Destiny and fate are things that are often hard to understand. Some people would rather not believe in any predetermined path for their life, while others spend their whole lives looking forward to the day they meet their soulmate. Not even the world's leading scientists can quite determine just what causes soulmarks to appear, and what exactly determines who one's soulmate will be. These are questions which may never truly be answered, and as long as the true nature of this phenomenon remains a mystery, nobody can say for certain why soulmarks work the way they do. Whatever the truth behind these markings may be, we can take a small amount of comfort in knowing that there really is someone out there for everyone, even if their paths in life never cross.
"Now, as romantic as having a soulmate is in theory, there are a few things you all need to know about," the teacher said, tapping the blackboard with her ruler. "For one thing, are there any of you here who don't have a soulmark?"
There was a lot of awkward muttering and scuffing of chairs against the tiled floor of the classroom. Nobody in the class raised their hand.
"Okay," said the teacher with one of those little sighs that meant she'd been expecting somebody to put their hand up. "How about somebody with multiple soulmarks?"
More muttering; more scuffing; and still nobody raised their hand. The atmosphere inside the classroom was quickly growing painfully thick with tension. At least a few people in the class of thirty-some second-graders probably either didn't have a soulmark or had more than one, but nobody wanted to be the one to come out and admit it in front of all their friends.
"Still no?" On a third try, the teacher asked, "What about people whose soulmarks are a name usually given to the people of the same gender they are?"
This time the question was only met with confusion. In the back of the classroom, a girl with hazel eyes and long brown hair rolled up her sleeve and studied her soulmark for what was probably the millionth time. The handwriting in which the name was written was growing neater every day now; her soulmate must have been taking classes to improve their handwriting skills.
Up at the front of the classroom, the teacher cleared her throat. "If a person is the same gender as you, it means that you're both boys or both girls. Usually boys have girls as soulmates, but sometimes two boys or two girls fall in love with each other."
"That's weird," a boy who sat in the front row announced loudly, garnering a few snickers from his obnoxious gaggle of peers.
Another kid who sat towards the back of the class put her hand up. "My mommy says people like that are bad, and that God is going to punish them."
"Well, that is what some people believe," the teacher said through gritted teeth that were fixed into the shape of a smile. "But I think we should try to be accepting of everyone, no matter what our differences may be. Isn't that right, class?"
The hazel-eyed girl in the back of the classroom pulled her sleeve back down, covering up the cute, curly lettering. She didn't want to put her hand up, to become the subject of her classmates' ridicule, but the teacher had said they were supposed to...
It took the teacher a moment to notice her sitting there with her hand raised. The quiet girl who sat alone at the back and stared out the window was hard to notice amidst all the loud, rambunctious students. But the teacher did see, and the teacher did call on her, with a smile bright enough to quell her insecurities at least for a while.
"Yes, Gretchen?"
"Um, the thing you said about girls having other girls as soulmates?" Gretchen fiddled with the already frayed cuff of her sleeve, wanting to unroll it again but insecure about what her classmates might say. "I think that's me. I mean... I think my soulmate is a girl."
"That's wonderful, Gretchen; thank you for sharing!" On the blackboard, the teacher put a checkmark next to where she had written "SAME GENDER" in big blocky letters. "We welcome diversity in this class, don't we?"
She was met with a few "yeah"'s and a couple "I guess so"'s, some sounding more reluctant than others. From there the lesson moved on to theories behind the origin of soulmarks, and Gretchen was left to sit in the cross-hatches of her classmates' burning stares for the rest of the school day.