North Star

Chapter Eleven: Caralye

"What about dogs?"

    "I love dogs." Selene laughed.

    "Do you think we can get a dog?" I sat with my back against one of the trees on the fringe of our field. Selene lay beside me, her head in my lap as I played with her hair.

    She grinned lazily. "Definitely."

    "And one of those cats with really tiny legs?"

    "Oh my god, yes! Those are so cute!"

    I laughed again, feeling more at peace than I ever had in my entire life.

    Nearly three weeks had passed since the dreams had gone back to normal, and since then it was like something had finally given way. The dreams had become more frequent, and, rather than sitting in comfortable yet hesitant silence, we talked. I got to ask her all the questions I had filed away in my head, and she asked me questions in return. Sometimes our conversation was light and arbitrary—about favorite foods and colors; others it was darker, about things that we were scared of and things that we would never forget, like when her father died and when I realized that my family was gone. Being an obsessive planner, my favorite topic was talking about our future, as we were talking about now. We couldn't really talk about proper things, like where we were going to live—every time I tried the words seemed to catch in my throat. It made sense, I guess, that we couldn't talk about anything geographical: wouldn't want to make finding each other too easy...

    So instead, we talked about trivial things: pets we would have—I learned that Selene already had two cats, which thrilled me to no end—the type of house we wanted to live in (I wanted to design one and build it, while Selene was more in favor of finding something old and rundown and fixing it up. Selene liked to fix broken things, which I guess was fitting considering that I of all people was her Soulmate), what we wanted to as a job. The latter was something I was still fifty-fifty on, having narrowed my choices down to two options, but Selene was less decided than I was—she wanted to maybe be a tour guide, or maybe a fishing-person, or go to space, save the human race by fixing world hunger or curing cancer. Her main priority, she told me, was to find me, the rest we'd figure out when we got there.

    I loved the way she said "we;" I'd never been a concrete part of anyone's future before. I liked knowing that I'd never be alone again. Selene had just finished telling me about her family before I had asked about dogs, and her mom and stepdad sounded perfect—I couldn't wait to meet them, to have a proper family that I was a part of for once.

   "What color do you think you'll dye your hair next?" I asked, loosely braiding a faded green strand.

    "I don't know." She answered, kicking her feet up in the air, watching her various toe rings gleam in the moonlight. "This one has been my favorite so far—oh, I know!" She added excitedly, dropping her legs back down and leaning up on her elbows to look at me. "How about you choose?"

    "Me?" I blinked.

    "Yeah." She grinned, lying back down. "And then maybe you can get a streak of the same color or something."

    I bit my lip. "But what if I pick a color and then you hate it?"

    Selene laughed again, and I smiled, addicted to the sound. "I won't."

    "But how do you know?"

    She rolled over onto her stomach, leaning up on her elbows. "Because you chose it."

    I rolled my eyes, but was secretly pleased; I could feel my cheeks warming.

   "Would you do it, though?" Selene asked, studying my face. "Get a matching streak?"