James grew up hearing the legends of soulmates. How two—or three or four or however many—people could find each other by writing messages to each other on their skin, and he spent much of his time imagining himself with a soulmate, someone who would be his perfect match.
Everyone in James's year thought it was ridiculous (after all, they were still so obsessed with cooties that they couldn't bear to think that there was another person destined for them) but James yearned for the legend to be true. Not everyone had a soulmate. Soulmates weren't rare, per se, but they weren't the rule either, and there were people that just… didn't have one. For every one soulbound person, three unbound could be found, and James desperately wished to be that one.
Nobody seemed to understand him; his peers teased and bullied him, and he even had trouble connecting with his parents at times. But a soulmate would be his other half, his best friend, and James wanted one so badly he ached. He didn't want to be alone, one of the Unclaimed.
He started trying to connect with his imagined soulmate when he was five years old, the age everyone was when they were first told about the existence of soulmates, because that was the age when the soulbond could first be initiated. James silently envied the girl in his class whose hand had her soulmate's name written on it day in and day out while his own skin remained blank. One day he picked up a pen and tried to stop his hands from shaking a he wrote a simple "Hello" on his wrist. He stared at his arm for several minutes, but nothing was forthcoming.
He wasn't disappointed; after all, maybe his soulmate was asleep or something. Or couldn't read English. Or couldn't read or write yet. Or they weren't quite five years old yet. (He dared not think of the fact he might be one of the Unclaimed).
For the next several months, the word "hello" was a permanent mark on his wrist as he re-wrote the word every time it got washed off. His parents thought it was cute at first, but grew worried that their five-year-old was getting too obsessed with an idea that might not even be true. While they were soulmates, a lot of their friends were Unclaimed, and they didn't want their child to go through the agony of realizing it, or the agony of waiting. He was only five years old, after all, and they wanted their little boy to be as happy and lighthearted as every other five-year-old.
But James was determined. ("Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it never will," was his motto.) He still had many more years until he would be classified as Unclaimed—his eighteenth birthday—and he refused to give up on his soulmate.
It was hard, though, to stay optimistic, as month after month his arm remained bare of anything other than his "Hello".
Shortly after his sixth birthday, his message got erased and he forgot to rewrite it. He decided with a heavy heart to not rewrite it; nearly eight months of disappointment had really been weighing on him, and he decided to let it happen when it happened. If it happened.
However, he did indulge himself twice a year, on his birthday and on New Year's; he would write "Hello" and let it fade naturally from his skin when he got no reply.
His eleventh birthday came and went—he didn't bother writing to the soulmate he feared didn't exist—and the holidays were soon approaching.
This year, he finally stayed awake until midnight, and when the cheering and singing began, he penned a quick "Hello, Happy New Year" onto his forearm.
He went to bed with a heart heavier than any eleven-year-old's should be. Even though he still had six and a half years to go until he would be officially Unclaimed, he already accepted his fate. He should have known better than to get his hopes up, but he really, really wanted a soulmate, a best friend, and to be someone else's soulmate. It hurt to think that he couldn't be matched with anyone on Earth.
"Give us a smile, Jamie," his mum murmured, her heart breaking for her son as she tucked him into bed as fireworks echoed in the distance.
His lips curled up into a stiff attempt of a smile, and his mother sighed. She pressed her lips to his forehead and whispered, "I know this is hard for you, James. Try not to be too discouraged. There's nothing wrong with not having a soulmate. Not everyone has one, and that's okay. I hate seeing you like this sweetheart. I miss my little boy and his beautiful smile. Can you do that for me James, and try and be happy with yourself?"
James sighed. He loved his mum and dad dearly, but they just couldn't possibly understand it. They were each other's soulmate, and weren't able to fully understand the heartache of being one of the Unclaimed.
But he forced his smile to look more genuine. He really did want to try and be happy with his life as it was, because he was tired of feeling so exhausted and anxious all the time as he waited for a message that never came.
He resolved to take joy everywhere he could find it.
