Okay so I saw this post on Tumblr about people having a countdown until they find their soulmate on their wrist, and I just had to.
Call really didn't believe in the clocks ticking on his wrist, not at all. He didn't really believe in that soulmate crap, or maybe he just wanted to tell himself that so he didn't feel sappy, or so he wouldn't be disappointed. Because his dad's was gone and it had left a scar like a burn, pink and slightly shriveled and dry. He rubbed it sometimes and he always looked so dead inside, and he knew he had been since his mother had died. He didn't look alive even when he was fixing up cars.
He only really looked hopeful, almost alive, when he looked at Call. Then he'd be too animated, too angry when he told him about magic, and he went misty-eyed talking about Call's mom, showing him old photos.
He'd looked absolutely livid this morning, driving to the airplane hangar. He still looked livid now, hands clasped as he told Call to go on and fail, fail for him.
Secretly he'd always felt like something was wrong with him, many things, really. His leg, which popped and ached and felt like a fire in his bones. The look of astonishment when older people with smooth, unmarked wrists, the ones who had found their love, would find out he didn't have one. And now magic. What wasn't wrong with him?
Call didn't understand why he'd never had a countdown until this morning, and now he had three, ticking down to the beat of his heart or an ominous drum. One was faster than the other, one had months on the clock, and another had only a few minutes. Call scanned the crowd. He wondered what it would be like, anyway, finding someone. Especially when he was only twelve.
His father told him magic was dangerous, but he thought love was more dangerous still. In this society people were born to find love and he'd never wanted it. Call didn't want the magic either, he wanted to rip it out of him along with the three clocks that looked like they were tattooed in his skin.
One clock was counting off seconds, and Call felt like maybe he was about to flatline. The other was ticking off minutes. The faster one was labeled 'platonic', one was labeled 'romantic' the other, the one with months left, had no label at all.
Call jumped when the timer stopped at 0, blinking a few times. Someone bumped into him, a pretty Iranian girl dressed fancily with a gold necklace around her throat.
"You too?" her dark eyes asked.
He didn't want to say yes but he nodded a little.
"My name is Tamara." She said.
"Call."
Then Tamara was tapped on the shoulder by an Asian boy, and she was dragged away with an apologetic look.
"Don't talk to the gimpy clown, Tamara!" he imagined the boy saying when he smirked a little.
Call let the Mages, the most evil beings imaginable, sort him into groups and lead him away.
Call sat down and tugged his jacket over his wrist. The one labeled 'romantic' was ticking off milliseconds as the Mage lady with a pink streak in her hair talked.
The blonde boy in front of him turned, smiling a smile far too bright.
Call felt the timer stop.
Oh God no. This kid was the epitome of everything he scoffed at, like those Under-Armor shirts the jocks at his school wore, which said things like "My game is sick, you're lucky it's not contagious". Complete with the blue soccer jacket that said "STEWART 66" on the back. His sleeves were pulled over his arms, but Call knew, and hated it, that his was at zero too.