Soulmates ✓

Ghosts; The Lost Wish

There used to be a field on the ridge behind their school building. Shay always found Aarav sitting in the middle of those beautiful weeds or sometimes lying on his back, mostly when he missed his mother or had an argument with his father or Ryan was too stuck up with his student council. Shay would always find him there. It was also their escape from the rest of the world.

Sitting cross-legged facing each other, they would watch each other silently for hours. Aarav would brush the soft brown waves of hair falling over Shay's face yet would somehow end up creating even more unmanageable tangles. Shay loved the defeated huffs he would release and the way he would end up twisting her around so he could braid those angry strands of her hair. His fingers on her scalp created the most heavenly feeling. And so did his moody tantrums, his charming smile, and the way he would lace their fingers together, lying on their backs together, side by side, looking up at the setting sun surrounded by the wild flowers and dandelions.

"Make a wish, Shay," Aarav would say, holding the feathery puffball close to her face. His eyes sparkled with so much belief. Shay would laugh, throwing her head back at how childish he would behave at times, like a hopeless romantic who wrote poetry on her smile and wished upon dandelions. Shay would laugh even more when he would caress her cheek, along the column of her neck and arm with that damn flower, then bring it close to his lips, and would wish.

"What did you wish for, lover boy?" Shay would rest her chin on his sternum and gaze up into his black orbs, shining under the dying rays of the sun. His face would hold both mischief and love.

"I wished for our forever." Aarav would say, brushing his knuckles on the side of her face. "You should make a wish too, someday. They say only one in a million wishes get fulfilled in the cosmos. Maybe, your wish will get fulfilled before mine."

Shay would smile, looking up at him. "Maybe. I will make a wish next time."

"Maybe there won't be a next time." A sad smile would tug at the corner of his lips, and nothing broke her heart more than sadness marring the boy's charm. She would hold his face in her palms and bring her lips to his. And they would kiss like that till the sun went down.

Shay should have made that wish because Aarav was right. The next time she went to that field, the sun was there, the wind blew through her hair, the flowers swayed around, but Aarav wasn't there with her. His wish went away somewhere far.

Forever was lost in the cosmos.

Shay should have made that wish...