brother’s body. It’s a rose, nearly infinitesimal on Max’s miniature frame.
Roses are the flowers that appear when a soulmate has gone through loss. Max understood that from what his parents told him and Luna, but how could his soulmate already be going through loss? They were only in kindergarten after all.
“Oh come on Max! It’s just a pretty flower. Like how Daddy gets Mommy roses for Mother’s Day,” Luna says as she runs towards Max, pulling him up off the couch where he’d been sulking all day.
Max shakes his head, “I don’t want to play, Luna.” He states very firmly.
Max’s mother is looking over her children, “Max, you should play. It might make you feel better.” Cynthia Goodwin says to her son.
Max sighs, he was a momma’s boy and a suggestion by her always got his attention. “Can we play outside?”
It was a lovely August day in New York City and their cozy brownstone had a little patch of grass in the back that Max and Luna would spend hours wandering about in. “Of course,” his mother replies.
Luna jumps up and down, dragging Max to the back door with her. “See, Maxy. It’s okay because Mommy and Daddy are soulmates. You’ll meet yours one day,” Luna says brightly.
Max nods and starts chasing after Luna.
He’ll meet his soulmate one day and Luna will too. She’ll get to live out her Disney Princess fairytales and he’ll get to adventure for a living.
It was just a small flower after all.
——
Helen is eight years old when her first flower appears. A rose.
She first saw it when she was changing out of her pajamas to go to school. It was on the front side of her forearm, but was barely the size of a coin. And Helen knew immediately that she had to hide it from her Mum.
Three years ago her dad had left her and her mum. Helen knew her parents were soulmates because they’d talk to her about it when she was young. So when he left, Helen never really understood why. And all soulmate talk was banned from the house entirely.
It was an unseasonably warm October day in London, and Helen was insistent on wearing a long sleeve shirt to hide it from her mother.
“Helen, we must be leaving soon,” Serwa says as she bangs on the outside of her daughter’s door.
“I’m ready,” Helen says as she grabs her book bag and follows her mother’s voice.
Serwa, dressed for her main receptionist job, handed Helen her lunch bag and placed a kiss on her forehead. “It’s a little warm to be wearing sleeves, daughter.” She says.
Helen can feel her cheeks growing warmer, “it’s not that warm.” Helen replies.
Serwa raises a brow, “Helen, are you hiding something from me? You know how I feel about that.”
Helen bites her lip. She was terrible at keeping things from her mum. Helen gently tugs her sleeve up, revealing the rose detail on her arm.
Serwa’s state remains angry. “Wow. That’s just…”
“Mum!” Helen speaks up, her small voice screeching a bit, “it’s just my soulmate. It doesn’t mean anything.”
That was a lie. Helen knew good and well that it meant something. But while she remained in this home, it meant nothing.
“Good,” Serwa says blankly, “we will find something to cover it up permanently when I get home from work tonight.”
Helen sighs. Her parents were soulmates and they didn’t end up together forever. So why would she end up with hers?
It’s simple: she won’t.
——
The next flower that appears on Max’s shoulder is a cosmos. It connected seamlessly to the rose and after nearly ten years of living with that one, Max had made peace with it.
Cosmos were the flowers that would appear when a soulmate experiences love of some sort. Not love from their soulmate, but from someone else.
Max was in his first year of high school and between studies at his fancy private school and dividing time between his divorced parents, soulmates were the last thing on his mind.
He was one of the few fifteen year olds he knew that had yet to experience their first kiss, and if Max could guess, he would say that his soulmate has had theirs.
But by now he had stopped believing in all that. It was a hoax at this point.
His parents were soulmates and now they could barely stand each other. They weren’t even civil when it came to his school events. Ever since Luna died things haven’t been the same.
Max feels that loss every day, and the rose on his back was an equal reminder that his soulmate did too. Whoever had matching flower tattoos to him, they were in for a life of pain.
And for that reason, Max is determined to stay as far away from them as possible.
——
Helen is sixteen when two more flowers appear.
She had been studying for her final school exam before university when she’d noticed it. Two cosmos now adorned the area of her skin beside the rose.
