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Her soulmate is ignoring her.
Aside from the Happy Birthday! message right at midnight, Samira hasn’t heard from him all day, even after she’s kept him appraised of everything happening—the flowers from her mother, the presents from her friends, the very classy dinner they’d had before heading to the bar—up to this moment, and it’s starting to get kind of annoying.
“Does anyone have a pen?” she yells over the music at the group of girls surrounding her, before throwing back the shot someone has placed in her hand, something sweet and a little sticky, the burn of the alcohol searing its way down her throat.
No one does, so she has to go digging in her purse, a tiny clutch she doesn’t normally carry, the pen inside unused for long enough that she has to scribble on a bar napkin for a few moments before the ink starts flowing.
HELLO
Her handwriting right now is not the best, she has to admit, but it’s still somewhat legible—not as legible as it was two hours and many drinks ago, but it’s her 21st birthday, she’s allowed to be a little bit messy in her communication.
You having fun? comes back a few minutes later.
YES
And she is having fun, because she’s 21 and it’s her birthday and her friends are here and it doesn’t matter that her fake ID has worked since the second she bought it on St. Mark’s because she can drink legally now, and her soulmate should be celebrating with her, even if he can’t be here in person, and he knows she’s out because there’s a stamp on her hand, just like the one from when she was thirteen.
You should have a drink with me!!!!!!!!!!!
He draws a smiley face at all of her exclamation points, before asking How many have you had? You should drink some water now, or you’ll regret it in the morning.
BOOOOOOOOOO she writes back. Have! A! Drink!
I’m already drinking, promise
She looks closer, and is pretty sure he isn’t lying. His handwriting isn’t quite as degraded as hers, but it’s messier than usual.
GOOD, she writes, then pauses, because something’s off, but then someone offers to buy her another shot and it takes a few minutes before she can continue her thought.
Wait why are you drinking aren’t you working
There’s a cagey kind of silence from him, before he finally responds.
I have tonight off
Her eyes narrow. Why
To celebrate with you, of course
Don’t lie to me dude
I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, enjoy your party
Which, of course, makes her worry. She grabs her drink from the table, announces she’s going to the bathroom, shrugs off any attempts of companionship, and locks herself into the last stall. She balances her drink on one knee and starts writing.
I went to the bathroom, what’s going on
This is stupid, it’s your birthday. Go back to your friends
Talk to me please
Samira waits, but he’s ignoring her again. She underlines the please, but there’s still nothing. She writes I have my drink with me I can wait you out old man, and takes a sip.
Has anyone ever told you that you’re annoying
Just you
She waits some more, long enough her phone starts to buzz, texts wondering where she is, but she doesn’t move, barely breathes, like her stillness will compel him to tell her what’s in his head, even though she knows it won’t make a difference.
I buried my wife 8 years ago
Whatever she’d been thinking, it wasn’t this. Samira lets out a little gasp, and says, “Fuck,” out loud, then echoes the word onto her arm.
Fuck. She died today?
No, no. The anniversary was last week
She thinks back. He’d been slow to reply and distracted. She can’t remember which day it was. Tuesday, maybe.
But the funeral, that was today
The funeral. Her birthday. Eight years. She’s drunk, but she’s not drunk enough that she can’t do math.
You found out at the funeral? About me?
It was after. I didn’t want anyone around me so I just left and went to a bar. I was probably drunker than you are right now when I saw my hand
And her heart just . . . breaks for him, remembering how excited she had been as the paste was applied to her hands, everything in her wishing and hoping for a response, feeling let down but not surprised when nothing happened—knowing now, what he was going through, makes her want to cry, for his pain, for his loss. For his wife, for herself.
But there’s nothing she can do, nothing she can say that would make it better, she knows this.
So she says the only thing she can.
I’m sorry
She knew he had a wife, knew that she died, but nothing more than that. She hadn’t wanted to push, to make him uncomfortable. But now, she breathes in, and asks the question she’d always been too afraid, too nervous to ask.
Do you want to talk about her?
He doesn’t respond immediately. When he does, he starts with small stuff. Samira finds out that she liked Rocky Road ice cream and rode horses as a kid and had red hair. That she did charcoal drawing for fun even if being left handed meant that it was always smudged. And then, bigger—that she knew she didn’t have a soulmate and never wanted one, that she almost left him not because of the leg but because of how he was dealing with it but came back because she wasn’t a quitter, neither of them were, that they’d thought about having kids but hadn’t really had the conversation because in their hearts they knew they weren’t ready. That he loved her and she loved him.
She would have liked you
I think I would have liked her
And it’s true. She doesn’t know what kind of an experience it would have been, her soulmate married to someone else, and is selfishly grateful she never had to find out, but right now, in this moment, Samira knows she would have liked her, this dead woman, this nameless wife.
The bathroom door swings open, letting in the noise from the bar, and she hears someone hollering her name, and that there are five drinks waiting on the bar for her and can she stop disappearing like she does during every party, her soulmate is going to be around for the rest of her life, come take these shots now.
“Yeah, yeah,” Samira calls back. “I’ll be right there.”
They found me. I gotta go
No, of course, go celebrate, it’s your birthday. Didn’t mean to drag you down
You didn’t
She starts to stand, juggling her drink and her phone and the pen, but then realizes there’s something more she wants to say, even if she isn’t quite sure how she wants to say it. In the end, she decides on:
Thank you for trusting me with that. With her
Of course, you’re my soulmate. I’m sorry I never told you before
You didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did
And she is. She can’t know what he’s feeling, it’s not part of the bond, but she thinks he might be too.
She feels one more prickle on her arm as she exits the stall.
Happy birthday
Samira runs her fingers over the message and goes to join her friends.