"All these years, I've blamed you for Barrett's death. God… what did I do to you? To us? Can you ever forgive me?"
"I think it's time we forgive each other… for everything."
With those words, Adrian and Evelyn Powell seemed to melt together. Lips, hands, bodies, souls… they were one. Two halves which had been ripped apart had rejoined, forming a whole once more.
They made love that night for the first time in almost sixteen years.
Evelyn had thought he would have forgotten everything, would have forgotten how she liked to be touched and held. She expected him to fumble, to be too rough or too gentle for her liking.
She was pleasantly surprised.
Despite the years that had passed, his memory proved to be flawless. He didn't have the hot, unbridled passion that Tony had possessed, but he was still wonderful. He was sweet and patient and kind, and he knew exactly what she liked and when she liked it. They'd had years of practice before the accident.
And they did often say that lovemaking was similar to riding a bike. Once you knew what you were doing, you never truly forgot. It just took a bit of a refresher course to get back on track.
And dear God, had they refreshed each other.
Now, they were lying naked in their bed with their legs entwined. Adrian had fallen asleep, and was snoring quietly with his face buried in Evelyn's hair. Evelyn traced circles on his chest with her fingertip, taking in the warm, slightly doughy familiarity of her husband's body. She studied the contrast of her lily-white hand against his lightly tanned skin, noting with a crinkle of her nose the wrinkles on the back of her hand, the grey hairs on his chest.
Twenty-five years.
For twenty-five years, she had been Mrs. Adrian Powell. She had gotten acquainted with his family, had feigned interest in his mother's tips on child-rearing. She'd laughed at Adrian's corny, often tasteless jokes. She had stood by him after the death of their son, had stuck through his cold streaks and his hot rages. She had even settled down with the idea of him keeping up his disgusting little hobby, playing the part of the dutiful wife who turned the other cheek.
Any other woman would have left Adrian years ago. Any sane woman would have run for the hills. But Evelyn was crazy. She was crazy for him. He was her everything: her best friend and her worst enemy, the angel on her shoulder as well as the devil.
As she nestled against her husband's soft, fuzzy chest, she mused over the idea of soul mates. As the legend went, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and one soul. They were beautiful creatures, and they became arrogant, thinking themselves greater than the gods who had created them. To punish the humans, the gods ripped every human in half, forming ugly creatures with only two arms, two legs, and half of a soul. They scattered the humans all across the earth, often far away from the half they had left behind. Although the human's bodies withered and died away, their souls continued to roam the Earth for all of eternity, searching for their other halves.
Staring up into her husband's sleeping face, Evelyn felt a wave of calm pass over her.
Adrian was her soul mate. There was no question about it.
Flora… Tony… They didn't matter. None of that mattered. The indiscretions, the lies, the arguments… they were simply human mistakes. But now, reunited with her other half, she knew that they were above human.
Divided, they were weak and stupid. United, they were more powerful than any force on Earth. They just had to hold tight to one another, to assure that they would never again be torn apart.