Have You Ever Seen the Sun Rise at Midnight?

Love

     It wasn't supposed to be like this.

      "One day you'll find your soulmate," your mother had always reassured, "and when you do, everything will just feel right."

      There was no way to tell for sure when someone found their One, no convenient birthmark or secret phrase, but sometimes you would just know. Maybe not right away, but when the time was right.  Some described it as a sudden realization, or as if the world fell away behind them. Some a feeling of warmth or just simply that they knew. 

      So when marriages fell apart, or people fell out of love, it was easy to just say, "Oh, I guess they didn't find the One after all."   And it was easy, to say to just "move on". To say that you'd find your One eventually.

    Too easy. 

      And those who were told that were left feeling even more broken and alone because... when you knew, you knew.  And they had just lost their One, yet no one seemed to understand. You hadn't understood either.

You understood how it felt now. Because when you knew, you knew.

       And their words only left you feeling all the more isolated, because you understood now, but they, you're friends and family,... they did not. So when all your friends and family had told you to get out, you had stayed, you had hesitated.

     Sure, your One didn't value you, like you had expected, they didn't treat you like they once had, back in the beginning, but they were your One, and maybe... maybe it just... took some adjusting too. ...maybe you didn't have to be alone.

      Now their knife was as cold as their love and as sharp as their gentle words, as it pressed against your neck.

"I don't ask for much from you, do I?" They demanded, "We agreed you would stay here and I would continue my job. We don't even have kids for you to take care of. All you had to do was keep this place clean and be able to go to my work dinners with me. Why couldn't you just do that?"

"I..." you're eyes watered and a thousand different protests welled up in your mouth.

"My father always told me to watch out. You're no good. Why, of all people, did I have to be stuck weighed down with you?" Not even they tried to deny it.

"You don't want to do this." You whispered, any louder and your own doubt in those words would shine through.

"I need to make my family proud. I was so close before you came along." They returned, "and what do you do? You mess things up every single time. My mother said some people get a second chance at soul mates... if the first is dead. Maybe... maybe I still have some hope to succeed.  To..." they swallowed hard, "To make them proud."

"We can- please."

"No." Their voice broke and the knife slid across your throat. You choked wetly on your own blood, the words you wanted to say refusing to come out and instead blood just choked out staining your face red. It hurt. You stared pleadingly at them as they drew back, their hands were shaking.

     "No..." they whispered backing away and shaking their head. They turned and fled, leaving you bleeding, but there was a new determination in their step as they walked away, one you hadn't seen in them before and you had to wonder. Was it true?

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

But you knew the secret for sure now, even if it wouldn't be for much longer.

      The secret about soulmates... is that they don't negate free will.  That shot at a perfect, unconditional love didn't negate all that each had gone through separately in their own lives before meeting.

      Oh you may start out perfectly matched for each other, but the world warps and changes you, some more than others, so that by the end of it all you really aren't meant for each other at all. No more than a diamond trying to fit itself into a square hole. Because people made choices and those choices, whether their own or others, changed them and those around them.  For better or worse, what might have been a perfect love was no longer.

      But why?

      Why did it have to be you who learned this secret?

       Is it bad that I've always just wanted to explore the dark side of the soul mate troupe. All the jealousy, the pain, the exploitation, the free will, the nitty gritty dark side of "true love". 

     The does it keep you from changing as a person?

      The is it a removal of your free will? 

     The what if they're like a serial killer or something? ...actually a lot of people probably have done that. But still.

      Anyway, probably going to be the idea for some of my stories I work on in the future.

     As always,

-T.A.L.A.