Finding My Other Half

A silver heart. That was my shape. Well it was half of the heart.

I had that silver heart around my neck for as long as I could remember. Since I knew I would have it around my neck for like the rest of my life, I decided to name it.

I named it Moonshine.

Yes I know it's a heart named Moonshine. Whatever. I was 5 years old and I loved that name. It was sure better than my name.

In fact, I convinced my entire kindergarten class that my name was Koala. I don't know why really. I guessed I just really liked koalas at that age.

Although I had actually never even seen a real koala.

You see Crotian is an isolated country. Self-sufficient, natural resources, fertile ground, low taxes. Crotian had it all. So our leaders decided to cut ourselves from the rest of the world and begin our own little world.

The only thing wrong with Crotian was love. They didn't have love. Since we are isolated, our ancestors grew up together and saw each other as brothers and sisters. Nothing more. That presented a huge problem because our population started to drop. No one was getting married and producing offspring. So our leaders took a stand.

They developed a system we call HSAYL. It stands for "Half a shape, all your love." So everyone, when they are born, are given a necklace with half of a distinct shape. They have all their life to look for their other half. Literally. You can't marry anyone unless they have the other half of your shape.

I remember when I was younger and they would explain this to me I didn't quite understand. I always thought that if I didn't like whoever my other half was I could just trade with someone else. I soon found out that was not the case.

Along with your necklace there is a hidden code that matches a tattoo, given to you when you are born on your waist.

I remember this one time when I was 14 my parents caught me kissing a boy which was not my "other half". They almost killed me. They told me that I needed to be careful about that stuff and grounded me for 2 months. The thing is that I didn't even want to kiss him. My friends dared us to kiss because we were the only ones there who hadn't found their other halves yet. It was humiliating. I remember I cried in my room for weeks after that.

Being 16 now and not finding "my other half" was frustrating. I would see my friends making out with their "other half". Why couldn't I find mine?

Where was he? And why was it so bad for me to not end up with my "other half"? So many questions. No answers.