Sick of losing soulmates (Cheryl Blossom & Toni Topaz)

2

The next time she tries to look for it, she's in the bath. The water reaches the tippy tops of her chest and it's so warm and relaxing that she forgets the stress of her day. Some stupid kid had accused her of not having a soulmate and there might've been a screaming match and maybe some shoving around on her behalf, but it's fine. Absolutely everyone had a soulmate, even her wretched mother who covers her body from head to toe to ensure no one sees a tattoo Cheryl knows doesn't say her father's name. She's not that stupid — or, well, she might be, a little, because Jason had to explain it all to her a while ago. How the Blossoms don't really look for their soulmates or marry them. Instead, they focus on the family business and what will help it grow and produce more money. Cheryl thinks that's stupid.

There's... There's this person you're destined to be with for the rest of your life and their name is written on your skin. It can't get any easier than that. The universe did human beings a huge favor by writing that name on their body, like an apology for ever having separated soulmates in the first place, and people are out there ignoring that? Horrible. Absolutely unacceptable.

Cheryl doesn't even realize she's been making a mess of the water by twisting and turning, looking for the tattoo, until her mother bursts in through the door with a scowl. Cheryl tenses automatically, stilling in the bath water.

"You're spilling water everywhere, you stupid little girl," her mother hisses at her, hand gripping the doorknob so hard her hands look ghost-white, "just what in God's name are you doing?"

"I'm–" Cheryl sinks lower into the bath water, wishing she could just disappear under it, "I'm looking for something."

Penelope looks confused for a long second but then reality seems to dawn on her and she gets this disapproving look on her face. Eyebrows arched, eyes narrowed. Cheryl knows it all too well.

"It's behind your left shoulder." Penelope spits, as if even saying the words burns her tongue.

Cheryl mumbles a thank you, waits until her mother is gone and the footsteps sound faraway enough to jump out of the tub and turn around in front of the mirror. Her feet feel cold against the wooden floor and the chill that's always present in the Blossom household makes her shiver. She brushes her hair off her left shoulder and over the right one, cranes her neck as far as she can to catch a glimpse of it.

"Toni."

Toni?

Toni.

Cheryl doesn't know any Toni's. Not yet, anyway. Sounds like a nice guy, she muses. A nice guy who isn't Jason.

Cheryl slips back into the bath water and stays there until her fingers and toes look pruny, like Nana Rose's. She scrubs at her back extra hard but, when she looks in the mirror again, the word Toni is still etched there in tiny, cursive letters.