Bound by Fate

He looks at her. And she looks at him. Sparkles appear, a pink filter is overlaid. The music swells, and they kiss, the shot showing that they now have identical tattoos of hearts on their necks.

I stare at the TV, enraptured. “Is finding your soulmate really like that?”, I ask my parents, who are sitting on the couch behind me.

“Well, honey, it’s a bit dramaticized here, but it truly was a magical moment when your dad and I first saw each other.”

Mom and Dad stick out their arms, showing me those identical hearts.

Wow, I wonder when I’ll meet my soulmate. I hope it’s just as magical as they say!

A week after my 6th birthday, we move. A new house, in a new town! Excitedly, I grip my dad’s hand as we walk up to the doorstep. My mom follows close behind, carrying a suitcase.

Two men come and greet us. They introduce themselves as the neighbors next door, and my dad introduces us in return.

One of them turns to me and exclaims “We have a little boy just her age!”

The other turns around, opens his house door, and calls for him. The kid steps out, and waves shyly. His eyes meet mine.

And my cheek bursts out in excruciating pain.

After a second, it’s gone. I stare at him. On his cheek is a newly-appeared tattoo of a heart. I can only assume that it’s the same for me.

Our parents gasp.

“Woah, you two are soulmates!”, my mom exclaims.

One of the kid’s dads knocks him on the shoulder. “You two sure are lucky! I wish I found mine that young.”

My dad walks over to him, and wags his finger. “Now, young man, you better not do anything to my daughter,” he says playfully, and his parents laugh. My soulmate doesn’t. He just looks confused. And uncomfortable.

Everyone thought it was so cute when we walked into first grade with our matching cheeks.

Almost immediately, we were bombarded with questions from our classmates about what it’s like to have a soulmate.

It’s annoying! Especially because I’m the new kid. But whatever.

What really weirds me out is the adults. Who look at us and say "Awww, young love!"

I turn to my soulmate, and ask “Are we in love?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. I guess?”

In seventh grade came our first kiss.

Well, we had previously given each other pecks on the cheek. This was the first big kid kiss.

It was evening. The two of us were sitting on my bed, looking through the window of my room, and watching the sun disappear into the trees. It colored the sky in bright hues of pink and orange, while fluffy purple clouds punctuated the scene.

As the sun goes out of view, my soulmate grabs my head, turns it towards him, and… awkwardly asks “Wanna kiss?”

“Uhh, sure”, I reply, equally as awkward.

And then his lips are pressed on mine and mine on his and we’re surrounded by my messy room but framed by the sunset and it seems like the perfect moment.

I hate it. As soon as it’s over, I make a face and turn away. He looks hurt.

The situation. The sunset. The way he’s looking in my eyes. It all seems too romantic. Which should be what I want… right?

Well I don’t want it. Maybe it’s cuz I never had a proper cooties phase. Since I met my soulmate young. Yeah, that’s it. This is just my late cooties phase.

I’ll want to kiss him eventually.

Hmm. My soulmate is actually pretty hot.

Huh. Who knew that starting high school is all it would take for me to realize that… I'm actually attracted to my soulmate.

Phew! What a relief! The cooties are gone, and now I'm normal!

…

But then why do I still hate it when he says I'm his girlfriend?

Why does my stomach churn every time he says he's glad we're soulmates, that he's glad he gets to be with me forever?

Why does the thought of living the rest of my life chained to a partner terrify me to my very core?

…

I'm still an immature teenager. I think I just haven't completely outgrown the cooties.

That's it.

Junior year. It’s almost prom. My soulmate and I know exactly who we’re taking.

“I wish we hadn’t found each other so young,” he remarks bitterly. “Don’t take this the wrong way—I love you— but I wish I had the chance to experiment. The chance to try dating other people before I met the love of my life.”

That statement hurts me. But not in the way one would expect. It’s the “I love you” that stings.

I don’t love him. It would be so much easier if he didn’t love me.

Senior year is the first time we have sex.

I enjoy it. Honestly, we don’t have many interests in common, so this is one of the more fun things we’ve done together in recent memory.

My soulmate? … Does not enjoy it so much.

Afterwards, I remember him trying to comfort me, saying “It’s not your fault! It’s me. I just… I just… I don’t know. I think I just don’t like to look at my body.”

I don’t know what to say. We don’t bring it up again.

Right out of high school, we get married. There was no use putting it off— we’re soulmates, so of course we’d get married eventually.

It’s what we’re supposed to do.

… Right?

