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“A true soulmate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
i.
Shay had never put much stock in fate — she was a tried and true cynic in a world where fate was the main currency. The idea that who she ended up with was determined by a name on her wrist, well. She didn’t buy into that bogus, and was determined to make her own destiny, thank you very much.
Shay had tried doing the fate thing when she was younger. Sure, she was in a rather unique situation — the name on her left wrist, the one that told her her soulmate’s name, was the same as the one on her right: her soulmate and her enemy were the same person.
Still, she’d given it a good go, by her estimations. She’d spent her entire childhood in the system looking at her left wrist, tracing the letters that formed the name Alex, reminding herself that no matter how bad things got in the present, there was someone out there in her future that would love her the way she yearned to be loved.
So when she’d met Alex Gardner when she was seventeen, she’d assumed. He’d never shown her his wrist, but that hadn’t been weird; people hardly ever flashed those names around, choosing to keep the information hidden under leather bands.
Still, he’d been the cute older guy, a senior in high school to her junior and he’d been interested, so like any child starved for affection, she’d fallen head over heels into a relationship with him.
A year later, when he left for college and never looked back, it occurred to Shay that maybe that hadn’t been the Alex. She’d resigned herself to having to be more careful in the future, but wasn’t too worried.
Until she missed one period. Two. By then, she’d had her suspicions, and had taken a test, that confirmed it for her: her not-soulmate Alex had gotten her pregnant.
She’d made do. Even though the house she had been in at the time kicked her out (something about her being a bad example for the younger kids, which was laughable, since she was pretty sure the thirteen year old they’d taken in a month before was selling weed), she made do. She tracked not-soulmate Alex down at college, and told him. He hadn’t been thrilled, but had promised to help her. In the end, he had done no such thing, of course. Instead, he’d set her up to take the fall for his own illegal activities.
So there she had been, just-eighteen, pregnant and in prison somewhere in Arizona. That was when she’d decided that she’d found the right-hand Alex. It was also when she decided she wouldn’t let her life be dictated by some tattoo.
She’d given her son up for adoption (and cried herself to sleep every night since giving birth, praying to some entity she didn’t believe in that her baby didn’t end up having the childhood she had had, that he found a nice, loving home to call his own, and never had to know what it felt to go hungry, or not be sure he’d have a bed for the night), and a year after she’d been admitted, she walked out of prison a free woman.
ii.
“Are you Shay Lake?”
There’s a kid at her door, and she just wants to face-plant her bed. She’s had a long day, chasing the embezzler who skipped bail. And she’d got him, in the end, but it had meant working on her birthday, which has put her in a terrible mood, even though she wouldn’t have had anywhere else to go; it’s not like she has any friends to celebrate with.
Still, she looks down at the kid with more than a little confusion, wondering if he’s selling cookies or something, before remembering it’s nearly nine in the evening, and no way should a child that small be wandering around on his own this late. She flicks her eyes up behind him, searching for an adult but finds none.
“Yeah. Who are you?”
The boy grins a toothy grin, proud of himself. “My name’s Harry. I’m your son.”
*
She has to hide in the bathroom as the boy — Harry, she reminds herself, his name tumbling over and over in her head, and for some reason all she can think about is Harry Potter, which really isn’t helping her jumbled thoughts — raids her fridge. She leans against the bathroom door heavily, thumb brushing over the tattoo on her left wrist in a subconscious pattern of never-ending circles.
She counts to ten, reminds herself that it’s just a child and to stop being silly, then returns to the living room.
She finds Harry studying his surroundings curiously, and before she knows it, she’s let him talk her (blackmail her, she corrects herself, still in shock over the events of the night, not the least when the boy had threatened to call the police to say she’d kidnapped him, which of course they’d believe, because she’s his birth mother, and god, how is a ten year old child this smart anyway?) into driving him all the way back to some tiny town in Maine.
She leaves him alone in the living room again, now sure that he’s not about to run off with her TV (and her addled mind helpfully provides her with the image of scrawny little Harry, floppy brown hair and tiny legs struggling to lug the 40” plasma across the floor, and she snorts at herself), her mind starts to settle a little.
