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You are not a romantic.
You don’t see the point of it. Surviving on your own your whole life, you’ve learned you don’t need someone else to make you feel like a whole person.
That’s why the idea throws you for a loop the first time you stumble upon it. Soulmates. You quickly discover they’re a recurring presence in all the remnants of human culture that you can find. People destined to be together, bonding the first time they touch.
What a load of horseshit.
You can’t help poking at it, however, dissecting it until it makes sense. At some point, you conclude it’s made up. A desperate attempt to find meaning in a chaotic, confusing world.
Not that it would matter if it were true. Being the only person on this devastated, drowned planet has rendered all this completely irrelevant. (You convince yourself that’s fine. You don’t need company except your own.)
***
You are thirteen when you realise you’re in love with your best friend.
It’s about then that soulbonding stops seeming like a ridiculous, unnecessary idea. The longing creeps up on you without you noticing. You catch yourself imagining what it would be like to find that person who was destined to be with you. Wondering if it might be him.
You think about belonging a lot these days. About fate. About a single touch that paints the world in more vibrant colours than you could ever see before.
(You think about the touch of his lips on yours and your blood buzzes in your ears.)
You are thirteen when you realise how dull and colourless your world actually is.
***
Snapping awake in your dream self body (truly in one single place for the first time in your life), the first thing you notice is that the colours look the same here. Subdued. Diluted.
You shrug it off.
He hadn’t touched this body, after all.
(Not yet.) You smile to yourself.
***
The first time you meet face to face, you are already together. You have stumbled your way into a relationship before as much as shaking hands. You guess that says something about how clueless and inexperienced both of you are.
That’s okay. You have all the time in the world to learn.
***
You have been together three days before you find the courage to touch him.
You reach over and take his hand. You’re keeping your eyes closed behind your shades, but you can feel his sudden tension. A long moment passes. (You are on the verge of panicking.) Then, he squeezes your fingers.
It’s such an innocent touch, but your heart threatens to implode. You tentatively open your eyes.
The breath you hadn’t realised you were holding leaves you like a popped balloon. You recoil from him, your empty hand drops to your side.
The colours look the same.
***
The two of you never talk about it.
You never talk about much of anything, really. (You talk about adventure, and about your friends, and about being stiff from sleeping on the ground.) His lips feel as good as you have imagined, though. Soft and rough, hesitant and demanding. They taste sweet, although you can’t figure out why.
For a while, you think this is everything you ever wanted and who even needs colours, damn it?
***
Eventually, it falls apart.
You do, too. You shatter and splinter, and you know it, feel it, deep in your bones: in a different timeline, you cease to exist. It courses through you like a shiver.
Not in this one, though. There’s strife and uncertainty and death, but there is also victory, unlikely as it may be.
You step into a brand new world that’s going to be your home for the rest of eternity. You don’t need to take off your shades to see how bleak it is. (For a moment, you wish you were in that other timeline.)
***
“Hi, I’m John!”
He offers you his hand and a smile so familiar that the cracks inside you get just a little bit wider.
You take the hand.
Something clicks. You feel like a radio that has found a good frequency amidst the stuttering of static. Everything shifts into focus, and you see now, and this is what sunlight actually looks like, shooting through a thick cover of green, flickering in the unfamiliar, vibrant blueness of a pair of eyes staring at you in mute shock.
Neither of you knows how to deal with this.
Somewhere down the road, you are going to laugh about how you both ran away.
***
Your insomnia is worse than usual that night.
You find yourself lying down on the ground outside, turning your eyes to a sky of unfamiliar constellations.
Your heart constricts when you take in all the nuances of blue and purple where there was previously only black.
***
You find your way to each other eventually. There are trials and errors, and missteps, and you could drown in all the issues you need to work out.
You never once wonder if it’s worth it.
The first time he kisses you, he removes your shades first. You keep your eyes shut, instead taking in all the colours you can taste in his mouth, the trails of red-hot explosions where his fingers brush against your upper arms, back, neck. You can only respond by pressing hungrily into his warmth.
When you break apart, you rest your forehead against his. Your eyes are still closed, you’re suddenly scared, what if you ruin this too—
He calls your name and it’s enough to make you look at him.
You could write sonnets about his eyes (call them raps and pretend you’re cool), or about his swollen, wet lips. There’s a mole under his left eye that you hadn’t noticed before.
You lean in to kiss it.
***
You—this new, broader you that expanded to include him—are not a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces fitting together to create one perfect whole. You’re more like an abstract painting, a collision of colours that’s somehow full of purpose in its messiness.
You keep this comparison to yourself.
You were never a romantic, after all.