Her mum was working nights these days and between school and volunteering at the local library, Helen didn’t really think much about her soulmate tattoos.
Her friends had them and it was becoming normalized at school, but at home she was still forbidden to say anything about it. She was forbidden from a lot of things. Especially when it comes to her father.
Helen stands up from the kitchen table, peering through the window at her neighbor’s house. For the last couple of months her boyfriend Hussein would sneak into her house when her mum left for work. Helen had gotten better at keeping secrets, and this was one she wasn’t willing to give up on.
And just like that, the soft knocks of a person outside the window sound through the kitchen. Helen smiles and runs towards the back door, sticking her head out. “You’re bloody crazy for wanting to sneak in the window when you could just come in the back door?” Helen yells towards him.
Hussein grins, throwing his head back in laughter as he follows his girlfriend into her flat. “What have you been up to?” He asks, knowing good and well she’d been studying.
“Studying,” Helen says as she hands him a cup of water.
Hussein wraps his arms around her back, tossing her box braids over her shoulder, “I like your braids.” He says. His family was as Iranian as they come and even though Helen had been forbidden to see him because he isn’t Black, she still had.
He was the one who taught her to speak Farsi after all. And he was the one she had her first kiss with. It all meant something. “Thanks, babe.” Helen smiles, kissing his cheek, “Mum doesn’t love when I have braids though. I think it reminds her too much of her hair when she was still married to my father.” Helen resolves with a sigh.
Hussein nods, “that’s okay, because you are you, Helen. And in a couple of months you’ll be at Cambridge.” She has yet to be accepted, but he knew she’d get in.
Helen looks into his brown eyes, taking in the life of young love. “I got another soulmate tattoo today, two actually.” Helen and Hussein weren’t soulmates, that wasn’t a dealbreaker for either of them. Because nowhere in the rule book was loving someone else forbidden.
Hussein raises his brow, “oh really? Can I see?” He asks.
Helen takes off her sweater, revealing the growing patch of black inked flowers. “I think it’s almost beautiful.” Helen says.
Hussein looks her in the eye, “not as beautiful as you.”
Now this is what Helen can picture when it comes to her future. Love that wasn’t dictated by those darn flowers. Love that could be free.
——
The next flower Max notices is a daisy. Daisies often symbolized a new beginning. But Max was only seventeen and new beginnings were hardly on the horizon for another year.
He was a junior in high school by now and was dating his best friend. Life seemed pretty simple in Max’s eyes.
His days are occupied by studying and college applications while spending plenty of nights in front of a movie screen with his girlfriend. They weren’t soulmates and that was part of the reason it was so simple.
There were no expectations looming over them. Just casual young love. Nothing more, nothing less.
However, in the middle of making out with Jen on the very uncomfortable couch in his father’s house she points out the new detail adorning his shoulder.
“This is new,” Jen says as she runs her long finger over the tattoo.
Max nods, “it showed up this morning. It’s definitely one of the larger ones I have.” Max explains. He only has three tattoos on his shoulder, but he knew by the time he passes it could be upwards of thirty.
“Do you ever think about your soulmate?” She asks rolling off of Max, leaving them both topless in the living room.
Max shrugs, “not really. Soulmates don’t really mean much to me. There’s so much love outside of that small label, so why be defined by it?”
Leaving soulmates to the dreamers was a better idea in Max’s head. Soulmates were just another thing that came with life. They weren’t a rule of the universe like gravity.
——
Helen is accepted into King’s College on a full scholarship in the fall, and by the time she’s wrapping up the end of her second semester, a new tattoo appears next to the others.
It’s a daisy.
Daisies have always been one of her favorite flowers. And when she first notices the black outline she doesn’t feel a pang of guilt, but a stark piece of hope.
Whoever shared these flowers with her, they had experienced something hopeful and that makes Helen feel it too.
It’s been a hard semester. Between hustling darts to make money and studying for exams, soulmates have drifted away from Helen’s mind.
But part of her feels a pull towards her soulmates more now then she ever has before. Because now that her mum isn’t there to judge her for her every move, Helen can finally see her life for what it is.
A life she gets to define for herself.
