Separate

1. Same Soul

"I think we've loved a thousand lives; I try to find you every time,

Searching for the same wide eyes, That locked me in my first life."

"Watch your step," He warned, his voice forcefully masculine for his age. 

His voice startled me, pulling me out of the euphoric daze I was in from being on an out of state field trip. My girly giggly chatter about the latest One Direction song stopped as I looked up the stairs to see who the unfamiliar voice belonged to. Standing in the rain at the top was a very average looking boy, who was pointing at the puddles one each step, while his two friends chatted on oblivious to the situation.

The two boys beside him I recognized. John Williams was the boy on his left. John was the tallest of the trio.  He had pasty skin and was slightly chubby, and his posture slouched. John had short brown hair and a baby face, his round face covered in freckles. I had, had a class with him a year prior and knew his reputation for being a crybaby. It was not a title a middle schooler wore with pride but still, he would burst into tears if you so much as looked at him wrong. The other was Zain Rashid, a Muslim boy who was stunted in his height and chunky. I had never liked him. He was known for being crass and rude. The type of kid who made 9/11 jokes and called everyone a faggot.

They were all from my grade, seventh graders like myself. However, I had never had a class with the boy who had spoken up to warm me. His face was one I knew. I had seen him in the halls of our school many times. He was almost as pale as I was, scrawny and short, dorky even. His hair was short and dirty blond, not remarkably different from the color of my own. Though his demeanor was friendly enough, he was not smiling. It was far closer to a scowl plastered across his face. But it was his piercing blue eyes that stood out more than anything. They were deep and begged to be looked into.

But when my gaze made contact with his, a strongly tingling sensation took over my body, starting in my head and spreading to the tips of my fingers and toes. It felt like electricity had consumed me, but it was hot, burning. It was agonizing. I tried to open my mouth to scream out but the second my lips separated, the pain was gone. I was in shock. I tried to convince myself that it was just a normal sensation. A growing pain, a pulled muscle anything. 

My mind was racing as I tried my best to recall his name. Collin or Caleb? Or was it Cameron? I had no clue what the boy's name was. And part of me was glad. My minded something to puzzle other than the sensation. It didn't matter what his name was anyway; I didn't have time to thank him for his warning.

"Thanks, dude!" My best friend, Carson exclaimed energetically, linking her arm in mine and helping me up the stairs. "She's the biggest klutz you've ever met."

"I'm not that bad," I tried to interject but was cut off. I knew better than to argue with Carson. It was true. I was clumsy. I was the girl who fell down the stairs almost every time and often lost my balance merely standing still. Carson had taken over the role of my protector; she attempted to catch me every time I tipped over like a startled cow. She was not always around, so I was still covered in bruises on my weak arms and legs. 

"Raven, shush, you trip over air, and apparently even a complete stranger can see that" She silenced me and then turned to the boy. "Thanks for making my job easier."

And just like that, we were gone. We were up on the deck of the riverboat our school was on a field trip to visit. It was a misty and grey day in early April but the Tennessee River still a sight to behold. But as I stared into the murky grey waters of the river, watching the boat's propellers make a hypnotic wake behind it, My thought drifted. I could not help but dwell on the boy with the Aryan blue eyes whose name I did not know. My mind kept replaying electric sensation I had felt when our eyes met. I could not explain why such a meaningless exchange could make me feel anything.

But as the field trip progressed and we made our way through the many halls of the Tennessee Aquarium and the caverns of Ruby Falls, I tried to push him out of my thoughts. At first, it was hard. He and his friends walked in a group in front of us at the aquarium, and I was hyper-aware of his presence. I managed to get myself lost in the aquarium once we got to the tiger sharks. For the first time in my life, I was glad to have something as stressful as getting lost on a school field trip to worry about. But once I found my friends and we made our way to Ruby Falls things got easier.

I became consumed once again with my middle school preoccupations: my large group of friends, my first boyfriend and all the mean girl drama that came with being twelve. My thoughts drifted from the boy and back to boy bands and the boy I was convinced I was in love with, from his blond hair to mine. By the time we got back to the bus to travel back to Atlanta, I had managed to forget entirely.

 I never thought about that moment or the sensations I felt at our first meeting for years. But it was not long before the memory came flooding back to the front of my mind. For the boy whose name I had not bothered to learn would become the most important person in my life.