Soulmates ✓

01 | The Beginning

Shay wasn't always this scarred from the inside out. She wasn't always this lonely either. A few years back, Shay had Aarav and Ryan, the identical twins, as her best friends. Then one day, she fell in love with one of them.

Everything made sense back then, including her admiration for the Tripathi twins.

Shay was neighbors with the twins. With their parents being friends, they were born in the same hospital, just a room apart. From the very beginning, they were the three amigos, soulmates, in every sense, tied to hips from the day they started their playschool.

The boys shared similar looks having close-cropped raven hair and midnight black irises. They had the same smiles with notorious habits. Maybe, Aarav had a little more mischief in him.

Everyone confused them for one another most of the time, except Shay. She could identify them uniquely, at any time. Call it the growing up together thing. Shay would know who they were with a mere look in their eyes. How couldn't she? After all, every time she looked into Aarav's eyes, it reached such depths of her heart that Ryan never could - or maybe, she never bothered to look closely enough.

Aarav was her first and true love.

She wasn't falling into the depths of his eyes when they were kids. The three of them played in the same park as children. They learned to ride bikes together and studied together in her house or sometimes their house. They built sandcastles at the beach and busted firecrackers in the classroom. The latter was always Aarav's idea, but Shay and Ryan loved it anyway.

She had never thought she could fall for one of them when they looked identical. However, they were not the same when it came to their personalities.

Aarav was the sensitive one, and often had issues with his father. As for their grades, Aarav and Shay always struggled to secure decent numbers while Ryan topped the class. And Aarav was the one who never had a single clue about his future. He didn't have any plans after school, or any dream college in mind. He believed in carpe diem, and maybe that was why Shay admired him even more. His free spirit.

Their mother's death broke Aarav the most. He was devastated, on edge, and falling off the hook most of the time. He needed Shay more than Ryan ever needed her.

That's how it began. He needed Shay, and she was there. But then everyone, including Ryan, started to fade around them. Together, they became a whole.

When Shay looked in the mirror after school, she saw a seventeen-year-old girl who now used cherry lip tint on her lips when she hung out with the twins, making sure her skin remained blemish-free, and her hair always in place. She wanted to look beautiful for the guy who would hold her hand when they crossed the streets or sat beside her on the school bus. She always wanted to be perfect for Aarav. Almost perfect. Shay did have a super cranky mood which swirled every so often but whatever. She was never the one to complain about herself, nor did she care about others' opinions.

Shay wasn't aware of these subtle changes in her friendship with Aarav until their twelfth grade. They were still friends, like Shay and Ryan. Always there for each other as friends. Shay didn't associate with any other guy in the school, and being the daughter of the town's attorney wasn't favorable in case of guys asking her out headfirst.

It wasn't until the last few months of the school that Ivan Acharya approached her in the library. At first, he wanted to make sure she wasn't dating Ryan, which was weird. If anyone, she would be with Aarav.

"No, I'm not dating Ryan, never going to." Shay frowned at her sharp response. Not that she liked Ryan any less. However, when it came to a romantic relationship with either of the twins, she could visualize Aarav for a second but never Ryan. Nonetheless, the three of them had been friends until then, just friends. So, she didn't even hesitate when Ivan showed interest.

"That's a relief. I'll pick you up at seven. We'll go to Mickey's." When Ivan got convinced Shay was not dating either of the Tripathi twins, he asked her out.

Ivan wasn't a bad option as the possible competition for the twins. Ivan had brownish hair compared to the raven-haired twins and built on lean muscles with a smile that reached his eyes. But then Ivan didn't have the charming personality the Tripathi twins had. He wasn't all that smart and funny either.

But she wasn't ready to slip past her only chance to have a high school affair. All because of the two brothers who were way too perfect to set the comparison bar. Also, Ivan was the second most popular guy after the twins.

Curious eyes followed them when they walked out of the library together, hand in hand. Shay had only ever held hands with Aarav and Ryan, so it did feel a little off at first, but the jealous eyeballs were so worth it.

That evening she picked her best dress out of the dresser. It was a navy blue, form-fitting summer dress, and she matched it with caramel boots. She made light makeup that accentuated her natural beauty and highlighted her brown eyes.

There, Shay waited on the front porch of her house for an hour, bouncing on her heels and feeling a silent rage bubbling inside her. If Ivan were to stand her up today, she would paint ugly scratches on his new Chevrolet. She made up her mind to that. But deep down, Shay started feeling dreadful about the whole situation. She had sent a single text to Ivan an hour ago - but never received a response. That might have been a good reason to stop waiting.

Just when she cursed the guy internally, a white Chevrolet pulled over her driveway, and not a minute after, a black-eyed Ivan stepped out of the car. He looked in the direction of Tripathi Villa once before finally letting his gaze land on her red, angry face.

"Ivan-"

"Sorry, Shay," he cut her off almost impatiently and with a wince. She noticed a deep cut across his lower lip. "I can't go out with you, now or ever."

"You certainly don't have time to go on a date when you're busy getting into some angsty teenage fight." Shay gritted her teeth, huffing out a haughty laugh. "At least have some balls to say that before keeping a girl waiting for your sorry ass."

He shook his head, almost like he was trying hard not to explode in front of her. She could see the hesitance in his stride as he stepped closer and then pulled back again.

"Shay, listen." He ran his bloodied knuckles through his messy hair, released a groan, and continued. "Just know that I didn't want to embarrass you, but you should have told me about the Tripathi situation."

Ivan's words hit her like a truck. "The what?" She huffed in disbelief. "What Tripathi situation are you talking about?"

"Why don't you ask your best friends about it?" He scoffed, shoving his hands inside his pockets and walking back to his car.

Shay snapped her head towards the house across the street and then to Ivan. "Ivan, wait!"

He didn't.

As Ivan's car backed out of her driveway, she pulled her hair and released a shaky breath. The twins had become strangers all of a sudden. Shay was a hundred different kinds of confused. Maybe, she needed to inquire with the twins about this Tripathi situation.

***

AUTHOR'S NOTE

So finally, a new story begins! If you are enjoying it, please add your comments and votes. They always motivate me to write further. I'll be updating this story twice a week, but I'm not giving up. So, buckle up for another bumpy ride!