And maybe she wants to try and find her soulmate.
There’s nothing wrong with finding her soulmate, except for the fact that her soulmate isn’t always a romantic one. And maybe Helen is just lonely and looking for love.
If finding her soulmate doesn’t leave her feeling loved like she should, Helen is afraid she might turn into the cold-hearted soulmate disbeliever that her own mother is, and that is something Helen can’t fathom being.
But she’s still young, and there’s still plenty of time to meet her soulmate.
——
Brown University is where Max chose to spend his four years after high school. He’s majoring in biochemistry and so far it’s been easier than he imagined.
Max has always been a book nerd who spent more time studying than he did partying in high school. It had worked out as he’d been valedictorian. But he’d missed out on a lot. A lot .
One summer morning he was out for a swim in the student center and his friend Marcius pointed out a new flower tattoo on his shoulder.
A simple rosemary.
It was his fourth tattoo and so far each had come at very different stages in his life.
This one had come when Max was finally moving on with his life. For the first time since Luna died, he’d crawled out of the hole of grief his parents had been digging for a decade now.
But the rosemary is used to symbolize remembrance.
Remembrance of what?
After getting a good workout in, Max finds himself walking along the scenic path towards his dorm. For the first time ever, he lets himself think about his soulmate. Whoever they were, they were remembering something.
Max wonders if it has anything to do with the rose that appeared on his shoulder blade when he was five.
Yet, something stops his thoughts from going too deep. Maybe it’s the promise he made to himself when Luna died. That since she would never get to meet her soulmate, he wouldn’t ever find his. It was only fair.
Or so Max thought.
——
Helen is twenty-one when the next flower appears. It’s another rose.
And it makes her sad.
She was knee deep in clinical rotations at University Hospital during the nights and volunteering at the local clinic during the day. She was far too busy to be thinking about soulmates as a second year medical student.
Except for the fact that Helen is becoming increasingly aware that her friends are starting to meet their soulmates.
Trisha, her lifelong friend, met her soulmate on a backpacking trip to Italy and now she lives somewhere in the Swiss alps with him. Hussein, her ex-boyfriend met his soulmate after coming out a bisexual when they were in college.
And Helen had yet to be in a serious relationship with anyone since Hussein.
That displeased Serwa Sharpe more than anyone else.
Helen’s Mum was already pressing on her about a husband and grandkids. Helen laughs it off most of the time because she’s too busy to think about it. Yet, part of her imagines a life like that. Marrying a strong Black man that she can raise kids with. Someone who will understand her struggles and stand in solidarity with her. Unlike her own father had with her mother.
So as Helen reaches for her scrub top at the top of her locker, she takes a moment to admire the new flower.
Because that rose took her back to who she was when she was eight years old and the first one had appeared.
That little girl wouldn’t believe where Helen is today. One step closer to being the best oncologist the whole United Kingdom has ever seen. A woman who wouldn’t be defined by her father…or lack thereof. A woman who discerned her own path by hard work and sheer determination.
Helen pulls her curls back into a ponytail and applies a small amount of lip gloss, looking at herself in the mirror.
Whoever her soulmate was, they’d have to come find her because she was doing amazing things without them.
She didn’t need a green light to tell her when to go anymore.
——
Getting into medical school, staying caught up on studying, being focused during clinical rotations occupies Max’s mind for months at a time. However, the chaos and unpredictability of his schooling had completely overshadowed any sense of a personal life. Friends were those he spent every day at the hospital with, and anything more was basically a joke to even imagine.
Or at least for as long as he spends studying under Dr. Veronica Fuentes.
She’s the supervisor of the medical student program at University Hospital. And to say that Max disagrees with her every move would be an understatement.
Veronica is the reason Max has to become a doctor. People like her will take down the healthcare system and kill thousands of patients in the process.
That’s why he has to keep pushing to be the best. Even if that means a future beyond medicine won’t ever happen.
It’s a Spring morning when Max first notices his newest tattoo. It’s a daffodil. A flower that symbolizes new beginnings.
It makes Max smile at first. It’s almost an imperceptible detail, but the outline of the petals bring him a glimmer of hope.
New beginnings.
