A 1000 word story, told in ten 100 word drabbles.
"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
Dean often wonders if not having a soul mate mark is punishment for some fuck up he committed in a past life. Maybe the idea of karmic retribution is a bit far fetched, but he's certain someone Up There has it out for him.
Before she died, his mother used to reassure him that having to wait for his soul mate's first words to appear meant he was special; that those who are born without marks are destined for a love greater than anyone could imagine.
More than two decades worth of waiting have only served to convince him otherwise.