It’s been years since she’s really given her baby boy any more than a passing thought on his birthday, raising a glass of something alcoholic to him to mark the years going by. When she’d first come out of prison, she’d tortured herself, fighting with the desire to look him up, make sure he was in a good house. Finally, four years after gaining back her freedom, she’d drunkenly reached out to the one person who knew people and just so happened to owe her a favour, and been told that her baby had been adopted not even three weeks after being born, and there were no records of him in the system since. She’d been satisfied in the knowledge that her child had found a home, had actually been adopted; had a loving home that wanted him. She’d stopped wondering after that, stopped crying herself to sleep. She’d given him his best chance.
Now, here he was, standing in her living room in her airy Boston flat while she hurriedly threw clothes into a duffel bag, knowing that, no matter what, there was no way she’d be able to drive four hours to drop the kid off at home, only to drive another four back home without sleep. She’d deliver her charge to his parents, crash at a motel then put the entire episode behind her.
*
Harry chattered the entire four hour drive to Maine. Shay had expected the kid to fall asleep around the hour mark, but instead he’d kept up a steady stream of information, from his favourite food to the name of his preschool teacher. She had to remind him to take a breath every now and then, as he seemed determined to tell her every single detail he could remember about his life in the span of four hours.
By the time she’d seen the sign welcoming them to his town, she’d breathed a sigh of relief, ready for the crazy night to be over. Although the incessant chatter had been slightly overwhelming, she couldn’t say she was irritated by it; hearing her son tell her about every detail of his life beat spending her twenty-eighth birthday sad and alone in her flat.
She followed Harry’s directions to his house, finally coming to a stop outside — “This is where you live?” she couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice, even though she tried.
“Yeah,” Harry shrugged, clearly used to the size.
Shay glanced out of her battered up VW Bug again, eyes lingering on the white house — mansion, she corrected. This was a mansion, the neatly trimmed hedges hiding most of the building from her; she didn't need to see much to know it was huge, though. The imposing porch, framed by two columns — columns! Like some kind of Greek thing — told her enough.
Shay shook her head. “Alright, let’s get you home, then kid.”
Harry looked over at her, a depth in his eyes she didn't expect from someone his age. “You’re really cool.”
She blinked. “Okay?”
“Will you stay?”
“Stay where?” her tired and frazzled mind was desperately trying to catch up with the young boy beside her.
“Here. In town.”
“Oh, kid…” she sighed. “I can’t do that. I have a job, a life back in Boston.”
“Oh.” He deflated.
Shay looked him over, eyes flickering between him and what she could see of the McMansion beyond. “Is that why you went looking for me? You wanted me to come live here?”
He shrugged. “I just wanted to have two parents, like everyone else,” he finally admitted.
Shay frowned. “Why would me living in town do that?”
“Mom is great, but it’d be nice to have someone else around.”
Something clicked in her mind then. “Is it just you and your mom?”
He nodded.
“What about your dad?”
Harry shot her an undecipherable look. “I will never have a dad,” he said with certainty.
Shay frowned, confused by the wording. “You will never?”
“That’s right. Mom told me maybe one day I’d have another Mom, but never a Dad.” He shrugged again, unconcerned by what he was revealing. “So I thought, I already have another Mom.”
“Me,” Shay said, the image slowly forming.
Harry nodded. “You.”
Shay sighs, gaze flitting back to the mansion. She can tell the lights are on, even though it’s now one in the morning. His mother must be worried sick, so she decides to deal with everything else in the morning.
She climbs out of the car, and the kid follows her example, scrambling out. He unlatches the gate, and she follows in behind him.
“What’s your mom’s name, anyway?” She should probably know that before she meets the woman who is probably out of her mind with worry for her son, right?
“It’s Alex Mills,” Harry tells the blonde happily, just as the mansion’s door bangs open and a dark-haired woman rushes out, flying down the walk and crushing Harry into a breathless hug.
