Soulmate's Words

Chapter One

I dragged the fabric slowly towards my hand, covering my arm. Just as my sleeve slid over my wrist, I smiled, knowing this would be the last night with the blank skin.

Tomorrow, I turned eighteen. When I woke up in the morning, the ink would be there, and I would have a clue at my direction in life.

"Hey, Emma!" My best friend, Cassie, called, popping her head into her guest bedroom, where I was staying. "Are you seriously planning to sleep through the second biggest moment of your life? Come on, one more movie. By then, it'll be midnight, and we'll get to watch it appear!" She tugged me downstairs to the living room, pushed me onto the couch, and darted over to her movies collection. I sighed.

"If I have to stay up, Cassie, I might as well enjoy it. Let's watch The Avengers again."

"You're obsessed. But it's your special night, so I'll just go with it," she replied, grabbing the DVD and running off to find snacks.

Cassie already had her soulmate quote, so she understood how nervous I was. In a couple hours, the first words my soulmate would say to me would be written across my forearm.

I snuggled into a thick blanket, drawing in a deep breath as the warm scent of popcorn invaded the air. When my close-enough-to-be-my-sister flopped down beside me, we set up the movie, and relaxed.

"The Tesseract has awakened..."

~***~

"To challenge them is to court death..."

As the final post credits scene rolled, I started to slow down on my Loki fangirl spree, and the Avengers enjoyed their shawarma, I glanced at the clock.

"Oh my gosh, Cassie, there's less than a minute!" I squealed, rolling up my sleeve.

She reached over and turned on the lamp, and then snatched my arm so she could see it, too. Raising her other hand to count down the seconds on her watch, I held my breath.

"Three... Two... One... Now! What's it say?" she asked excitedly.

I watched in awe as a sloppy handwriting scrawled across my skin. As soon as it stopped, I read it.

"It says, 'Excuse me, miss, is this seat taken?' That's odd. It sounds so polite, but what guy nowadays has that kind of manners?" I wondered aloud.

"At least you know he'll probably be nice. I don't know if I'll ever meet my soulmate. Remember? Mine says, 'Welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?'"

We laughed again at how unlucky she had been. Soon enough, the excitement and anticipation of the past day caught up with us, and we headed off to bed.