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Barry can’t remember the exact moment when the mark on his wrist appears. It’s kind of always been there, a little red tally mark reminding him that his soul mate is right underneath his nose.
What he can remember is sitting at the dining table one night with his parents when his mother takes his small hand into hers and flips his arm over so that the mark is showing. She looks at him, honey eyes all lit up with happiness, and asks, “When did you get that?”
“Is that your mark?” His dad, Henry, asks. He’s smiling proudly, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
“Yeah,” Barry says, sliding his hand out of his mother’s and pulling his jacket sleeve down until the red line is out of view. “I don’t remember how it got there, though. I promise I didn’t hurt myself.”
His mother laughs. “We know, Bear. That just means that you’ve met your soul mate.”
“Soul mate?” Barry questions.
He’s heard the word before, but the concept of soul mates is still fuzzy. He knows enough about it to know that it has something to do with being in love. Amber, a girl in his fourth grade class, was bragging earlier that week about her sister who got her mark.
“Do you know what that means, son?” asks Henry. When he shakes his head no, he continues, “It means that you’ve met who you’re supposed to marry. They probably don’t have their mark yet because you’re still young, but eventually you’ll find who it is.”
Iris can remember the exact moment when the mark on her wrist turns black. It’s after Barry moves into the West household and she’s dating on Hunter Williams. She thinks that Hunter is her soul mate, but he doesn’t have his mark like she does.
“I can’t believe it,” Iris says as she opens the front door. Barry pauses the TV and turns to look at her as she pulls off her white cheerleading shoes. He notices the way her skirt rides up as she does so and tries not to pay too much attention to the bare skin that’s showing. “I finally got the courage to show Hunter my mark and guess what, Bear?”
“What? Does he not appreciate caffeine as much as you do?”
“No,” she pouts, settling on the couch next to Barry. She drapes her long legs over his lap and rests her head on his shoulder like she normally does. His arm instinctively comes to wrap around her shoulders. “He doesn’t have his mark.”
“Really?” Barry asks, though he’s not surprised. “You would think it would appear after you guys have been dating for six months.”
“Right?” She steals a handful of his popcorn. “So, anyway, I broke up with him.”
Barry’s mouth falls open. “You didn’t.”
“Totally did.”
“Good,” he says, “you can do so much better.”
Iris laughs. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“He was a total jerk. Who makes a girl pay on their first date? Isn’t there like a dating rule against that?”
“I don’t think there is.”
“Well, you deserve nothing but the best, Iris West.”
“Maybe you should take me out sometime,” she says half-jokingly, but she doesn’t miss the way Barry tenses beside her. She decides to change the subject. “Do you have any idea who your soul mate is? I mean, you’ve had your mark for longer than I have.”
Barry looks at her – really looks at her then. Her big mocha eyes are watching him with complete interest as she brushes a fallen tendril of hair out of her face. He thinks that at this moment she’s never been more beautiful, even if she’s just spent her entire Tuesday night cheering at a basketball game.
And then it hits him – he’s completely and irrevocably in love with Iris West. He’s been in love with her since he was eight and it took him this long to realize that. But instead of telling her that she’s his soul mate, he shrugs and says, “I have no idea.”
Later that night, Iris looks at her wrist again and instead of the red line that she’s used to seeing, it’s black.
Barry knocks on Iris’s apartment door. He’s holding a carton of ice cream – cookies n’ cream, Iris’s favorite – and a copy of Mean Girls.
Iris opens the door, eyes red and puffy. She’s still wearing her engagement ring. “Hey, Bear,” she says but her voice doesn’t have the same lilt that it used to.
“Iris,” he manages to croak out. She looks up at him, her eyes watering.
Barry doesn’t hesitate to step forward and wrap his arms around her small frame. He rubs her back soothingly as she cries. She holds on tight to him as if he’s her anchor to the world and it breaks Barry’s heart to see Iris hurting this bad.
“Maybe we should go inside,” he says.
When they’re sitting on the couch, Iris shows him her wrist. Instead of two black lines, there’s only one. The other is now a small scar, evidence of the loss of her love. Barry takes her wrist into his hand and lifts the scar to his lips. He presses a kiss there.
“You’re going to be okay,” he tells her and for the first time since Eddie’s death Iris believes it.
When Barry finally kisses Iris, he knows it’s what he’s been waiting for his entire life.