Dimly, Shay notices how the woman’s hands brush over Harry’s back, his arms, feeling him down for injuries even as she hold his little body to her own, unwilling to take the step back necessary to assess him with her eyes. All of that is taken in on some level, as she stands rooted to her spot, ears buzzing, her mind playing Harry’s sweet voice as he told her his mother’s name. It’s Alex Mills. It’s Alex. Alex.
Shay feels her arms turn, unbidden, until they’re facing up; watches in a daze as she stretches out her wrists, the writing on both of them stretching under the material of her leather jacket. Knows, that even though it’s too dark to see properly with just the light spilling out from the open front door to go by, she knows what they say. And even though she’s told herself over and over, sworn to herself over countless bottles of whisky and bitter tears, that the entire thing was bogus superstition, she can’t stop her foolish heart from jumping, tumbling, twisting in her chest; it almost as if the organ was trying to burst out of her chest, to touch the woman standing just a few feet away, completely engrossed in their — gods, their, because Harry has now laid a claim to Shay as his other mother, and what the hell has she gotten herself into — son.
iii.
It’s funny, she thinks, that when she looks back on her life, she never saw this curveball coming. Really, with a name like Alex tattooed twice on her, she probably should have known, should have been at least aware that it opened a whole other avenue of possibilities for her.
She’d never even considered the fact that her soulmate — or her enemy, or both — wasn't necessarily a guy.
And yet it took her watching her son’s mother fussing over him for that realisation to come crashing into her like a freight train. Over the buzz in her mind, she could hear the woman, Alex, asking Harry what had happened, and where he’d gone, if he was okay.
“I found my other mom,” the boy told the brunette woman proudly.
Confused, the woman finally drags her eyes off her son, locking brown eyes on the blonde woman standing a little ways away, watching them with a faraway look in her eyes. Alex takes a step towards the woman, which seems to snap the blonde out of her thoughts, as she focuses her gaze on the brunette.
Alex seems to eye her like she’s a wild animal, wary and unsure. “You’re Harry’s birth mother?”
Mind still whirring a mile per minute, and unsure what to make of this new development, unsure whether it had to change anything at all, — after all she’d sworn off the entire business years ago, why should this change anything? — all Shay can manage in response to the stunning woman in front of her is a weak, “Hi.”
Alex seems to take a deep breath to compose herself, looking over her shoulder to where Harry had disappeared into the mansion. The dark-haired woman turns back to the blonde and takes another deep breath, before allowing her lips to part in a tired smile.
“How would you like a glass of wine?”
Shay chuckles nervously. “I’d ask if you have anything stronger, but I should probably let you guys rest; it’s late.”
Alex nods, seeming both relieved and not by the blonde’s response.
Shay turns to go, but quickly turns back to face the other woman again. “I’d like…” she trails off, unsure how to word it. Alex tilts her head in silent question, and Shay sighs. “Can we talk in the morning?”
“Of course,” the brunette replies smoothly. “We should probably discuss this situation.”
Shay huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Okay.” She nods to herself, then pauses again. “Uh… Do you guys have a hotel in town?”
Alex grins then, the first real smile of the night, and Shay feels something in her chest loosen slightly from the ball of worry that had taken up residence there, at the sight.
“Follow down the way you came back to Main Street. Granny’s Bed and Breakfast is right across from the church, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks,” Shay says, shuffling down the walkway.
“I don’t even know your name,” Shay hears the brunette call from behind her.
“Oh, it’s Shay Lake,” she says sheepishly, knowing she probably should’ve introduced herself first thing. It’s been a long night, she reasons with herself. She’s allowed a few social faux passes, especially since the woman didn’t seem to even notice her lack of information until now.
A brief look of surprise flits across Alex’s face before she smooths it out again and nods, and Shay is too tired and the lighting is too bad for her to be sure what emotion had flickered over immaculate features. “In that case, Shay, welcome to Brooke.”