Everyone knows the horror stories about leaving your soulmate behind. About how the less you talk with them, and the further the distance between you, the more your soulmark starts to hurt. A biological reminder that you are always supposed to stay by your soulmate’s side.

But my aunt, on my Mom’s side, married someone who wasn’t her soulmate. Our family is… tolerant of it, but there’s still an air of resentment whenever they talk about her wife.

But I understand it! It makes sense to me that if you were in love with someone who wasn’t your soulmate, you’d choose to be with them instead.

…

Then what does it mean if I don’t love anyone?

I’m taking a break from college assignments to have lunch with her today. And… I just want to know why she did it. How she dealt with it.

(… What would it be like for me?)

So I ask her. I ask her how it was to choose the person she loves over her soulmate.

She sighs, and says “Well… it wasn’t just because I fell in love with someone other than my soulmate. In fact, I met my wife after I had already cut ties with her.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that!”, I respond, surprised. “I thought you broke up with your soulmate because you fell in love with your now-wife.”

She groans. “Yeah, that’s the narrative they like to push. Easier to say I left for love of someone else than to say I left because my soulmate was horrible.”

Wait… what?

“She was… very bad. I’m glad you weren’t around to meet her. Now you are my niece, not my therapist, so I am not going to get into what she did… but let’s just say that my relationship with her left me with more marks than just the tattoo.”

There’s a tense pause.

“But hey, now she’s far away now. Legally, she can’t even go near me— I have a restraining order!” She ends her sentence with jazz hands and an awkward laugh.

“Geeze, I never knew… That makes our family’s reaction to this even more fucked up,” I say, shaking my head.

She sighs. “Yeah. None of them outright supported her, but many insinuated that I shouldn’t completely cut her out. That true love will save the day. That no matter how awful she is, we’re soulmates, and that alone should heal the pain. It’s all bullshit.”

Shit. That’s horrible. But maybe, just maybe my aunt would understand me. Would understand my troubled relationship with my soulmate.

I consider opening up to her.

I really want to open up to her.

But I stop myself. I couldn’t do it without pulling down the facade. Without revealing the shaky skeleton of a foundation our relationship is built on.

And it’s not like our situations are even comparable. My soulmate isn’t bad. He isn’t abusive. Distant, sure. But I’m distant too. In fact, I’m the cause of this distance. Me and my stupid fucking inability to love him back.

It’s not comparable. My problems are trivial.

It’s fine.

Right before I leave to get groceries, my soulmate stops me and says there’s something he wants to tell me.

“I get that this might change your opinion of me but I wanted to tell you that… in college, I discovered that I was… bisexual.”

He trails off nervously at the end. As if there was something else on his mind. Something else he wanted to say.

After a slight pause I smile and say. “I absolutely support you! … And I’ll be here, still being straight.”

It seems like he took my hesitation as mistrust. “By discovering my bisexuality at college I don’t mean I was sleeping with… fellow men or anything! I would never do that! You’re my one true love, I would never want to be with anyone else.”

I give him a thumbs up and muster out a strained “Grreaat.”

I don’t care what he’s hiding. I’m not telling the full story either.

Yeah, I am heterosexual.

But a few weeks ago, 2am on my phone, I read the definition of aromantic and saw that it fit terrifyingly well.

It’s a fair spring day at our local park. The sun is shining, wispy clouds dot the sky, and birds chirp a pleasant melody. My soulmate and I walk through the park, hand in hand.

It’s nice.

A toddler, flanked by her mom, crosses our path. She points at us and loudly says “SOULMATES!”

Her mom tries to quiet her down, and says “Yes, sweetie, those two are soulmates.” Then, she squishes her daughter’s cheeks, and says “I hope you get a loving soulmate like that one day.”

I take my hand out of my soulmate’s grip. He looks disappointed. He doesn’t say anything.

The two of us walk in silence until we get to the pond. Ducks roam around both in and outside the pond, quacking and terrorizing weak-willed children. Turtles sit lazily on sunny rocks. The water looks a bit murkier than the last time I saw it, but I’m not going to worry about that now.

We lie down on the grass, taking in the scenery.

It’s nice. Really nice. It’s pretty pathetic, but this is the first time in a while I’ve enjoyed being with my soulmate.

Who knew that the secret to inner peace was lying down with your soulmate, surrounded by ducks.

…

Ducks don’t care about soulmates. Ducks don’t assume we’re in a romantic relationship. Ducks just assume we’re big scary monsters, or suckers that they can get bread crumbs from. Ducks are nice.

