Virgil stared at the names on his wrist in disbelief. Not only were there three of them, not only were they all boys' names, but one was the name of his tormentor of two years. Without even thinking about it, he took a knife and lightly scratched out Roman's name before bandaging his entire wrist. No one ever had to know.
Several years had gone by since that day, Virgil's eleventh birthday. He had never met the owners of the other names on his wrist. He chuckled to himself. Roman never learned my name anyway. The boy continued to beat him up every day without being provoked. In fact—
"Hey, Emo!" That would be Roman now. Virgil sighed, preparing to be hurt.
As he was shoved against the lockers, another boy saw the fight beginning and ran up to stop them, pushing Roman out of the way and shielding Virgil. Roman saw that the commotion had attracted a teacher and ran so that he wouldn't get caught.
"Hi," said the other boy. "I'm Patton. What's your name?"
Virgil stared at Patton, not bothering to glance down at his bandage-covered wrist. As Patton leaned over to check if Virgil was in shock, Virgil managed to stammer out his name. "V-V-Virgil."
Patton glanced down at his wrist so quickly that anyone not looking for the gesture would have missed it. He helped Virgil up before tackling him into a hug that nearly knocked him down again.
"Do you know either of our other soulmates?" Patton asked hopefully. Virgil thought about all that Roman had done, but in the end decided that Patton deserved to know.
"Roman . . . is the one who you saw knock me down."
The effect was immediate. Patton showed a clear conflict between the desire to protect every one of his soulmates and a wish to physically fight Roman for hurting Virgil.
"Let me take you home," suggested Patton. "I'll walk with you to school tomorrow to protect you."
Virgil agreed, relieved.
"Hey, Emo!" came Roman's call as Virgil and Patton walked into the school.
"Seriously, Roman? You can't even come up with a new insult?" Virgil yelled as Roman walked up.
"Who's your new friend? A fellow darkie?" Roman taunted.
Virgil suppressed a sneer as he said the sentence that would ultimately result in Roman never hurting him again. "Actually, this is Patton, one of my soulmates."
Virgil and Patton walked away, Virgil silently wondering how long it would take Roman to realize the implications of what he just said.
Roman thought over what the emo had said the entire day. If Patton was one of his soulmates as well, then what was the emo's real name? Who was their other soulmate? Did he know them? Had he just ignored them his entire life?
Roman cleared his head of all the questions. There was a boy somewhere in this school who knew everyone. If he could find that boy, maybe he could tell Roman if his other soulmate was anywhere to be found.
Logan sighed. Is that it for today? He was always crowded during lunch hour in the library by students asking after a random person, simply because he had memorized the yearbook during a particularly boring class. Glancing around, he didn't see anyone else, so he returned to his book.
His peace was swiftly shattered by the school "cool guy" walking in. Roman thought he could walk around the school and never answer to anyone for no good reason. He also happened to be one of Logan's own soulmates. Aside from that, he daily harassed one of their other soulmates, Virgil.
Roman walked up to Logan, deep in thought. "Hey, Nerd. I hear you know everyone. Do you know a kid named Virgil?"
Logan sighed, with a small smirk on his face. It was too bad he didn't have his camera, for he was sure the following events would be quite entertaining.
"My name is not Nerd, it is Logan. As for Virgil, he is the boy who has constantly been subject to your beatings."
Roman froze. Logan let the smirk remain on his face as Roman stared at him before doing a double take and then appearing to go into shock. Just as Logan was about to cross the table to check on him, Roman screamed, and they were both promptly removed from the library.
Patton stopped at the sound of a distant wail. "Do you think someone's hurt?"
Virgil immediately responded, surprising Patton. "That sounded like Roman. I know he bullied me, but he's still one of our soulmates. We should make sure he's okay."
In unison, Patton and Virgil began running. They rounded a corner to see Roman and another boy get literally kicked out of the library. Roman saw who was running to his rescue and nearly broke down in tears.
"Virgil, I'm so sorry for the way I treated you all this time. Eight years is an inexcusable length of time to hurt someone, and I apologize for never even bothering to learn your name." Roman finished his sentence and collapsed into tears.
Patton saw Virgil quickly becoming overwhelmed with the situation at hand, but couldn't help but exclaim, "Virgil, has this really been going on since third grade?"
Patton stopped, confused. His voice had had an echo. Then, the other boy stepped forward, and Patton realized he must have been speaking at the same time.
"I'm Logan, by the way," the other boy introduced himself.
Patton smiled before glancing over at Virgil to see him hyperventilating, clearly beginning to have a panic attack. He rushed over to sit Virgil down, and Logan joined him, teaching Virgil breathing exercises he had learned online for this situation.
Roman gazed at his three soulmates. He felt proud of Patton and Logan, for knowing how to care for their nervous soulmate, and already protective of Virgil. Already knowing what was under those bandages on Virgil's wrist, he would never let another do to Virgil what he had done.
As Virgil calmed down, the four soulmates braced each other in a hug. Nothing would ever tear them apart.