A thing he could really use right about now.
So for the first time since his dad died, Max lets himself think of someone other than himself. Max imagines his soulmate.
There’s no clear picture of someone, but he can sense their personality. Someone who radiates complexity. Someone who pushes him to be a better person and doctor. Someone he can call ‘partner’.
Because taking on the world, the healthcare system too, with someone beside him, that’s all Max can dream of.
———
Helen never imagined that she’d have it all. Because it wasn’t like she ever had that option. Her whole life had been about picking and choosing. So when she moved to America, the idea of having it all seemed like a fever dream.
Until she met Mohammed.
They met on her first day of residency. And everything changed.
His tall stature and dark hair caught her by surprise when she first noticed him. He wasn’t like the other Americans she’d met while trying to find her way to the residency director’s office. He had a smile that traveled from the edges of his lips to the most inner parts of her soul. His passion was present even at a distance.
He’d broken through her walls slowly and steadily.
“For you,” Mo says as he hands Helen a coffee, topped with a kiss on her cheek.
“You spoil me,” Helen smiles as she runs her hand across his shoulder.
Mo looks down at her, his dark eyes penetrating into hers, “You just spent all night here, you deserve it.”
Helen breathes in the smell of the coffee beans. They smelled almost as good as fresh love. “Thank you.” She smiles.
Mohammed grabs her hand and pulls her into a side hallway, “I want to ask you something.”
Helen raises a brow, “okay?”
“My parents are coming to town this weekend and they’d like to meet you.” He states it with such a nonchalant tone, it almost makes Helen forget what he’s getting at.
“Oh,” Helen sighs. “This weekend?”
Mo nods, “my sister and her husband are having a simple dinner to celebrate the end of Ramadan, and my parents wanted to come join them.”
Helen had known about the dinner. She, however, had not known about the special guests. “You know I’d love to meet them, it’s just still pretty fresh between us. And I’m not sure this is who they pictured their only son dating.” Helen says as she gestures towards herself. Honestly, she was never what any parent, regardless of the cultural background, would picture their son brining home.
Mo doesn’t hesitate in a response, “Babe, they’re going to love you. I know you feel out of place,” because she’s not his soulmate is what he’s getting at, “but they aren’t going to care. They just want what’s best for me.”
“And you think that’s me?” Helen’s apprehensive when it comes to thinking about her future. Because it never really seemed to go her way.
“Soulmate or not, you are who I want to be with. Helen Sharpe, I want to spend my life with you. I’m taking this seriously.” Helen feels her heartbeat in her every being at each vowel of his statement. Never before in her life has a man been as good to her as Mohammed. “I just need to know that you are too.”
Helen leans in and kisses his lips, a soft and radiant kiss that makes her lips tug into a large smile, “I’m all in, Mo. For whatever that means.”
Despite the lilac tattoo that appeared on her arm this morning, Helen has never felt more connected to someone else.
Her and Mohammed were proof that love could exist beyond a soulmate. True love.
———
Dating a professional ballerina was something Max never could have imagined. The tutus and endless pairs of ballet slippers were never something he pictured in his future. Until he met Georgia.
Being with her was easy. He didn’t have to try. She let him be who he was, plain and simple.
Georgia Bennett was someone who Max couldn’t imagine being with. She was poised, organized, and sentimental. He was the exact opposite of all of those qualities. Yet, they’d become a pair.
They met during night rounds when Georgia had come in with a friend and Max treated her friend. Ultimately he’d ended up challenging her to a dance competition, in which Georgia had kicked Max’s butt. And then a lovely relationship bloomed.
They’d moved in together shortly after Max got the job of medical director at a clinic in Chinatown. Georgia was working for the city ballet and things between them were simple and domestic.
Simple because of one specific thing. Georgia was one of the few people in the world that didn’t have a soulmate. She’d never gotten flower tattoos, she never would.
That’s one thing Max liked about her and their relationship. It was in their control.
There was no extraterrestrial force that put them into each other’s lives, it was just love. Love that they curated by getting to know each other and sharing a life.
So when Max’s next tattoo appears and it’s a peony, Max barely even notices it. His life was so full outside of soulmates. He has a wonderful life completely aside from all that.
