Chapter Text
For some reason, Robin was the first one to get words on her skin. Her foot had the words I don't know painted on them and Robin couldn't help but stare. She had been 5 years old and no one else had lies on their body yet. She didn't know what this meant.
And the words kept coming, and no one else had this many. But they were all small, so no one saw. Robin hid all the lies under long socks. She would change in the bathroom where no one else was. And she would stand in front of her mirror and look at the words on her ribs. Would stare down at her feet and read them all over and over again.
I understand
I don't remember
It won't happen again
I know
He's just tired
I'll stop
I know
I understand
I'm okay
Don't worry about me
Don't worry
I'm fine
Don't worry
She wished she didn't know what they meant. And she slowly pulled the sweater over her head and pretended she wasn't still thinking about them. Combed her hair she didn't like; tied her shoe laces too loosely and acted like her mind wasn't racing.
11 year old Robin would stand on wobbly feet and pretended she only had one lie. She acted like the lie was a secret. “They are only for me to see! It's like holy…” Robin spoke like she had religious beliefs that made her not show the words. “The only ones who can know are me and my soulmate! And he can't show my lies either! God will be angry!” It was written in a book she had read. She was quoting ‘Understanding Soulmates and our holy connection to the heavens’ and held it up as her shield.
“Fridrich Matthew says showing our lies is like showing our body.” A Priest 30 years ago, a philosopher from the 1800s, a nun from England. She repeated their words as if she believed them. Robin herself didn't know if they were true, their words were all old and they said things she thought were stupid. Things about black people, and how they're ‘impure’. Words about children and how they thought, all of which were stupid and wrong. More passages about the dangers of normal things. How cars were demonic, and so was most music. That people being different was catastrophic and that women had no voice. She read it all and felt gross. All the thoughts were bad and Robin couldn't help but be confused about everything.
How can you be so wrong about everything you say? And why did people still believe everything you said?
Robin couldn't understand. Some of the books brought tears to her eyes in ways she couldn't even fathom. One chapter from ‘The holy way to Heaven’ talked about girls. And Robin couldn't finish reading.
‘And if the girls refuse to listen, smack them once and remind them of their place. They should be seen and never heard. Not once has a woman's voice been beneficial to that of men.’
The book snapped shut and Robin went to bed. It was quiet and she didn't want to think anymore. She wanted to follow God, to be a good person. But that couldn't be it, right? How could that be all she was supposed to be? She wanted more from life than having kids.
And her mother assured her that it was okay. That she could have a job and voice opinions. “I don't think you should read those books anymore sweety, you'll start crying.”
And her mother was right, but what else would Robin say to the people in her class that asked why she didn't show them the lie on her foot?
•
Maybe he should have known earlier. He should have already known years ago, but Eddie wasn't one to just give up like that.
At 10, half his class already had lies marked on their skin.
At 12, most people had multiple.
At 14, Eddie was the only one that didn't have any.
And a part of him already knew. Deep down he had been aware for a while now. But desperately, he held out hope. He clung to the idea of finding his soulmate. They were someone who never lied. Maybe they were mute? Would someone who couldn't talk still make lies show up on Eddie's skin? He didn't know.
But maybe his soulmate was a saint, someone who simply would never lie at all. Perhaps Eddie's soulmate was perfect. Maybe they were too nice to lie.
He told himself stories over and over. Trying to convince his own mind that there was still hope.
But everyone else had already given up on him. They all knew he was broken. There was something wrong with him. Maybe he wasn't even supposed to exist, so he wasn't able to have a soulmate. He heard people doubt he even had a soul at all.
He would never admit it out loud, but some days he believed them. They called him a spawn of the Devil. A fallen angel that disgraced God's will. This was his punishment for defying the holy lord. Deep down Eddie believed them.
•
For a moment too long, Steve stared at the words on his leg. Just a few seconds ago he had felt a strange white noise in his ankle, and now there was a sentence branded onto his skin. He traced his finger over it in awe.
I know, I'll stop.
The proof that he had a soulmate.
The confirmation that out there was someone that wanted him.
He had been 12 at the time when his soulmate first lied. Some people had even whispered that he didn't have one. But finally, he knew he did.
There was someone out there for him.
And when he read the words again, he frowned. Because he wished he knew what they meant.
•
He was 14, and he didn't have a soulmate.
