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A glacial draft, tinged with the scent of old parchment and dried lavender, seeped under the door. Agatha Harkness, her jet-black gaze fixed on the flickering flames of a fireplace that refused to quell the emptiness inside her, didn't move. On the coffee table, a cold, undrinkable cup of chamomile tea reflected the gibbous moon. The song, "Soul Tied," drifted from an old record player, a lingering melody twisting in the air like the pain in her chest.
"Losing you don't feel right," she whispered, her voice hoarse, barely audible. "If we're really soul-tied, what do I do?"
Rio Vidal. Her name was a burning ember, a word her lips refused to utter aloud, for fear of materializing her presence in the air, a presence that was no longer there. She, the acclaimed historian, who had sifted through archives and civilizations, found herself shattered by the loss of a simple... no, Rio had never been simple. She was a symphony of chaos and tenderness, a riddle Agatha thought she'd solved, a universe she had explored with insatiable eagerness.
She rose, her steps heavy on the Persian rug. The room was permeated by Rio's absence. The corner where she used to read, a book forgotten on the cushion. The faint scent of her perfume on one of Agatha's shawls. "I just can't accept it, this can't be the end yet," Agatha murmured, her wrinkled fingers brushing a poetry collection they had shared. "I must be in denial."
Their laughter had echoed within these walls, their passionate quarrels fading into ardent reconciliations. They had spoken of eternity, of destiny, of being soul-tied. They had said they would be "the ones they talk about when they think of love." A hollow promise now, a mocking echo in the silence of the night.
Agatha knew. She knew Rio was gone. That she had made a choice. But the rational part of her, her mind sharpened by years of study and human observation, resisted the obvious. How could such a profound bond, woven from shared memories and intimate moments, break? The logic of her pragmatic mind clashed with the visceral pain in her heart, a heart she thought had been hardened by life's trials, but which Rio had made vulnerable.
She imagined Rio, somewhere, under another sky. "When you move on and find another love," her heart clenched, a new, sharp pain adding to the old. "Will you say words you said to me? When you're both laughing, kissing and dancing..." The image made her falter. Jealousy, a feeling she thought long extinguished, flared, burning. "Will your heart still dream of me? And what could've been?"
She couldn't talk to anyone. Her former university colleagues? They wouldn't understand the depth of this grief, this tearing apart. Her close friends? She didn't want to burden them. "I can't tell my parents," she thought with bitter irony, referring to their pragmatism. "I hate all the questions / they will only make me cry."
So, Agatha Harkness, the woman respected for her erudition, found herself hiding. "Hide from my friends / My head and my reflection." She stared at her reflection in the cold tea cup, her eyes glistening with suppressed tears. It wasn't the strong woman she usually saw, but a lost woman, a fragment of a soul searching for its other half.
The vinyl crackled, the song ended. The silence that followed was more deafening than the music. Agatha remained there, in the middle of her living room, shadows dancing around her, an eternity of sorrow in her eyes. "If we're really soul-tied," she thought one last time, her fists clenched, "then this isn't the end. It can't be the end."
Rio Vidal's apartment, a spartan loft in New York, still carried Agatha's scent on her clothes, like a phantom burn on her skin. The song Agatha played on repeat, "Soul Tied," also echoed in her mind, a haunting melody she both hated and loved.
Rio walked to the bay window, her gaze lost in the city that never slept. Her hands, once so steady when sketching, trembled slightly as she held an overfilled glass of whiskey. "Losing you don't feel right," she murmured, the lyrics passing her lips. "If we're really soul-tied, what do I do?"
She had broken it off. She had severed the tie, as brutally as a blade cuts a rope. Not out of a lack of love—never!—but out of a kind of insane self-preservation. Agatha was a vortex, a force of nature that overwhelmed her, devoured her. Rio had always been free, fleeting, and Agatha's intensity, the way she seeped into every pore of her being, had frightened her.
"I just can't accept it, this can't be the end yet / I must be in denial." Rio shook her head. It was Agatha who was in denial, not her. Rio had seen the end coming, like an inevitable shockwave after an explosion. She had seen the suffocation, the loss of self. And she had fled.
She remembered their laughter, so rare and precious from Agatha, the moments when the old soul let down all her barriers and let Rio in. Their nights, the whispered promises, the "Always with you" that had sealed their destiny. "We said that we would be the ones they talk about when they think of love," Rio thought with a touch of bitterness. "Should've been us." The idea twisted her inside, because deep down, she knew she was the one who had broken that promise.
Rio walked closer to the window, watching the shimmering city lights. She knew Agatha was looking for her, with her missed calls and silent messages. She couldn't blame her. Agatha had given so much, invested so much in this union she considered eternal.
"When you move on and find another love," the voice in the song swelled, and Rio closed her eyes. She knew Agatha would think that. That Rio would move on, find someone else. But the very idea repulsed her. How could she? After Agatha, everything seemed pale, bland. Every laugh, every touch, every kiss would be compared and would fall short. "Will your heart still dream of me? And what could've been?" She knew hers would. Her heart would be haunted by the historian's memory for years to come.
She had distanced herself from her friends, from her old artist circle. "Hide from my friends." No one would understand the complexity of this breakup, the guilt that gnawed at her, and the strange, bitter freedom she felt. "My head and my reflection": she saw the dark circles under her eyes in the mirror, the tension in her lips. She wasn't happy. Free, perhaps, but at what cost?
Rio poured another whiskey. She didn't have the luxury of Agatha's denial. She had made the choice, and she had to live with the consequences. The pain was a constant companion, proof that the bond still existed, no matter the distance. "If we're really soul-tied," she thought, downing her drink, "then this suffering is my punishment. And yours, Agatha, is my fault." The guilt was a heavy burden, almost as heavy as the longing.