He’s found the person he’s going to spend the rest of his life with, and she isn’t his soulmate.
———
Helen’s life was the definition of perfect until that cold Tuesday morning.
Mo had left their apartment early because he’d been paged. Helen had begrudgingly let him out of her arms as she frowned upon the empty spot in the bed. They’d been living together for two years, and yet she still hated sleeping without him.
A couple hours later she was in her office at New Amsterdam working through patient files before her first appointments of the day. She was still getting used to her duties as department chair of Oncology and Hematology, but it was a challenge she’d prepared for her whole life.
Mohammed was the attending physician over the Internal Medicine department, in which he specialized in urology and dabbled in some other fields. They worked closely with each other, and that strengthened their relationship on an even deeper level.
They had learned to become Mo and Hels inside and outside of the hospital.
But on that fateful Tuesday morning, Helen had gotten a page to the ED that would forever change her life. Pages from Lauren weren’t that uncommon as she was on-call today anyway, but she could have never expected what she’d find. Helen quickly made her way from her office to the ED. When she walked through the doors of the emergency room, Helen’s eyes landed on Mo.
Instead of being bent over a patient, he was on a gurney in the trauma bay.
The next few hours after that were a blur that Helen hardly remembers. All she knew is that a single brain aneurysm had taken away her whole future.
Helen had laid next to Mo the whole night spent in the CCU. It had been the last moments she had with him. While her closest friends called all his relatives, she’d clung to his pale body as tightly as she physically could. His strong presence and infectious smile would never be seen or felt again. And that broke Helen into a million pieces.
She watched in pure agony as his heartbeat flatlined. She cried for hours after that, crying over the life they would never have.
The universe or whoever called the shots had been out to get her from the minute she’d entered the world. She’d lost her dad twice, and now she’s lost her fiancé.
Whoever gave her a soulmate was cruel and evil. Because Helen would trade the soulmate she’s never met for Mo any day of the week.
Without Mohammed, Helen didn’t want a future, especially if it was with someone the universe dictated as her “soulmate”. So the peony that appeared on her wrist, it’s just a reminder of what she’s running from.
———
Things go from good to bad far too quickly after their elopement. One minute they are planning their future, including kids, and the next minute they’re moving into different apartments.
Max sighs to himself as he scrubs his body with his hand, simultaneously missing Georgia’s loofa he used to borrow. Over the last couple of years he’s gotten a few more tattoos on his back, but nothing he thought too much about.
The end of medical school and residency had brought a newfound sense of freedom to his life, and rolling with that, along with the bliss of being with Georgia, completely overshadowed all soulmate thoughts.
Max was in a really good place…well until he got the call from New Amsterdam.
He’d taken the job without so much as a second thought. And in that second, he might as well have lost his marriage.
And as he jogs into New Amsterdam, Max knows this beginning might as well mark the end of something else. It’s conflicting, to say the least. But Max believes in the deepest parts of his soul that this is where he’s meant to be.
Ever since he was eight years old.
The hospital is large, the patients are varying, and the stories to be heard are so worthwhile. That’s what Max believes in.
In a world where soulmates and the potential for destiny seems to rule, being willing to listen to the candid and authentic moments in life, they’re what matters most. Helping people from the suburbs to the streets, from all walks of life, that’s Max’s higher calling.
And if there’s anyone he knows to share that, it’s Helen Sharpe.
Over the years of being in the practice, he’s heard her name dozens of times. She’s a world renowned oncologist, known for doing more pro-bono work than any other doctor of her status. She’s been at New Amsterdam for a long time, and she’s spent the majority of that time fundraising so they can stay afloat.
She’s trying to single-handedly fund the largest public hospital in America, all while attempting to practice. She’s as much as a mystery as Max is, and that’s why he finds her in the atrium during his tour of the building.
“Dr. Helen Sharpe,” he smiles as he offers her his hand to shake, “Max Goodwin, I’m the new medical director.”
Instead of shaking his hand, she takes it as the chance to hand him her coat as she breezes past him towards the doors on the other side of the central area.
