Soul Mates

Epilogue

Epilogue

The five teenagers stand side by side at the airport.

June Forbes and Joanna Casper are alongside each other with their arms linked. There is a piece of notebook paper taped to Joanna’s back that says, “If lost, please return to June.” On June’s back, there’s a note that simply states, “I’m June.” They are both smiling, though; Joanna, grinning mischievously through her lip piercings, and June, beaming at her friends with a strand of pink hair stuck between her purple-painted lips.

Isaac Kason is bouncing on his toes, anxiously. Anna almost wants to film the moment, but instead she hangs back, standing quietly beside Noah.

Anna met Noah Walker after her dip of depression for a month or two after her sixteenth birthday. Her dads had debated heatedly over whether to seek counseling, or to leave the matter alone. Her father—the more stern and steely of the two—argued that revisiting the incident with therapists and counselors would only worsen the trauma, though he soon caved when her papa—who was more understanding by leaps and bounds than his husband—snagged a flyer from his office at the crisis center, and read it aloud at dinner.

“Support for those with departed soul mates,” Anna’s papa told her. “It could help you so much, sweetie.”

Anna was somewhat caught between moving on from the experience of her own accord, or seeking the help of others like her. She’d honestly never wondered about what happens to those whose soul mates die before they can reach them, though after pondering it for a while, she realized it must be more common than she thought.

Out of curiosity more than anything else, Anna went to the meeting. She found that it was disturbingly like one of those stereotypical Alcoholics Anonymous-type groups, where they sit in a circle on metal folding chairs. Although she didn’t really know what she’d expected, Anna remembers being a bit surprised by the completely normal-looking teenagers, all around her age.

Isaac and June did the best they could, given the circumstances of having their destined other halves completely intact and not quite understanding what Anna was going through. They accompanied her to one of the support meetings once, a weak hit at the “being supportive in a time of need” target, but a hit all the same. Later, they admitted the other kids kind of weirded them out; or rather, June said that out-loud, and Isaac merely nodded along placidly.

But Anna liked the group. It was mostly the same teens every meeting, which met bimonthly. She made friends, including that of Noah Howell; a dark-haired, blue-eyed boy who likes to fix up old radios and stereo systems, and then proceed to play very, very loud music on them. Anna didn’t much enjoy that second part of his hobby.

When he told the story of the night of his sixteenth birthday, he didn’t get nostalgic or somber like Anna or some of the other kids from the group did. This might have been because Noah never actually went through the process of possessing his deceased soul mate. When midnight finally rolled around on May 22nd, he never passed out. He never woke up in a coffin, or in any body at all. After double-checking his birth certificate to make sure he hadn’t been celebrating his birthday on the wrong day for his sixteen years of life, he did some deeper digging. Noah later discovered that you simply can’t posses something that’s not there. His soul mate had likely been cremated.

Anna found him fascinating— not perfect, she continually had to remind herself, but fascinating. Despite the obvious reasons for them not to make a likely couple, Noah and Anna started dating.

To make it official, Isaac came up with another one of his dumb couple nicknames for them: Noanna. (Isaac’s passion for making his friends embarrassed was only topped by his love of music.) June finds it hilarious, a sort of payback for Anna laughing at Juanne, and Noah doesn’t mind it, but Anna thinks it sad sometimes. Her and Noah never fight with each other, per se; they get along just fine. But there’s always a nagging voice in the back of Anna’s head, telling her over and over again that, technically, her and Noah aren’t supposed to be together.

But there they are anyway, holding hands in the airport, waiting for Isaac’s match to meet up with them to complete the three pairs. Well, Anna thinks, two complete pairs and a slightly faulty one.

Joanna, who is a very talented artist and who is hired all the time by businesses around town to design and paint murals on the sides of buildings, decorated a very colorful sign for Isaac to hold at the airport. In big red letters it spells out, “I’m over here, soul mate!” with music notes and hearts surrounding the words.

A large crowd of passengers starts flooding down the escalators in front of the group of friends, and everyone holds their breath. June bumps Jo on the hip and they snicker at Isaac standing stock-still, staring intently at the people riding down the stairs.

Suddenly, a girl on the escalator starts pushing frantically through the crowd. Jo whips out her phone to take a video, and focuses on Isaac, who’s starting to tear up. The girl jumps down the last three steps on the escalator and tries to lug a suitcase across the tiled floor towards them before giving up and dropping it to sprint to Isaac. She has dark brown hair cut in bangs across her forehead and pale green eyes which are welling with tears.

Isaac has dropped his sign, and Alisa nearly tackles him when she runs up to him.

June and Jo both AWWW out loud in unison but Isaac and Alisa don’t seem to notice.

When they finally pull away, Alisa says something in Russian, and Isaac nods and sobs in English, “You’re a real person!”

Alisa must’ve been working on her poetry because she recites some rhyming lines in Russian that no one can understand except her and Isaac, but it’s still really cute.

Noah nudges Anna and she realizes she’s smiling wider than the sun. Leaning her head against his shoulder, they watch Juanne work like a team as they saunter up to the united couple, introduce themselves, and present them with another one of Jo’s lovely creations: a big poster with the phrase Alisaac on it with colorful swirls and music notes and even more hearts. Alisa cracks up and Isaac looks a little peeved that the girls took over his running joke, but he accepts the poster with a permanent smile plastered on his face. Him and Alisa keep sneaking glances at each other and beaming.

Noah places his hand on Anna’s back and says, “I guess we should go up and introduce ourselves to the new perfect match, huh?”

Anna squeezes his hand before nodding and walking step in step with her not-quite-perfect-but-pretty-darn-close match up to the rest of their friends.