Chapter Text
They said I didn’t cry when I was born.
Said I just blinked up at the world, quiet, like I was already tired. Like something in me already knew I wouldn’t get to stay long.
Seventeen years. That’s all I got.
Not even enough to vote. Not enough to really screw up.
Just enough to fall in love with music I never got to play loud enough, and to know what it feels like when your chest cracks open because someone smiled at you the right way.
Not enough time for you.
That’s the part that messes me up.
Because you were out there. You are out there.
I never got to meet you—not like I was supposed to.
You know how some people just know? That feeling in their chest, that pulls like gravity but sideways? I felt it, once. The night before I died. Like something warm was trying to find me. Like a thread tugging from somewhere far away.
And then—gone. Just like that.
There are rules for people like us. I don’t know who made them, but they exist.
Soulmates are real.
Most people get to meet theirs—at a bus stop, or reaching for the same peach at the market, or in the middle of some stupid fight that turns into a love story. But sometimes, one of them goes too early. And when that happens…
We stay.
We don’t move on. Not really. We hang back—stuck in this in-between place with nothing to do but watch. Protect. Hope.
It’s like being the shadow of a person. Except my shadow is always near you.
We never met.
I know. I know it’s not fair. But fairness doesn’t have much say in things like this. You were out there somewhere—growing up slowly, stumbling through life like the rest of us do. And me? I was already a smoke. Already whisper. Already standing at your side before you even knew I was meant to be there.
You laugh in your sleep sometimes. Did you know that? Real soft. I love the sound of it.
I leave things for you sometimes. Coins in places you swear you already checked. Songs stuck in your head out of nowhere. I chase bad dreams away like they’re crows and I’m wind. When you nearly stepped in front of that car last winter, I screamed your name with everything I had left. You didn’t hear it, not really—but your head turned just in time.
You’d probably call it luck. Or timing. Or “weird.”
But it’s not.
It’s love. Mine.
I follow you everywhere. Not in a haunting way. Not chains and creaking floors. Just close enough to catch you if you ever fall. Close enough to brush a breeze through your hair when you’re tired. Close enough to imagine what it would’ve felt like to hold your hand.
I talk to the stars sometimes. Ask them to shine a little brighter when your heart feels too heavy. I sit at the edge of your bed when you cry, and I would give anything—anything—to wipe your tears with fingers that still had flesh and warmth and time.
You don’t know me. Not really.
But you hum a tune sometimes, and it’s mine. The one I made up when I was thirteen, walking home from school. The one I sang under my breath, thinking it was just noise. But you carry it. Somewhere deep, buried between the cracks of your soul where my name would’ve fit.
I wonder if you'll ever really feel it. That tug. That hollow space shaped like someone you were meant to love.
Maybe not.
Maybe you’ll grow old in a warm house full of photos and Sunday mornings. Maybe you’ll fall in love with someone kind. Someone who makes you tea when you’re sick and reads you books when your eyes are too tired. I hope you do.
I want that for you. A good life. A long one.
I want your laughter to echo through decades I never got. I want your smile to wrinkle into something worn and beautiful. I want you to be the oldest soul at the table, telling stories and sipping wine and not knowing that every lucky break was someone loving you from the other side.
I’ll wait.
Because even if we missed our moment down there, I'm sure I’ll get another one up here.
I’ll wait.
Doesn’t matter if it takes years, decades, a whole lifetime.
When it’s finally your time—when your breath lets go of your body and your soul slips free—I’ll be there.
I’ll be the one waiting in the clearing, under that crooked sky.
And you’ll look at me like you’ve known me forever.
Because you have.
And when you see me—
When you finally see me—
I’ll take your hand.
And we won’t need time anymore.