"Yeah," he said, reaching up to give his mother a hug. "Love you. Night, Mum."
"Goodnight sweetheart. Happy New Year."
When he awoke the next morning, James forced himself not to look at his arm. This was Day One of his New Year's resolution.
He was able to keep the resolution for all of eight minutes.
In the shower, he extended his left arm out in front of him to run the soapy washcloth over it, and as he made a pass over his wrist, a flash of red caught his eye.
His hands shook as he rotated his wrist closer to his eyes. Scrawled sloppily under his smeared message was a simple "Hello" in red ink.
"Mum! Dad!"
He hastily threw on a bathrobe, not caring he was soaking wet and still had soap bubbles clinging to his skin.
His parents frantically met him in the hallway, worried something was terribly wrong. But they saw their son dripping water onto their carpet with his arm proudly outstretched to show them the smudged message his soulmate wrote him. His mother smiled tearfully at him, her heart bursting with love and happiness for him, and she pressed a delicate kiss to the ink on his arm and then to his temple before shooing him back to the shower.
"But what if it washes off?" he asked fearfully, continuing to drip onto the carpet as he refused to move. "I need to write them back so they know I'm not ignoring them!"
"I think they'll understand you need to shower, love," his mum said, turning him by the shoulders and marching him to the bathroom, where the shower was still running.
James reluctantly finished his shower with great haste, and when he dressed himself (with his shirt on backwards), he ran to his room, grabbed a pen, and wrote, "Hello! I'm James."
He waited a few minutes, but nothing appeared. His heart sank. He hadn't imagined it all, did he? He paced his room, fixed his shirt, and reorganized his books. When he put the last book back, a hint of red caught his eye.
Rose.
"Rose," he breathed, staring at the words on his arm. They were big and messy and the 's' looked like it was capitalized and the heavy inking around the 'e' made it appear as though the letter was attempted several times before she finally got it right. James realized it was written in a child's hand.
"How old are you?" he wrote.
A few minutes passed until green ink appeared on his arm.
"5." After a few seconds, more ink appeared: "And a half."
"Five years old," he marveled. No wonder she couldn't write me back… she can barely write now. No matter… "Nice to meet you Rose," he wrote, smiling at his arm.
"James?"
He jumped when he heard his father's voice in the doorway.
"James, breakfast is getting cold, mate."
"Her name is Rose," he said, showing his arm to his father. "Isn't that the prettiest name you ever heard?"
His father smiled and ruffled James's damp hair. "Yep, right after Vera and James. I'm very happy for you, son. But come on, time for breakfast."
James tucked his pen in his pocket and followed his dad to the dining room. "How old were you when you started talking to Mum? What did you write? Who started it? Did you ever worry you were gonna be Unclaimed? When did you first meet Mum? When can I meet Rose? Do I have to wait 'til we're both eighteen? That's forever away!"
His father chuckled; he knew his son would be unstoppable now. The lad had always soaked up all the information he could and never rested until his curiosity was satisfied.
So over the next several days, James had heard (nearly) every last detail of how his parents met and got to know each other. They encouraged him to talk with Rose as much as he wanted, but they also reminded him that she was still very little, and could still hardly read or write, and her smaller attention span meant it might take a while for her to write him back.
But James wasn't discouraged. He was so overjoyed that he had a soulmate that he was quite content with communicating with Rose whenever and however she could.
He learned that Rose really liked to draw, and his arms were often decorated with random shapes, colors, stick figures, flowers, and anything else that Rose's imagination came up with. James thought every drawing she made him was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he always told her that she'd grow up to be an artist.
Artists dont mayk mone, was her reply.
"You shouldn't worry about money," he wrote, frowning. "Do what you like."
Not wat mummy says.
James scowled at his arm.
"Well, I say you can do whatever you like, because you're brilliant," he wrote, nodding resolutely.
Thanks James. James smiled at his arm and tucked himself under his blankets, almost ready to go to sleep, when more ink appeared. Your my best frend.
James's heart fluttered in his chest as he wrote, "You're my best friend, too, Rose."