Falling Leaves

Prologue

When I was five, I met my soul mate.

Parts of it are crystal clear in my memory. Other parts are fuzzy and distorted, the way recalling things that happened sixteen years ago before you properly comprehended time and space tends to be.

Sometimes I wonder how much of it I genuinely remember and how much of it is the mental images I've conjured up the many, many times this story has been retold over the years. Does it just feel like I was there because I've been told I was? Have we reminisced over it in hushed voices in the dark so often in our formative years that it eventually became reality for us?

Either way, it feels real.

One thing I remember is that it was a sunny day.

I was heading down the street, past the gray house that'd been for sale for weeks, with a moving truck suddenly parked in the driveway, when I came across the puddle.

This I'm certain of. Even though it feels more like a mystery than anything because, as I said, the sun was shining from a cloudless sky, and none of the sprinklers in the surrounding gardens should have been able to reach the street. But never the less, there was a puddle.

The puddle reoccurs in every version of the story.

Whether it was a result of a long-forgotten thunderstorm the night before, a neighbor emptying their dishwater in the middle of the cul de sac, or maybe simply destiny, we might never find out.

All I know is that one minute I was skipping down the street, looking at the big, red letters spelling SOLD across the for sale sign in the yard, and the next, I was sprawled out on the ground, headfirst right into that puddle.

The next thing that happened changed my life. It's the kind of thing you don't really understand at that age. You don't feel the monumental shift in your entire existence like the earth just turned on its axis.

Before I had a chance to jump up and run off, hoping no one had seen me, I heard a laugh. Just a short giggle. I looked up to find two kids watching me.

They looked so much alike and yet so different. The same dark blond hair. The same bright blue eyes. Even though the girl was already a head shorter back then, they were clearly siblings.

The gloomy scowl on the boy's face contrasted the bright beam on the girl's.

This is where things get a little more hazy. The two kids must have helped me up from where I lay pathetically before them, but I can't see it. No matter how hard I try to remember, a part of that initial contact evades me, like smoke slipping through my fingers.

However, up I went, and there I was, dripping from head to toe, face to face with the Reed kids for the first time.

And at that moment, something happened, like my attention zoned in and committed all of it to memory. I could probably draw up every freckle on her face and the way her blue eyes crinkled as the girl introduced herself with a megawatt smile, and instinctively I felt at home. With the ease that only kids possess, we instantly became friends.

It's impossible that I could comprehend the importance of this at the time. It would take me years to realize that we'd just made a connection that might never be broken. But it's easy, looking back with the knowledge of everything that was to come, to pretend that little me knew. Knew that I was forever changed.

So when I gave them my name and looked from the moody older brother to his grinning baby sister, I like to think I understood.

Yeah, when I was five, I met my soul mate.

Because soul mates aren't always lovers.

Right?

A/N: 

Hi guys. 

This is the brand new prologue. I will be publishing a handful of chapters each day for the next two weeks. 

Hope you'll enjoy it. 

- Hanna ❤️