When he asks where she’s going, her response is nonchalant, explaining that she has to tape segments for various tv shows she’s appearing on.
Max shrugs it off as she heads towards the door, taking her coat back from him, but he doesn’t let her stop there. The look in her eyes, as she walks as quickly as she can through this hospital, catches his gaze. It’s alluring. “Unlike the previous medical directors, I actually expect you to practice medicine—here, at this hospital.”
When she laughs at his remark, Max is surprised. She blows it off by stating how much money she makes for the hospital and how he can’t afford the publicity that she makes for them.
Max throws one more remark about her as she walks through the spinning door, “if she comes back, lets keep her.”
He noticed the tattoos on her wrist, they’re in a pattern similar to his, and he noticed the lack of ring on her finger, and part of him understands.
Being soulmateless in this world, it makes them an exception. And being an exception can be too damn isolating at times.
~~~~~
Five years later…
The gentle curvatures of her fingertips run softly over the back of his shoulder blades. Etching lines as deep as promises and rushing his spine with chills.
Helen studies every detail of the flowers, tracing the edges and lines of every petal and stem. The dark black ink is a stark contrast to Max’s fair skin, hardly touched by the sun.
She looks at the faded petals on some of the flowers, thinking back to each time Max opened up about one of his tattoos. Getting to know this part of Max is something Helen has savored every minute of.
For two people who’s souls are extraterrestrially connected, the cordial getting to know each other conversations were her—their favorite.
They didn’t discover that they were soulmates until a year ago, and in that year…so much has changed.
“So I just got off FaceTime with Lauren, and she says she’ll be here to pick up Luna at any moment,” Max explains as he comes striding into their New York bedroom.
The beautiful skyline has captured Helen’s gaze as she watches the city from above, “good.”
Max comes up behind Helen, taking note of her inherent nervousness, “are you ready for this…because if you aren’t we can totally postpone it until next week.” Max replies as he loops his arm through hers.
He rubs the crease of her arm, drawing hearts over her tatoos, “Helen, burden me.”
Those two words mean more to her than any other declaration of love, hope, or even a promise, “I just can’t believe this is real.” She utters softly, under her breath.
Max smiles as he kisses the nape of her neck, “I feel the same way.” He places his hand over her belly, the flat surface filling him with a great deal of joy when he thinks of the future, “there’s really a baby in there—our baby.”
Helen looks up into Max’s blue eyes, silently imagining their baby with his eyes, “I’ve dreamed of this since I was a kid…being a mum, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Of course, she already is a mother to Luna, but having a baby with her soulmate—her life partner—is so much more than she could have ever dreamed of.
And two hours later as they stare hopefully into the small black and white screen of the ultrasound machine, Helen is certain that this universe is where she’s meant to be.
No broken promises or crushed dreams will ever compare to the joy she has now.
For so long she was convinced that finding her soulmate would be a worthless journey. However, as she would learn through years of hoping during the darkest times, fate is always stronger than fear.
The universe tied her to Max, but fate is what brought them together. Years of pain and heartache would ultimately lead to a life of eternal happiness and unparalleled joy.
If she has to wait another lifetime to experience this, Helen would in a heartbeat. Because every glimpse she gets of these moments make everything before fall to dust below her feet.
It may have taken them a third of a lifetime to find each other, but they know from beyond a doubt that the rest of their lives are waiting for them.
That life all started with a single black flower.
Max grabs Helen’s hand as they practically skip out of the hospital, overjoyed by the knowledge of a healthy baby.
The walk home to pick up Luna is simple and easy. And once the little girl is zipping in between both of them on the way to the park, Max has a moment of realization.
He gazes down at the flowers lining the park, and with a swift move of his hand, Helen is close to his body, and looking up at him. With every stolen glance or internal stare, Max knows just how much he’s loved.
He found his soulmate.
He found his forever home.
He found Helen.
Through every thorn and thistle, his soul was just showing him the way towards Helen. The invisible tether connecting them, is made evident in every moment of time they spend completely in love.
Now he knows for sure that the tether between them is only a small measure of the soul he feels when he’s around her.
“How about one last walk through the flower garden?”