They said that the soulmate is a person whose name starts with the letter on your wrist. You can't see it when you're born, it only inks up on your skin while you are growing up, so you'd find yourself in your, let's say, 15, look around and suddenly note that Dean, Derek, Desmond and even Daisy can all be your soulmates all at once, and spend 5 years studying their personalities. Usually search of a soulmate coincides with puberty, and the lucky ones produced baby packs born from some sort of a conveyer. Less divorces, better demography and increase of living standards. Whoever invented the phenomenon 500 years ago, was a truly political mastermind.
Anna Mae Harkness barely saw the black letter «I» on her black wrist. Mother was joking that her self-sufficient girl, a hero, justice fighter declining all the invitations from boys is a self-soulmate. Anna Mae nodded, thinking that no boy attracts her physically and even provokes internal rejection. Probably she saw her letter wrong? She should see a therapist — they always say everything as it is.
Her coursemate, Eve, seems to be really nice and even sexy. Girls are nice in general, they never provoke rejection. She has such long legs, fishnet tights and long hair, fashionable bags with golden accessories, perfect work-books, flawless academic performance, leather jackets, cotton blouses and such. She even seems to like Anna Mae. But Eve is so self-confident, and preferences-wise as well. She even seems to be more confident about her life than Annalise with her training in a large law firm. Everything she can be sure about is her job — and that's the only thing she has.
She's talking about her firm during a session with her therapist. Keating lets her speak, is nodding — and for the first time ever Anna Mae feels like she's being listened to. She got her first case; and she went to the end of the earth to get the extract of Mr. Anderson, an obstetrician, home phone calls, and proved his innocence in the death of his pregnant patient. Annalise already told about injustice of the law system and policemen's negligence, when Keating smiled and interrupted her.
He's asking about the letter on her wrist.
— Did you try to remove it?
— Tried to paint it white, — she admits, embarrassed, — but couldn't do it.
Keating crossed his legs and nodded sagely.
— Any idea who could that be? It's a high time to find someone in your age. Work is fine, but what about your love life?
He's thinking I'm telling him too much, and I should be doing so with my boyfriend or my girlfriend. He saw the letter, he does know it's not his name — so he can't be worried. Anna Mae's casting about every guy she likes at least in her mind. One of them is racist, the second one has a sense of grandeur about himself, the third one has high temples, and the forth one is a downright gay-bar denizen. And no one has «I», there are only «K», «F», even «Y». And then, there's Eve too — Anna Mae recalled her at last, pulling the sweater up to her wrist. Keating noticed. She didn't like this topic, obviously.
— Yep, I'm seeing someone.
Eve seems to have alcohol issues, they want to throw her away out of the university. Anna Mae is sure her friend had to rip her book of rules off and opened her legs in front of the president — even if it's the broken heart speaking, not a common sense. Eve managed all by herself, but something went wrong anyway, and they broke up, so what is the point?
— Is that your soulmate?
— I don't believe in soulmates. — She's looking down, so she doesn't see that Keating is pleased with her answer.
They got married. Sam started cheating on her. Well, he was who he was from the very first day — it's hard to get surprised with everything after all. All of his girls' names started with «L»: Lily, Lilian, Lila. When he's not screwing another student, he's whispering in his wife's ear:
— I will transform «L» and get my «A». I know you're my woman, I'm tired of hearing what my colleagues are whispering behind my back. These letters define nothing.
— Make it lighter. Hide it with a black spot. Lots of whites do so, you know. For me it's impossible.
He can't get the point that you can't make «S» out of «I», no matter how hard you try. Noone's attracting her attention. Lovey-dovey Anna Mae Harkness was sleeping, sleeping and waiting for a family happiness with a man who made her believe it's real. If you didn't meet «I», marry «S», put up with steady miscarriages, dream of a baby and listen to endless preaching. Drink, forgive the husband for every mistress. Work, but remember: even your body rejects you, knowing you can't succeed.
He's got his Lila, she's got her Nate. Lust, secret meetings, sex in the most unpredictable poses and places; it was until 40 when she discovered an utmost love for extreme sex from experimental praxis to cuddling in a public loo — her and Nate were like a nurse and a soldier of the Second World War; chasing their tads of time before the court cases bombs could touch them. She never really cared about Nate's heart underneath that bag of muscles; they were barely speaking after all, and his thoughts were completely taken up by his death-sick wife. They both are cheating and doing wrong. The constant feeling of obscenity and impiety under her own roof; this red-haired whore even managed to get pregnant. Annalise's womb was still empty. If only had God given her another chance — she would do it all right all over again. She would make a great mother.
She was said she's working too much; but for the first time in her life she seems to be useful, not troublesome. There's nobody to cause troubles to. It's only left to hope none of her clients would cut their throat, leaving a child parentless.