(Immediately after that thought, I hear a duck quack at a crying child.)

When we go home for the day, I wish that I parted with him at the gate of the park, that we said goodbye and went to different homes. I wish that we had a “hang out in the park for a few hours” kind of relationship. A “call each other on the phone sometimes” kind of relationship. A “grab coffee occasionally” kind of relationship.

Instead we have this. I grip the wedding ring on my finger and feel the mark on my cheek.

Leaving the apartment my soulmate and I share, I drive to my friend’s townhouse, where they invited me and some more former college friends to participate in karaoke night. I knock on the door, and an unfamiliar face answers it, telling me that he’s one of my friend’s partners. My friend then comes to get me, and leads me to the already-cramped living room, equipped with a TV showing YouTube results for “Never Gonna Give You Up Karaoke”.

The karaoke is very fun. And so is both reconnecting with old friends and meeting new people. However, one thought nags at my mind. When there’s a lull in the party, I ask my friend about who lives here.

They go “Oh! There’s six people, including me”, and point them out in the crowd.

Curiously, I ask “What’s the relationship between you guys? It’s not like you can all be soulmates”

They take a deep breath, looking like they’re preparing a whole spiel. “Well I’m dating two of them, one of whom is dating someone else here, and there’s two people who live here that aren’t dating anybody. And we’re all close friends. Some of us are soulmates, and others have their soulmates living elsewhere, and one person doesn’t have a soulmate yet. And unlike you, I am not dating my soulmate.”

“Huh, cool!”, I reply, trying not to show how in awe I am.

“Heh. Honestly, I didn’t think you’d care for my lifestyle, Ms. Married-And-Monogamous-To-My-Soulmate-Since-High-School”, they tease.

I awkwardly laugh it off. Of course they just saw the surface level of our relationship. It’s not like they could tell that secretly I longed to live in a home like this. I don’t give any signs of that.

I’m not bitter.

Sometimes I see my soulmate trying on my clothes. And my makeup. I don’t say anything.

…

I consider giving them some tips. I don’t.

I’m not sure why. I guess it just seems too personal. I just… feel like I’m not close enough to pry.

It’s funny. We’ve spent almost our whole lives with each other. And yet I feel like we’re barely more than acquaintances.

…

Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, their gender non-conformity doesn’t matter. To everyone outside, we’re husband and wife.

I need help.

I can’t keep pretending everything is fine. I can’t keep pretending that my apathy towards my soulmate is normal. Desperately, I search for some sort of therapist, finding a place nearby that specializes in troubled soulmate relationships. Perfect. I make an appointment and wait for the day.

“So, you came to see me about soulmate troubles. Care to elaborate on the issue?”

I nod. Tentatively, I start opening up about how even though I find them sexually attractive, I feel disconnected from my soulmate. I feel unsatisfied with our relationship.

I don’t love them.

The therapist looks at me pityingly. “You seem like a lovely young lady, I would hate to diagnose you with Soulmate Rejection Disorder.”

My heart drops. She continues.

“Here, let me check your family records. Sometimes it can run in families.” she says, typing away at her computer. “Ah! So you do not have a long family history of SRD, but you do have an aunt who’s been diagnosed with it.”

… My aunt?

“It says here that she repeatedly refused to forgive her soulmate. What a shame, throwing away her chance at true happiness because of some roadblocks in her relationship.”

What? WHAT? That’s so unfair! I want to scream, tell this person how she’s all wrong. How even some of my family begrudgingly admitted that she’s happier with her current partner than she ever was with her soulmate. How once I knew to look for it, I can still see how her soulmate’s abuse affects her to this day.

I hold my tongue. I don’t feel safe.

“But you choosing to be here is a step in the right direction! It shows you do not want to follow in her footsteps.” She stares coldly into my soul. “You do want to be with your soulmate, correct?”

“Yes. Yes I do,” I lie.

She smiles warmly at me, but it’s small comfort. I can only think about what she would do if I told the truth.

We keep talking for the rest of the half hour. My heart’s frantic beating won’t slow down.

At the end, she tells me “Well, there is a medication that may help you. I can help get you a prescription, if that’s what you desire.”

Is it what I desire? I don’t know anymore. But maybe this will help our relationship.

Maybe this will fix me.

I force a smile. “Yes.”

The pills didn’t do anything. Of course they fucking didn’t.

I stopped going to that shrink. I canceled the prescription.

I know I’m too broken to fix.