Shay smiles briefly in thanks before turning back to her car and driving away, very much looking forward to falling into a bed. Maybe she’ll wake up in the morning back in her flat in Boston, and all this will have turned out to be just a dream.
iv.
It hadn’t been a dream. That’s the first thing Shay can process when she wakes up the next morning, eyes meeting the flowery print of the B&B walls.
She sighs and rolls out of bed, determined to get the day going so she can head back to her nice, normal life in Boston. Your lonely life, a voice whispers in the back of her mind, but she ignores it and makes her way downstairs to the diner adjacent to the B&B for some coffee.
She’s nursing a cup of coffee and wondering if she should just drive over to the mansion and get the conversation over with when the diner door opens and Harry and Alex spill through. In the light of day, she can finally take in the other woman clearly, unnoticed in her booth at the back of the diner. Alex smiles at Harry, her love for her son shining clearly in her brown eyes. They both have red cheeks and noses from the cold wind that had picked up that morning, but it does little to mask the crinkle lines on Alex’s olive skin, focused mostly around her eyes. She clearly smiles a lot, Shay muses into her coffee.
Just then, as if feeling the eyes on her, Alex looks up and catches Shay’s eyes across the diner. The brunette says something to Harry, who looks her way, before excitedly dashing over.
“Can we join you for breakfast?” the boy asks her a little breathless, either from his little sprint or from excitement, Shay isn’t sure.
Still, she smiles at him. “Of course you can.”
“Cool.” He plops down on the bench in front of her, and proceeds to stare at her as though she has all the answers to the universe. Slightly uncomfortable under his gaze, she squirms a little, attention going back to his other mother.
“Don’t you have school?”
“Duh. But mom always brings me here for breakfast on Fridays.”
Shay nods like this makes sense. She’s never been around children much, so she isn’t sure what is the norm, as she’s pretty sure her childhood would be a crappy frame of reference.
Alex approaches their table then, a brown bag held securely in one hand. “Harry, you’ll have to take the bus to school today I’m afraid, as Miss Lake and I need to have chat, so I had Ruby pack your breakfast for you.” The boy looks crestfallen, but takes the bag quite happily, peeking inside as he does. “You have lunch money?”
He nods, so the woman steps aside and gestures for him to slide out of the booth. He gives his mother a tight hug, then turns to Shay. “Bye!”
Shay nods at him, smiling as he dashes out the door in a flurry. Her attention is brought back inside when Alex takes the seat her son just vacated.
“Miss Lake,” the other woman says once she’s sure she has the blonde’s attention. “Is this a good time to have that talk?”
“Yeah. I was actually wondering if I should go over to your house after breakfast, so this actually works out great.”
The brunette nods as the waitress brings her some coffee and takes their breakfast orders.
“Well then,” Alex drawls after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence go by. “You were the one who suggested this, so why don’t you tell me what you want to say?”
“Right,” Shay mutters, fidgeting slightly in her seat. “I guess I was just…” she shrugs, unsure of how — or even if — she should broach the subject of the tattoos. Unconsciously, her thumb traces her left wrist, and Alex raises an eyebrow at the action, but doesn't mention it. “I just wanted to know how the kid found me,” Shay settles on eventually.
There’s a moment of silence as Alex studies the blonde over the rim of her coffee cup, before she finally answers. “I am sorry he pulled you out of your life. His intentions, I believe, were good, if misguided.”
Shay nods. “He mentioned something about it.”
“Oh?”
“He just said he wanted you to be happy. And that he wanted to have two parents, like everyone else.”
Alex’s eyes, which had gone soft as she heard the first part, suddenly turn to ice. “Miss Lake, if you think you can just waltz in here and steal my son from me, you are sorely mistaken.”
“I — what?”
“I am Harry’s mother. You gave up the right to that title when you gave him up for adoption.”
“I know that!”
But the brunette wasn’t listening. “I think it would be best if you left now, Miss Lake.”
The blonde gapes at the woman in front of her, confused. “Alex, I know I’m not a mother, I was just telling you what the kid had told me.”