Around school people had said it for years, but now he wore it like a badge. He was a demon, a mistake from Satan himself. God couldn't create something like him.
Eddie hissed at people in the halls when he heard their whispers. Pulled his tongue out and stuck his hands to his head to initiate horns. He cackled loudly when people called him wrong and made jokes about being cursed. When they talked about religion in class, Eddie would contort his face in a scowl and pretend to be hurt by the sign of a cross.
“Straight from hell, sent to Hawkins to terrorize the youth!” He would shout when the jocks called him a demon.
In high school, he met his people. The fellow freaks that were wrong in some way. Axel from the year above him secretly had two soulmates, their words branded with different fonts into his skin. You wouldn't notice it if you weren't staring. He found people who talked to their soulmate through lies, like Joeff and Doug. Everyone said they were besmirching the holy connection. He found the freaks that believed in same-sex soulmates. The ones who were weird and liked that Eddie was even weirder. He and Axel would joke that he had stolen Eddie's soulmate, that it was greed. That the two of them were both demons and Eddie's sin was pride. He was so prideful that he didn't want a soulmate. So full of himself that he rolled his eyes at the idea of sharing his life with someone.
And behind closed doors, sometimes the two of them cried together. Cried for their future and what it even meant for them. Soulmates were there to create the perfect offspring. Man and woman tied together to make sure they had the perfect children. What did that mean for them?
It's supposed to mean that Eddie would die alone.
That Axel was supposed to have children with two women.
But when did they ever care about the things they were supposed to do?
“I hope my soulmates are both guys!”
Is what Axel would yell when people stared too long. “Maybe it will be a guy and a girl, and we'll be two dads and not know whose child it is!” He would declare when the whispers weren't quiet anymore. “I hope my soulmates are both heathens too; we will summon evil together!” Eddie loved the way Axel just said these things without looking back. He would shout it at the top of his lungs in a crowded cafeteria and not have a care in the world.
“I don't have a soulmate, because Satan has bigger plans for me!”
“I will father the son of the Devil with a woman that's alone as well. We will call in the end of the world!”
“No one can match my brilliance! Any soulmate would simply not be worthy of me!”
So he copied Axel. He'd walk around with the air of confidence he didn't have and tell people to prepare for the end times.
In the end, when school was over and he was alone in his bedroom. His new room that Wayne had given him. The room he now had because his parents hadn't wanted him anymore. He would stare at the darkness that filled the stale air of the trailer. Gaze fixed on nothing at all.
And he would wonder what his purpose was.
And if he should have even been born at all.
•
Another day, another boring lesson in Mrs. Click's class. Robin was staring in the air, pretending to listen to a single word her teacher said. History wasn't even her least favorite topic, but Mrs. Click had a knack for teaching in the driest manner, and it made Robin want to rip her nails out.
Freshman year was only halfway over, and yet it felt like she had been stuck in 9th grade for a decade. Half the teachers were boring and gave lectures that should be given to insomniacs; the other half were crazy people. Like her P.E teacher Mr. Crawford, who would scream at the top of his lungs at the start of every lesson to get everyone's attention. Or the chemistry teacher that was set to retire this year, who kept showing off explosions so that students would think he was cool.
Middle school hadn't been great, but at least there weren't also all the popularity games in play yet. It seemed like most people had become set on being liked by the entire school over the summer, and Robin hated it. Suddenly she couldn't like sleepovers anymore; had to like things differently and be into things she didn't care about. Keeping up with it all was tiring, so she had decided to not bother anymore. For a while she had tried, but she was so sick of talking about Rocky or Beastmaster. It was always Tom Cruise this John Mellencamp that. It was not Robin's scene.
While Mrs. Click was going on about Ronald Reagan, Robin was staring at the words on the inside of her wrist. She had started wearing bracelets to cover them, not wanting to reveal them to anyone else.
It won't happen again, sir.
It felt too personal, too raw. Not for anyone's eyes. Robin didn't even feel like she should be looking at them. The words kept nagging at her even though she tried not to let her thoughts linger. Who was her soulmate talking to? It was probably the police, but what was the lie about? She thought about the parties she had heard about high schoolers throwing and how the stories always ended with the cops coming. Was her soulmate like that? And while she didn't like the idea, any other conclusions were even worse. So she hoped her soulmate was just a party animal trying to fit in with normal people.
Deep down, she also begged for it to be a girl.