Wes. Sam died because of him, but it's fine. She had to get rid of him sooner — the tumor of a child lost made him a monster, killed him at a terminal stage. Others started suffocating, but Annalise could stay alive still. She would do anything for Wes — but then he died too. A poor boy she couldn't save, who got into troubles because of her instead of finally being happy after he lost his parental home. No, the only thing she ever wanted was justice for the ones who were deprived of it. Now she's got a fate of everyone of who was unlucky enough to deal with the free lawyer — it's twenty of them, and they all are waiting for her support.
This new therapist of hers, Isaac Roa, appointed by the Disciplinary Board. Those were his words. He's quite a man, this Isaac, he seems to be really self-confident — probably, even too much, he's digging deep into her past, pretending he knows nothing about her. Well, he might know nothing or could also be good at faking it still. She's a hard nut to crack for him, it's obvious, as she doesn't believe in all that. In psychotherapy, in a soul restoration. She's just happy she's got a place to go apart from a bar.
Sam told her organism is scared to take responsibility, that it's weak; that the physical memory of abuse in her childhood and the accident doesn't allow her to relax and accept another body in hers. Month after month Sam was trying to fix it: he wanted to make her body stronger, he wanted to gift her with a child. Would it be easier, if he was named by «I»? Sam was wrong, there's no use in therapy. Whatever she tells that Isaac guy, it can't get any worse — all her carefully guarded secrets, all the personal connections of hers, everything Annalise had ever cherished, floated at surface a long ago. She can't be sabotaged by anything or anyone. Her work is everything she has left, yet he thinks that's too much. He wants to lead her his way, he wants to manipulate her, he's weak himself, he's scared and he lets it all out on her as if it was her fault or he was jealous of her success like any man does looking at women like her.
She won't let that happen.
His damned name starts with «I». He's a competent specialist and a kind soul, even though being compared to Sam frightened him to bits. And her, surprisingly — too. But she went through such thing already — she was a stupid little girl back then and a million years could have passed, yet she wouldn't make the same mistakes again. Anna Mae Harkness is sleeping. She told her sister via the phone and she burst with laughter, claiming that her spirited careerist will have finally settled down after reaching her 50s. They could even adopt a child after all so that Anna Mae would have finally found her happiness. A phone receiver was laughing happily as Annalise kept silence; it was hard for Celestine to deal with their mother and her illness, she could use some nervous de-escalation.
She's telling Isaac everything — about Connor, about her mother and sister, about the father; he might know too much about her. Yet she knows nothing of him, she can't even clearly see the letter on his wrist. He has two obliques: could either be «A» or «V», the upper part of his letter is covered with a tattoo. Isaac neither has a marriage ring nor family portraits on the wall — he's hiding well, way too well, but Annalise understands she wouldn't want to know more of him. He could turn out to be way too good outside his office. Way too similar to Sam.
Triggers, triggers, triggers. Two wrists in the light of the lamp with dark «I» and «A» on them. Did he notice? Does he understand where it's all going? He might feel something after all. She does; she sees how closely he's listening to her again, she feels like human. Outside his office he understands her even better than inside. She's not the problem, she's not; Isaac convinced her in that. Sam was right, his therapeutical nonsense works. She couldn't get free with Sam, not after she broke his family. Had they risked now, it would all have worked out; somewhere at the back of her brain s little Anna Mae Harkness is cheering. Her new Sam will make her happy. Isaac used to be married, he was a heroin addict, his daughter committed suicide. It must be that an old wiped-out letter doesn't bother him that much anymore; he's an intelligent person and shouldn't believe in that, it's his addiction that he's proudly boasting on as if it was some kind of a medal. He got better, he's proud, he's reaching out for his hand unintentionally, as if the itching on the wrist comes to be the end of him. Annalise's letter stings for the first time in years — she read about it, it's not a very good sign. It's telling you your time is almost out, but she's scared to think what's on the scales. She can't be a mother at 47, for heaven's sake!
— Did you try to remove it?
They bring this topic occasionally, when they talk about the past and all of this mystical bullshit. Annalise nods.
— Was the letter telling the truth?
— It's you who should tell me. You're a psychotherapist, you would know better. Can these letters tell truth at all?
— Scientifically, of course, they make no sense, — Isaac tells, leaning closer, — but, de-facto, none of those who came round their soulmates in hundreds of years of this phenomenon were disappointed in them. They might not have found the right letter, but once they did, only death could part them.
— A fatalist? You, of all people?
— I'm not. Letters help us not to make a mistake when we're scared. To make the first step, to admit our feelings.
«I had Sam, Nate, Eve… somebody else? No, seems not. Oh, I have you too. I'm not scared. Not of you, at least».
— I don't believe in soulmates.
Isaac nodded guardedly with his lips pursed and wrapped up his wrist with a sweatshot. He might not want Annalise to see his nervous shivering — the sure sign of need of a dose or the woman in front of him; in whole, without anything left.
— Okay.
He's not going for a dose for sure.