Nobody was sure how or why it worked, but the aging policy was constantly on everyone's minds. At a certain age, aging stopped altogether until you found your soulmate. Your other half. The one who you would be able to grow old with in peace. Some people lived centuries in wait. Others barely skipped a beat. Finding a soulmate had become an obsession for many. But not for Jane Crocker.
She wasn't the type to dwell too long on something she desperately wanted. She just took each day as it came. She had a decent life, and a few good friends. A soulmate might be nice, but what more did she need?
Roxy Lalonde was a different story. She was a hopeless romantic at heart, and dreamed of her perfect soulmate sweeping her off her feet. This type of thinking had gotten her plenty of trouble and broken hearts. Oftentimes it was Jane who she went to when things got low for her. Like the time when a certain someone was completely oblivious to her affections and flat-out rejected her in front of half the school. Or when a particularly bad breakup pushed her into a bottle, and she had to fight claw her way out of it. She still wasn't entirely out, and sometimes she ended up vomiting in a bathroom at a party with Jane rubbing her back and whispering reassurances.
Roxy and Jane had been through it all, and that's why they decided to move into an apartment together after they graduated high school. They had both been accepted into the same college, after all. It was only practical, and besides. It would be like having a sleepover every night! (Roxy lived for sleepovers.)
Roxy was majoring in computer science. Jane had been indecisive, and chose to study business, as it was fairly applicable to everyday life. Roxy spent her days trying to find her soulmate, and continued to be unsuccessful. Jane focused on her studies, and kept Roxy on track. (Roxy was a smart girl, but she had a tendency to get distracted.)
They had long since reached the magic age of 18. Their bodies stayed exactly as they were when they turned 18. Their hair ceased to grow. Their periods stopped (much to the relief of both, who had horrible cramps). Their bodies would never grow and change until their soulmate was found. Neither expected to age for a long time.
~000~
That's odd. Roxy was studying herself in the bathroom mirror one morning, partway through her junior year in college. Everything seemed the same as always, except that her hair seemed longer. It had been perpetually chin-length ever since her eighteenth birthday. Now, looked about an inch or two longer. How had she not noticed before? Had she really found her soulmate in the past few months? As she ate breakfast with Jane, she found herself filled with an overwhelming sense of curiosity.
~000~
That's odd. Jane had been feeling pains in her abdomen all day. They started as a minor annoyance, but it got to the point where she could hardly pay attention in class. It was oddly reminiscent of the horrendous PMS she suffered during high school. Naturally, her period had stopped after she turned 18. She tried to search for a logical explanation for this as she took some Tylenol and baked cupcakes with Roxy that evening, their favorite hobby after homework was finished. Jane was always a very plain girl. Sure, she was nice and people liked her, but she always ended up blending into the background. Jane had never even dated anyone before, just because she had no particular interest in it. But all signs so far showed that she was aging again, and she didn't even know who her soulmate was.
~000~
A month passed, and then another. Soon, it had been six months since they had noticed these odd signs. Other signs had started coming up for both of them. However, neither wanted to have to leave their perfect life in the apartment. Jane would miss the daily struggle of getting Roxy out of bed every morning in time for classes. Roxy would miss Jane's delicious baked goods and the way she would always provide kindness and comfort no matter the situation. So, they did the best to cover up what they could. They hid their supplies for their monthly bleeding in various little hiding places in the apartment. They both went and got their hair trimmed every couple months to continue the illusion of hair that never grew. But after a time, some things changed that couldn't be hidden.
One day, Jane was scrolling through her photos on her computer and noticed that Roxy seemed different now from the images on her screen. She couldn't quite place it. Roxy, on the other hand, noticed that Jane seemed different in a similar way.
While they were sitting across from each other that night working on homework, they both looked up from their studies at the same time and caught each other's gaze. Jane's cyan eyes met Roxy's startlingly pink ones, and at that moment, they finally understood.
They both felt an overwhelming sense of completion as they embraced, as if they had each been missing a part of their soul for quite some time, and they had just realized it had been right there all along.
~000~
Really not my best work, but there you go. I wrote something.
