Universe of Soulmates

"Sixty Minutes Before"

00:60:00:00

The ticking time bomb on my wrist, counting down the milliseconds until I'm supposed to finally meet my soulmate. Everyone else has weeks, months, years until they meet the one, but I'm the only one with an hour left. I mean, I'm the only one who can see it, so it's not like anyone else in my class of seventeen year old immature idiots would ever know. They don't, actually, since I started lying to them about the number ever since I can remember. I can't imagine being judged harshly for something that's out of my control like that, which is why I've lied to them and told them it's years after I'm supposed to. My best friend is long after mine, at the age of twenty-one and three months. No one specifies any further until there's less than a year left, which is why it's easy to get away with a value that is farther away—no one expects you to have a more defined number.

My mother, who does know what the real number is, thinks God made a mistake. That I could not possibly meet my life partner at seventeen. I'm "too young", and am bound to make mistakes that would fire back painfully on my soulmate. My dad's the same way: positive there's no way my timer is correct. Nobody's timer is shorter than twenty years. I mean, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, the shortest time there's ever been is seventeen years, two weeks, three days, six hours, four minutes, three seconds. My clock is only longer than the world record by six days, four hours, twelve minutes, sixteen seconds.

If it were up to me, I'd gladly wait a few more years. If it were up to me, I don't know that I'd ever have one. I'm not even a fan of watching or reading about romance, preferring action-adventure movies and comedies far over seeing guys sap and drool over pretty girls. It's almost vomit-worthy how much money the romance genre makes and how much people (especially of the female gender) fawn over the genre as a whole. My mother would gladly sell the story about when she met my father if anyone would buy it.

She always told me how it went:

...Her spring semi-formal dance for her sorority...
...Dressed in a blue-green floor-length dress...
...The song "Waiting for Zero" playing...
...Turning around to see the most handsome man she's ever seen...
...Her timer hitting zero just as he says hi...

And, the rest is history. First, my older sister by six years was born. She's perfect in every way, becoming an engineer with perfect grades, not meeting her soulmate until she was twenty-two, and looks like a goddess. Next, my older brother by four years. He's not as perfect—I mean, he's a middle child and middle children always have flaws—but he's close. He met his soulmate at twenty years and two months, and is in university for business with a statistics minor. Plus, he looks like he was carved out of marble by God himself. Then, there's me. Plain, old, boring me.

You should be at least twenty.

I can remember at least a dozen times that my own mother would tell me, or some other member of my immediate family that was dying to hear whatever news my mother had to offer. My grandparents knew someone that had met their soulmate earlier than most, but even they think it's odd that I'm going to meet mine so soon. I've just started the next phase of my life—applying for colleges, looking at dormitories, doing my best to keep my grades up—and now I'm going to be stuck with someone I'm supposed to love.

How could fate do this to you?

Fate isn't always kind, mother. Young children die before they can ever meet their soulmate and some people fall in love with those they can't have. I can't even imagine loving someone. Having my every thought consumed by one single person, that doesn't seem to be possible. I don't want that to happen, not with all the standardized tests I'm supposed to be studying for (which I tend to put off in favor of binging TV shows), essays I'm supposed to write for English and projects for AP Art (with a concentration in ebony pencil drawings of people and who they are internally—a topic I chose and love).