Lifetime

Lollapalooza

After a long night of sulking in the lonely feeling I had every time I entered the space where I no longer had a soulmate to attach to, I took the familiar route to Yoongi's apartment so that his landlord could conduct a final walk-through.

He'd already been through the apartment by the time I arrived, turning over a parcel wrapped in beige paper in his hand.

"You're Seline?" He asked, his thick Italian accent making my name sound prettier than it was. He held out the package, my name written across the front in Yoongi's print. I thanked him, handing over the key before finding a spot in the stairwell to rip the paper from the item he left behind.

My lips curved into a smile as the cover of the first album we listened to together was unraveled, a ripped piece of paper where he'd scrawled his phone number taped to the front. I plucked it off, feeling disappointed that we were finally at the true moment where popping up at each other's apartments every time we wanted to see each other wouldn't be an option anymore.

We maintained a small connection through text messaging for a while, but at the risk of sounding greedy, it wasn't enough to have just a crumb of him. The distance and occasional conversation heightened my longing for more, creating a void the opposite of that when we kissed, an emptiness that only left me miserable.

As the number of times we spoke faded with his busy schedule and my avoidance, I dove into working as much as possible to save money and exploring options for college in the coming year. Between the three jobs I was working and constant fulfillment of every emotional or material need I wanted, I was adhering to Faye's suggestion that I pour all the love I had for my soulmates into myself.

Self-care wasn't just the bubble baths, monthly pedicures or shopping sprees I had with Faye. It was also middle of the night ice cream runs, daydreaming about my soulmates, and sleeping past noon.

By the end of March I'd received my acceptance letter to SAIC, remembering my mom's reaction every time I'd been accepted into a college during my senior year. Faye gave a similar energy, using it as an excuse to splurge on a nice dinner.

At the beginning of summer I was delivered a piece of mail from Yoongi that struck even greater excitement, lucky that it arrived before Faye and I were set to move into our new apartment the following week. I tore the envelope carefully, two VIP passes to Lollapalooza falling onto the counter.

Faye snatched them up immediately, turning them over in her hand in disbelief. We'd looked into tickets when the dates of the festival were first announced, even before the artist line-up was revealed, but with moving it didn't seem like the best decision financially.

"Okay, I don't know about the other soulmates but I say we get back together with Yoongi." Faye exclaimed. "I haven't even looked at the line-up because I was busy sulking about not being able to go. I've heard people saying that Eminem and Kings of Leon will be there though." She was bouncing on her toes with glee.

I was already searching for the poster from my phone, scrolling through the artists that would perform over the three-day show and calling out the ones who stood out most, arranged by level of fame. "Okay, we've got Outkast, Nas, Arctic Monkeys, Lorde, Childish Gambino, The 1975, Jhene Aiko," the number of names I recognized slowed as I scrolled through the list. "Shut the hell up." I stood, zooming into the poster.

"I haven't heard of that last one." Faye replied, confusion pressed into her forehead.

"No, it's Yoongi." I blinked at the page before turning my phone around, pointing out his stage name, Agust D, in a smaller print just four rows from the end of the list.

Faye squinted her eyes at my screen, squealing so loudly that I had to cover my ears. "Okay this is important, I have so much to do. I need to go to the fabric shop. I'm thinking of a cowgirl look for the first day, maybe with fringe. Would you prefer sparkly or leather, or even better, pink?" She was already gathering her keys, rambling as she flooded with ideas for the outfits she wanted to make.