A Good Name for the Catherines

My best friend and I sit on the bus. It's his day, he looks out the window frantically searching for the girl meant to be his forever. I tug his arm, he's always worrying.

"It'll be okay, breathe"

He smiles at me, sometimes I think that he feels sorry for me. Knowing that I was born with a broken clock. I'd been friends with him for forever, or rather as long as I could remember. Our mothers knew each other since they were children as well. They'd gotten pregnant in the same year, different months.

The thing with our lives is, we all have this clock that we're born with. The clock doesn't tell the time or how much time you have until you die, it tells us how much time we have to meet the loves our lives, the people we'll spend the rest of forever with. This concept, to me was much scarier than knowing when I'll die. Not that I'll have to worry about it happening to me anyway.

I, Catherine Maria Gonzales was born with a broken clock. It was the most shameful thing to have. It meant that you were gonna spend the rest of your life with you and no one else because you were a defect. I was a defect. Broken. There is one thing that I'm not though; selfish and conceited.

Today was Joshua's day, he was meant to meet her today. I genuinely hated her. It didn't matter how much Josh loved her or wanted me to love her, I'll always hate her. She gets to have everything I can't, everything I've always wanted. A someone. I just want a someone who'll love me, someone else with a broken clock.

I know I'll never find one, a defect. There are only 27 of us in the entire world and there is just no chance that we could meet each other. My mother told me to search still, josh has encouraged me to do so as well but I just don't think that there is a chance. Ever. All defects have different "diseases" all causing us to be alone for the rest of our lives.

There's this one kid, Jo, who has a clock that won't stop rewinding itself. The moment she meets someone that she thinks might be it, their clock continues to count down and hers goes all the way back to 2 years. It's been 16 years of 2 years for Jo. I sometimes think that I have it much better than her. There is no hope for me but her, she always has this small sliver of hope that keeps her going and as soon as it leaves, she's left with nothing but a broken heart and a broken clock.

There's a man who lives in West Virginia who's clock was cracked, a cracked clock rarely ever happens as it means that our person has died and these things are planned out so well that most get to live and die at the same moment as their loved one. The man, Charlie was just driving down the street when there was a bump in the road and the clock hit zero. He raced out of the care but it was far too late. At that exact moment, it cracked. I've heard that it's the most painful thing in the world next to labor which, again, I'll never have.

Josh looks back at me with a frightened look on his face. I wink at him and give him a thumbs up. He can do this, I know he can. He's always been braver. I get up to walk to a different seat on the bus, I'm sure his forever girl would be a bit angry if she saw someone already next to "her" guy.

As I sat down in the empty seat across from my friend, we saw a small figure burst through the bus doors over dramatically. Well how would i know how dramatic you should be when meeting the love of your life? She glances around the bus frantically searching for my best friend. Josh stands up and the bus driver can't even be angry about how late we'll be if this continues, he just smiles and nods and waits for their moment to be over.

The first words out of your mouth after you meet your person will be the most romantic things that ever leave your lips. Or so I've heard. This girl on the other hand, awkward and skinny, looks between me and Josh, touches Josh's face and sits next to him. They have a conversation that sounds nothing less than awkward but never once do I hear my name. What did I expect? She looks over anyway, she looks down at my clock that says 0:00 and one sentence comes out: "You're broken aren't you?" she says, surprised.

In more ways than one.