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My mother didn't believe me when I was seven and said I was on fire. Not real fire, more like...an encompassing cloud of night that burned and burned around me. I could feel the heat, could smell smoke. I was in pain. I'd woken her up in the middle of the night screaming for help. I think it had vanished before she reached me.
The doctors who checked me over didn't believe me either,
That was when they put me on the anti-anxiety pills.
"I'm sorry this is happening to you, baby," my mother had said the next night, stroking my hair as I cried into her side.
"I'm broken," I'd sobbed. "I'm crazy and wrong and I hate taking pills. The pills make me feel bad."
"They'll help. I promise, you just have to let them start working. There's nothing broken in you. You're just different, you have to work a little harder than the rest of us. You're tougher than the rest of us."
"I'm not tough," I'd said, wiping snot on my sleeve.
"You are. You'll see, everything will be okay."
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Of course, it wasn't.
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Something in me clicks when I see Edward Cullen two days later. It's the way he's standing, arms crossed and surveying the spread of cubicles on the 34th floor.
Like he's looking from the top of the world down at people the size of ants.
I drop the folder I'm holding, pages of notes from the meeting Cheney has just had with a team of salesmen. Papers go everywhere and Jessica hisses at me to, "get it together."
His eyes dart to me as I scramble to clean up the mess, hands shaking and a cold sweat breaking out across the back of my neck.
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I walk past him on my way to lunch, bypassing the cafeteria and saying, "I'm going for a walk."
It takes a minute for him to realize I want him to follow me, but he catches up by the time I reach the elevator. We spend the descent in separate corners, an IT guy between us using the time in which the owner of the company is trapped next to him to discuss the outdated desktop computers in his department. Edward Cullen nods and promises to make changes the entire ride down.
Meanwhile, my heart is racing and my palms are sweaty and I'm doing my best to not look at him.
When we're finally outside, I take in a breath, thankful for the brisk temperature for once, and start walking down the sidewalk while he tries to give the IT guy the slip.
I'm turning onto the next block when he reaches me again, keeping pace silently as I lead us down an alley.
"Are you going to mug me?" he jokes as I turn to face him. His smile fades at the sight of my expression.
"I know."
"You know what?"
"I know."
He pales, but says nothing.
That's all the confirmation I need.
I reach for him and he flinches when my hand makes contact with his cheek. I exhale a shaky breath, warmth flooding me and electricity buzzing in my veins. All those nights of wanting to know what was under that stupid maskā¦
His hand covers mine, his palm is calloused and his grip is impossibly gentle. His eyes flash that bright jade color I've grown to crave and I feel as if I could glow, too.
Words become unimportant as his other hand moves to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes, his fingers trailing down the side of my neck. I shudder at the touch.
"Things would be easier if we'd never met," he murmurs and I still, heat creeping along my cheeks. He starts to backtrack. "You can't-it's not-there are people out there, Bella, who would hurt you because of what you know now. You're the only one who knows and you're just...the only one." His voice cracks at the end.
"I don't care," I say, taking a step back. "I like you. Not just a silly crush but what you are, it's like it calls to me."
"I...you...we should get back to work," he murmurs.
And so, we do.
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The lore of soulmates is known across a variety of cultural histories (the red thread of fate in the east, Plato's Symposium in the west, among others), though it is thought that those stories come from the Real Ones. As certain species of animals do, Real Ones mate for life. Writings, either through essays or letters, show us that there is an instance in a Real One's life when they come across their singular mate-a feeling of wholeness, a magnetic pull, almost as if their souls have spent eternity reaching for each other and as they finally meet, there is a shift within them. Some say the feeling is like a strike of lightning, others have described it as a wave of warmth crashing over them. No matter how it happens, sources agree that it changes everything for them.
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