Madge knocked the door softly and opened it, she peered inside and founded Mrs. Smith.
"Come in"
She came into the detention room and took a sit in the first chair she saw, throwing her books on the table.
"Well" Mrs. Smith looked over her glasses "I think both of you are mature enough to be here alone without any supervision. You can leave at eight" after that she left the room quickly.
"Undersee? How did you get here?" she turned and found Gale Hawthorne. It was really unusual to see him there. Everyone knew he had a great gpa and never in his entire life had get caught red handed. Not that she has ever been there.
"I had a fight over soulmates, and you?"
"I missed the first period" he sifted in his chair "How a fight over soulmates got you into detention?"
She blushed "I think I shouted a little"
He quirked an eyebrow "None has never been told of for shouting"
"Try saying that to the new teacher" She sighted "He didn't take it very well"
"Why were yo fighting over soulmates? I thought you were over that things" he said nodding towards her wrist.
She blushed and touched lightly the piece of fabric she had over her wrist to cover her soulmate sentence. She knew Gale wasn't making fun of her, he was very respectful. They knew each other because Katniss was friends with both of them, but they were simply acquittances.
"It's not like that" she sighted "The thing is that I don't like people seeing the sentences" she shrugged her shoulders "I don't think a sentence is why you fall in love with anybody"
"So you don't believe in soulmates" Gale had turned, he was facing her. She blushed a little, she wasn't used to discuss about soulmates. He left out a little laugh "It's weird"
She opened her mouth, but she closed it. It was weird. Someone who didn't believe in soumates was indeed weird. Especially since almost everyone founded their soulmates.
Gale smiled, waiting for her comeback. Everybody knew Madge Undersee hated not having the last word. She was the captain of the debate team and she made the best conclusions for a reason.
"I believe in soulmates" she started "It's just... I don't know how to say it. I mean I think you can be perfect for another person. What I don't believe in is that everyone can have they perfect partner. It's impossible. There aren't the same amount of men a women in the world. Therefore it's impossible that everyone have a soulmate. But everyone has this sentence written in some part of their bodies. So if you ask me, I believe in soulmates. But I don't believe everybody has a soulmate"
"Wow!" Gale shaked his head and looked at her with disbelief "You could have just said that you didn't believe in soulmates"
"I don't believe in them. Happy?" Madge replied. She opened her books and started with her math homework.
"Don't get angry Undersee" Gale said "I don't care if you don't believe in them. I was just asking"
"And why do you care? Because everybody say that my parents aren't soulmates? Because they said that in consequence I don't have a sentence? That I cover my arm to pretend I have one" she was breathing hard, but she continued her rant "Well let me tell you something. Yes my parents aren't soulmates and they love each other more than a lot of soulmates. And I do have a soulmate sentence, but I cover it because I don't think a sentence will make you fall in love or continue loving that person your whole marriage. I think that loving someone is not determined by fate. That's why I don't believe in something as stupid as a sentence and when my time comes I will erase this mark out of my body. Because I will be the one deciding my future. I could fall in love with someone that comes and tells me a line, and that line could or couldn't be written in my skin, but I will be the one who choses to stay with him. No some birthmark" she stopped to catch air, she found Gale looking at her with confusion.
"I didn't want to ask that. What I don't get is how you can not believe in soulmates. And you know? The thing about the sentence is that you don't notice it right away. I know, I know" he said holding his hands up "The sentence is the words that make you fall in love with your soulmate. But most of people realize their soulmates had told that sentence to them a long time after that happens. So I don't see how that can be seen as a weakness.
You say you don't believe in soulmates because you have seen relationships break and because your parents have been able to love each other despite not being soulmates. But let me tell you something, we are humans. So is not weird that someone gives up in a relationship if it's toxic and also is possible that two persons who weren't supposed to be perfect together are able to make things work and to be perfect for them in their own way. Of course.
But I also believe in soulmates. In people that are made to be together in a way you couldn't imagine. It means that by having your true love by your side you will be happier. I don't know how to explain it. It's like there is a person that has been make to be with you, and you belong together, and the universe, and God and everything you believe in want you to be together. So they have write something in your body, it might be a short sentence, or a long one, or even just a word. Because the meaning is not important. What matters is the person who said it to you, the circumstances and the meaning they got in the moment you heard them, the context.
I have thought all my live that the fact that you have a few words over your body is not going to make a relationship work. You are the one responsible of that. The only thing the mark can do is remind you why you fell in love the first time, why you decided to be with that person, why I would have been with this person all this time. This mark will remind me this, so when things go wrong, when we have bad moments, when it looks like there is not possible to make it work. In those moments I know I would look at this sentence and I would remember why I fell in love, why I chose this person to share my life. And I will chose her again and again, no matter what. I won't care if the path we are walking is dark, if we had fight or if we had make mistakes. Because she will be the love of my life, the only one I want to be the rest of my life.
That it's a soulmate, and the fack that everybody has given the mark a different meaning doesn't make it less valid. And that's why I belive in soulmates."
When Gale finished Madge was astonished. Who would have thought of soulmates in that way? Not her. What Gale had described was what she had saw in the marriage of her parents, every single part of it. If he believed in soulmates in that way there was nothing she could say.
"It's eight o'clock. Good bye Hawthorne" she took her books and left the class in a rush. For the first time in her life Madge Undersee was unable to give an answer.