It was normal. It had been happening since I was little, as long as I could remember. My parents said it was my soulmate. Everyone had one, and everyone had something different from them.

Some received tattoos, some the name was written on their hands, others chests glowed when they met, but mine was far different from any of the others I had seen or heard of.

Flowers appeared on me. Grew through my skin. They didn't hurt, but it took me until I was in middle school to finally realize why they showed up.

Flowers from skinned knees, stubbed toes, scraped elbows, but not my own. They came from my soulmates accidents. Whenever they'd get hurt, no matter in what way or how bad, the flowers would show up in my skin. They weren't all bad, most were small, beautiful buds of daisies or tulips. But the bad ones were roses, always roses. The vines would start just above my inner elbow and worm their way through my arms until full roses bloomed on my wrists.

I didn't know what these meant until a close friend told me they had had similar reactions with their soulmate. Small lights would show up on their wrists every now and then, they told me that it hadn't stopped until they found them. They said their soulmate had been hurting themselves on purpose. They'd been cutting their wrists with razors or anything sharp because they thought they'd be alone forever. Maybe that's what mine meant. Or maybe my soulmate was just clumsy or...no. I knew they were hurting themselves and I knew I couldn't let them continue doing it.

It began to hurt me. My chest grew tight. It was no longer nicks from shaving his face. That's how I found out they were male. The shaving. And it was no longer the ankles that were twisted from being a young and rambunctious boy. There was only the wrists.

Bright red, large blooming roses. I hated them. I hated them so much. I clawed at them, but the thorns only ripped at my hands. I couldn't stop them.

I wanted to find them, but I had no where to start. I wasn't even sure what I was looking for. And couldn't even begin to think about where they could possibly live. Anything was possible with this. They could be on the other side of the world, living some life that was torturous and there was nothing I could begin to do about it.

I started using small clippers to cut off the blooms. They began to happen more and more as we grew up, sometimes they even happened when I was out with friends, where I couldn't hide them or just cut them off. I tried to reach out to the internet for help. Asking if anyone had ever had the same sign from their soul mate, but it always came up empty. There was nothing. It was almost like god had done this to me on purpose, gave me someone who needed help but ultimately couldn't be saved.

I stopped going out. I'd leave my family when I started feeling the vines crawling up my arms again. I'd hide in my room for hours. Pulling out petals, cutting off vines. It hurt so much now. I started to scream at them. Ask why, as if the roses knew the answers that I so desperately wanted to know.

And then they stopped. The roses stopped coming. There were weeks without them. Even months. I'd began to forget what they looked like. I saw my friends again. I was able to smile again.

But then my worst nightmare happened. I was out with some friends when I felt them crawling up my arms again. It was strange. So familiar, yet new all the same. The vines were tighter than they once were, and it felt like there was more of them. I excused myself as they started sprouting from my wrists, quicker than ever. I made it to the safety of a restroom before the choking started. I coughed and coughed, gasping for air as something clawed at my neck. I could feel it cutting the inside of my throat. I leaned over the sink and coughed up rose petals. I watched them fall next to the drain. Tears streamed down my face as I coughed up more and more.

When I could breathe again I looked at my wrists and watched the viens curl away from my wrists and down the sides of my arms. They fell and began to die, drooping around my wrists as if they were made of blood. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. So I dropped to the ground and just cried.

They were dead. I was alone.