Even while stewing in this, I can’t keep a different thought out of my head. That nagging thought of… what if this is ok? What if it’s not a problem? …What if I’m not a problem?

The nagging thought that reminds me of that orientation I stumbled upon all those years ago.

Aromantic.

The thought of…. what if there are people like me? But people who are happy, people who aren’t forcing themselves into a life they hate.

…People I could become.

The thought that scares me. The thought that means this was all for nothing.

…

Recently there’s been talk in the news about a new “trend” of people being friends with their soulmate. People who took their cosmically determined partner and decided “No. I’m not going to have a traditional relationship with you.”

My parents saw those stories, scoffed, and expressed pity. Pity for these people who “weren’t living life to the fullest.” Because how could you ever be happy if you weren’t dating your soulmate.

How could you ever be happy.

We’re the perfect, model couple. Soulmates, married, with a house and a white picket fence and—

…

No kids on the way.

These days, it’s the main thing our families ask us about.

“When are you having kids?” “When will I be a grandparent?” “When will you start a family?”

I tell them that we’re focusing on our work. That we’re still settling down after the move. That we want to enjoy each other’s company alone for a bit longer.

Because how could I tell them that I don’t want to bring kids into this fucked-up household. That I don’t want to raise kids in a cold relationship spawned by a loveless marriage that’s only kept together by society’s expectations and the mark on our cheeks.

My 35th birthday is today. We had a party for it this afternoon. It was fun. I guess. But my family gathered around us, making small talk, implicitly pressuring us about our lack of kids just reminded me of how exhausting it was to hold up this facade. How uncomfortable it was. How much time I’ve wasted in this relationship.

We’re in our bedroom. My soulmate shoves their suit and tie all the way to the back of our closet. Until it’s out of sight.

They turn to me, mutter, “I never wanna wear that thing ever again.”

Without thinking, I respond “You’d look prettier in a dress, anyways.”

They stare at me. I gulp. Unintentionally, I just broke our unspoken agreement to “just ignore it.” Accidentally, I just laid a fatal crack into the illusion of this crumbling relationship.

I can’t really regret it. Today was rough for the both of us. Neither of us want to do this again. But that means…

It was time to divulge the secrets we both already knew.

My soulmate looks to the side and nervously fiddles with their hands. “Heh. Yeah. As you probably guessed, I’m transgender.”

I hug them. Tell them I completely support them, and although I suspected it, I’m glad they shared it with me themself.

“I use she/her pronouns. And... I don’t have a name yet. Just call me… anything other than… y’know.”

I nod. “Will do! And don’t worry, this doesn’t change my feelings for you.”

I chuckle nervously. “I’m still not in love with you.”

She gives me a slightly-pained smile. “I figured that. For a while now.”

We pause. We take in the gravity of the situation

It was the death of the norm. The death of the perfect couple our cheeks told us we were destined to be.

But from the ashes of this relationship came hope. Hope for the future, hope for a better life. Hope I hadn’t felt for a very long time.

For a bit, we talk with each other. About our identities, about all the things we were too afraid to say.

And then we talk logistics. About what we should actually do now.

I suggest that she fake her death, which would kill two birds with one stone— dissolve our marriage and allow her to live life as a new person! Plus, I wouldn’t draw ire from my family for divorcing my soulmate! She laughs, and completely shuts that idea down. (Though while she does not think it’s optimal, she did agree that it would be effective.)

We spend a while coming up with increasingly silly solutions to our problem (“What if we both pretend to have amnesia?” “What if you say you’re getting blackmailed by the mob and the only way to get out of it is by transitioning?” “What if we tell them we got abducted by aliens who said they would blow up the Earth if we didn’t separate?”)

…It’s the first time in a while that we just talked. Talked and had fun with each other.

We’re about to go to bed, when she turns to me and asks “Do you think it would’ve been better if soulmates weren’t assumed to be romantic?”

I think about it for a bit. “Hmm. I mean, it would’ve been better, but I've realized that I don’t want a partner. Of any kind. Even if it’s platonic.” I pause. “Honestly, I’d rather there be no soulmates at all.”

“...Yeah,” she replies. “Even as someone who wants a partner, I’d also rather there be no soulmates. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the closest, most meaningful relationships are built with time, effort, and trust. Not with some mark on your body that tells you who you should be with.”

“Yeah,” I say, climbing into bed.

We should’ve done this a long time ago. I don’t want to think about how much time I’ve wasted, forcing myself to stay with her.

But now it’s done. The facade has been torn down.

And for once I’m excited to see what happens next in my life.