“Yes, well. Best not to get his hopes up, don’t you think?”
The blonde stares at the brunette for a moment longer before shrugging. “I don’t know why I ever even thought…” she mumbles under her breath as she throws some cash on the table to pay for her breakfast.
“What was that, dear?”
“Nothing. It was nice meeting you, Alex. Have a nice life,” Shay says, brushing out of the booth smoothly.
She’s driving out of the town an hour later. She doesn’t look back.
v.
Life goes back to normal after that. Perps need to be caught, and Shay catches them all. She goes through the motions, talks to her colleagues (but never mentions a little boy and a trip to Maine, because she’s trying to forget all that ever happened, and it’s easier if she never mentions it, doesn’t bring it to the forefront of her mind).
Four months go by; four months of wearing only long-sleeved clothes (luckily it’s winter so she can get away with it), of showering quickly so she won’t run the risk of glimpsing the name on both her wrists, because she’s getting better at not remembering and she still definitely does not believe in fate.
Until one Saturday morning, when she’s lounging about on the couch, even more determined than usual to not think, not remember, and definitely not cry because her years of crying herself to sleep on this day are long over. When the doorbell rings, she uses it as an excuse to help her not think. Hopefully whoever is at the door will be a good distraction for her.
She yanks the door open and blinks at the face she sees. She tries pinching herself discreetly on the arm to make sure she’s not dreaming, because really, why else would Alex be standing there, at the door of her Boston apartment, looking as though this is an everyday occurrence?
“Alex?” she finally asks, once she’s sure she isn’t dreaming.
“Miss Lake. May I come in?”
“I — yes, of course.” Shay steps to the side, letting the darker woman into her flat and closing the door behind her. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I won’t be long.”
“Right,” Shay says, and nods along dumbly, still not sure what is happening. “So,” she starts when the brunette doesn’t elaborate. “What’s going on?”
Alex turns to face Shay then, an inscrutable look on her face. “Harry misses you.”
Shay frowns. “Okay…”
Alex rolls her eyes. “As I’m sure you’re aware, today is his birthday,” Shay snorts to herself at that — as if she could possibly forget — but gestures for the brunette to continue. “And I thought… well. Maybe you’d want to spend the day with him?”
Shay blinks at the woman standing in her living room, stunned. “You want me to go see Harry for his birthday?”
“That is what I just said, yes.”
“But you hate me.”
Alex rolls her eyes again. “I don’t hate you, Miss Lake. I may… not like that my son felt the need to find himself another parent, but I don’t hate you.”
“So you’re willing to… what?”
“Harry has taken quite a shine to you; or, at least, to the idea of you. And I am not in the habit of making my son miserable, Miss Lake. I’d rather him not hate me because I didn’t let him get to know his birth mother.”
“Alex, I told you, I’m not mother material.”
The brunette looks her over once, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. “I daresay Harry will have us both doing things we never though we would do, then, don’t you?”
Shay sighs, knowing the other woman was right; she might not have been mother material, but she also wouldn’t deny the boy something she herself had wanted for so long. Besides, she reasoned, the kid already had a pretty great parent in Alex; he didn’t really need another one. She could just be like the cool aunt or something.
“Fine,” the blonde agrees. “What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing too groundbreaking, I assure you. Just come to Brooke for the day, spend some time with him, and then we can decide on a more permanent plan.”
“Okay. Yeah, sure. Just, I have to ask… why Harry?”
Alex purses her lips and shrugs. “I’ve always been a Harry Potter fan.”
“You’re joking.” The brunette doesn’t reply, grinning. “You’re joking, right?”
Alex winks at the blonde. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
And as Shay closes her apartment door behind her, duffle in hand to follow Alex back to Maine, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, this tattoo thing isn’t so bad. It’s given her what seems to be the beginning of a family, something she’s always wanted. And even though she still doesn’t believe in fate, she thinks that maybe there is something to the system after all.
She grins and follows Alex to the car, her footsteps seeming to echo with the beat of being wanted by someone, of belonging — and of family.