Universe of Soulmates

"The Apology"

Mariel West, named after her biological grandmother, always lived a life no one could imagine. In her world, having a voice wasn't just a want, it was a need. It was the only way to find one's soulmate, but she was stuck without one. At least, for the last twenty years of her life, she has. After a half dozen voice therapists, three surgeries, and a kilo of medications, she was hoping that, finally, she would be able to make a sound.

When Mariel was three, she got a terrible virus that targeted her vocal cords and the last words she ever uttered were, "I'm sorry," to her adoptive mother, Phoebe West, for something she couldn't remember anymore. It was because she had eaten a bowl of ice cream that Phoebe expressly forbade her from eating, especially while she was sick. And, by the next morning, getting her voice to utter a single sound, much less a word or sentence, was impossible, and every doctor was stunned by the development. By some miracle, her two adoptive siblings, Janine and Paul, never got the same virus, despite helping their mother feed and tend to the youngest of the three.

She can still remember the first time her soulmate figured out something was wrong. How his voice cracked, even with its five year old innocence.

Mommy? The voice inside my head is gone.

It's really gone.

They're gone? What do you mean?

That night, silent crying was the only thing she did, despite the doctor's protests that she needed to rest. At least her body was so exhausted from fighting the illness that she fell asleep in a couple hours, no matter how much she would rather cry. Because, even at three years old, she understood the power behind hearing someone lose the person closest to them.

Mariel lost her parents when she was one, and those memories were what was triggering such a violent reaction, then adopted by the Wests a few weeks later as a tribute to their lifelong friendship. It was a car crash that killed them, but spared her life. The only thing the crash didn't do was spare her memory. Or, for that matter, her innocence.

Wherever you are, I promise I'll keep talking to you. Maybe you can still hear me, Mar.

On the other side of their ethereal connection was a five year old boy who didn't completely understand that his soulmate was dead. His mother told him that losing the "voice in his head" meant his soulmate was dead, although he didn't believe it.

Keller White had hope that there was someone on the other side, and vowed to himself to figure out who "Mar" was and meet her. Keller knew it was a girl from her excitement over pink dresses (although, he hadn't learned that pink dresses were a stereotype and that some young boys did enjoy wearing them, too) and her high-pitched voice every time it invaded his mind. He knew Mar knew his nickname after he'd mentioned it to a few friends, telling them to call him "Kell", so Keller only wished he could hear his nickname from her voice one more time.

"Hon, you can't keep talking to a girl that's dead." Keller's mother, Opal White, tried to convince her five year old son to no avail. "She's not going to hear you."

"She can still hear me, mom!" Keller protested, and that made Mar hope that, in time, she would gain her voice back and say thank you for believing in her.

"Kell, that's just not the way things work in the world." His mother had tried everything else but to be blatant with the truth in the last month since Keller stopped hearing Mariel. "In this world, if you can't hear them, they've passed away."

That's when Keller broke. He finally understood what his mother was telling him, despite every gut feeling trying to convey that she wasn't gone. Not really.

"Can I just say goodbye?" Keller's mother caved, allowing her son one final chance to say goodbye to a girl that, in her mind, had passed on to a better life.