Marked by Love #SpringIntoLove Contest

Marked

The noose placed around my neck at birth tightened a little as I looked down at the cluster of stars on the inside of my elbow. Pressing my thumb against the marks, I frantically scrubbed, somehow hoping the vibrant crimson would rub away, knowing that it wouldn't.

As my bus pulled away from the curb, I scanned the faces on the sidewalk, wondering who else's world had been turned upside down. Were they feeling the same sense of panic and suffocation that I was?

Knowing my time was limited didn't make things any easier. I was already headed back home, leaving this little college town behind. I hadn't wanted to come any way. Forced by my parents to visit campus because this was where my grandparents had met. "Give it a chance," my father had said. "You might like it. There are more options than staying close to home."

Now, he'd sealed my fate. The mark had darkened and I knew once my mother saw, she'd never let me go to school in California. I had a year to find him before the marks would disappear, along with my chance at love.

~

Sixteen weeks. Only thirty six more weeks until the mark would fade. Find him or lose my soulmate forever. I wouldn't turn out like Aunt Trina, four husbands later and just as empty as before. I wasn't ready to find my twin soul, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't. And time was already running out.

"Just take a breath, Jules. Eight months is plenty of time to find him," my mom cupped my cheek. We'd just finished unloading my things into the dorm. Easy enough for her to say, she'd sat next to my father the first day of second grade, and that had been that. They'd been together ever since.

"This whole thing is bullshit," I pouted. Who's sick joke was it to tie you to another person and spring them on you when you least expected it. A sick bastard, that's who.

"Julia Marie," she chided, her eyes doing that crazy mom stare. She was a hopeless romantic, loving to pry and ask people about how they met their own mark.

"I know, mom," I sighed. "I'll know when I see him."

~

Thirty weeks... now I was running out of time. I was sure I looked like a crazed person, scanning all the guys I passed on a daily basis, hoping to catch a flash of crimson on the inside of their forearm.

"Jules," a deep voice sounded from my left, drawing my concentration from the paper I'd been researching.

"Hmm?"

"You're Jules, right?"

"I'm a little busy here," I replied, not having time to waste. My deadline was in two days and I had two thousand more words to write.

"This will just take a minute," he laughed, pulling out the chair next to me. His sleeves were rolled up, a tiny little triangle of crimson visible on his forearm below the faded flannel.

My heart pounded as my eyes snapped to his face, a wide smile pulled across his lips, deep brown eyes intently staring, framed by dark lashes. His curly dark brown hair was an untamed mess on the top of his head, but I still couldn't find it in myself to look away. Ah, shit. It was him.

~

It wasn't him. The mark didn't match. Blake's forearm had a mark, but it wasn't a cluster of stars, it was a crescent, and he already had a boyfriend. Back to square one.

~

"Jules, pay attention," Blake sighed as we looked down at the instructions for the chemistry lab we were completing.

"I am paying attention," I snapped.

"No, you're not. You're staring at people's arms again. You need to relax."

"You need to relax," I grumbled as I sat back on my stool. This was ridiculous. Maybe I just wasn't meant to find him.

"That's it. You're coming out with us tonight, no more of this obsessive moping crap."

Normally, I would've argued, insisting I needed to stay in and do homework. But I was tired. Tired of worrying, tired of obsessing, just tired of even caring about ever finding my other half.

~

"Damn, girl. You look hot," Sawyer grasped my forearms, his thumb brushing the stars.

Blake stepped in behind him. "Not as good as you, but maybe we'll manage to catch the eye of this mystery man tonight."

"Eh," I sighed. I'd kind of resigned myself to becoming a cat lady. As long as they didn't eat me when I died alone and loveless. On second thought, no cats.

"It'll be fun. I just have a feeling," Blake smiled. The crazy thing was that he was usually right.

~

It was hard to see where Blake and Sawyer were gyrating against each other in the middle of the throng of dancers.

Too shy to accept any of the offers I'd had to dance, none of them with visible inner forearm markings, I watched from a corner.

"Who are we hiding from?" a voice asked, too close to me for comfort. I tried to step away, but the wall was there. And now I just looked like an idiot.

"No one," I mumbled and then turned to get a better look.

Wow. Just wow. He was tall. The phrase roguishly handsome came to mind when I took in his chin length, artfully wavy hair. Dark hair, light eyes, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

I felt myself blushing as his smile widened, and then froze as he raised his arm to push his hair behind his ear.

There they were. A small cluster of red stars in the crook of his elbow, just below the rolled up cuffs of his dark shirt.

"I'm Finn." He offered his hand to me, gesturing to the busy dance floor behind him. Panic seized me momentarily before I took a breath, clasped his hand, and took a leap of fate.