Damn Tattoo

I hated this dress. To be fair I had hated every dress I had tried on so far but that's beside the point. In all honesty there was nothing wrong with the dress, I would go as far to say that it was pretty, but it wasn't right. The whole situation wasn't right. I shouldn't have to try and find a dress just to look pretty for a boy or girl I haven't even met yet.

"Leah, how is it?" My mum's voice floated over the curtain that separated us

"Absolutely horrendous" I lied, I liked the dress, it was nice and I even looked nice in it but I didn't want it, I didn't want to wear any dress

It was like a lie, wearing the stupid dress. I shouldn't have to wear a dress on this one day to impress a stranger when the very next day I would go back to dressing how I normally did. I quickly tore off the material before my mum came in and decided it was 'the one' and bought it.

I glared down at the black ink tattooed on the inside of my wrist. The tattoo was the reason I was going through the hell of dress shopping. The date seemed to glare back at me, its black lines mocking me.

People were born with different tattoos, some had a name tattooed, others, like me, had a date tattooed. I had even heard rumours of people who had faces tattooed. Imagine that, being born with your soul mates face tattooed on you back; that would certainly be a conversation starter. But that's what they were all about, the tattoos; they were about your 'soul mate'. Somewhere there was no doubt a boy or girl (you never know), getting dragged around a shop by their parent forcing them into uncomfortable clothes so they will look nice and presentable when they meet their unknown other half.

What a load of crap.

I didn't understand what the big fuss was about, if whoever it was, was my soul mate then they shouldn't care whether I wore a dress or my pajamas when we met, right?

"Leah, what are you doing in there?" My mother's impatience clear as the black ink marring my skin

"I'm thinking that my soul mate better be Leonardo Di Caprio because if they aren't then this is just a pointless exercise" I told her before stepping out into the over crowed and completely unorganized shop and handing the dress to the assistant who looked like she would rather be anywhere else than here. I felt her pain.

I noticed the tattoo on the inside of her wrist, just like mine, but hers was a name. Sam was scrawled in beautiful lettering in blue ink. I wonder if this girl had to go through this same process before meeting her Sam.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat and then we'll try again later" Mum suggested after thanking the assistant

It's not that I didn't want to meet my soul mate, I did, I mean doesn't everyone? But I just didn't like the fact that the damn tattoo had taken all the surprise out of it. Now I knew that on the 15th of August I was going to meet the best god damn person on the whole planet. I mean seriously, if whoever I met was not the perfect being that everyone made them out to be I was going to be severely disappointed.

A few of my friends had already met their soul mate, one of my friends Jake had been sat in school one day, in maths, minding his own business, he had actually forgotten the date and everything (his tattoo was on the back of his neck so I guess no one could really blame the poor guy, but his girlfriend liked to annoy him about it), when a girl walked in, just a regular old girl, plain Jane, at least to us she was. To Jake she was and is 'the best thing to ever happen to him'. She just wandered into his class after moving from an old school and gotten lost on her way to her actual class and he just knew. How on earth could you just know something as life altering and amazing as that?

I didn't believe it.

I suppose I was kind of hoping for something a bit more exciting when I met my 15th of August. Yeah, I was hoping for fireworks and confetti and a huge cheesey musical number as we walked away in to the sunset. Or possibly drove away in a flying car like they did in Grease; that would be cool. I didn't want to just know after spending years worrying and thinking about this, I wanted it to slap me in the face, knock me off my seat, blow my socks off, I wanted it to completely open my eyes to something.

I felt like I was owed that, I felt like I deserved life altering, sock blowing off amazement after trying on over fifty dresses for some person.

I wondered about my 15th of August's tattoo. I wondered if they had a little date tattooed on the inside of their wrist like mine, or maybe they had my name drawn in Chinese down the length of their spine. I just really hoped they didn't have my face tattooed, I couldn't handle that, I mean what if I looked horrible? I would feel pretty bad if they had to walk around for their entirety with my horrible face tattooed on their arm.

I was also slightly angry about the fact that I didn't get to choose who I ended up with, I mean it was good I didn't need to go through any heartbreak or a horrendously awkward date or whatever but wasn't that one of the things in life that you should experience and then later laugh and cringe over with your friends? I thought so.

But I suppose looking at my parents and seeing how happy they made each other, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen had the tattoos never existed, would they have met? Would they have ended up with different people in a not true love marriage and have different kids who would then also end up in a sham of a relationship? But would that have truly been such a bad thing if it meant that they actually got to choose for themselves?

"What are you thinking about?" Mum asked after she had finished her deep search of the menu

"How do you know?" I asked her, "Like, when you met dad, how did you know?"

"I don't know…I just knew" There was that reply she wasn't hoping for

Would it really be too much to ask for a little bit of something when I met my 15th of August

"Trust me, you won't walk past them in the street, you'll know" She continued to tell me

In a way i kind of hoped i would walk past them in the street. i could be the only person in years to actually choose for my own and not have to live by a damn piece of ink.

Oh well, at least i would know to shave my legs that day

A/N So what do you guys think? Is it good enough to send to my English teacher? Review!