Connected By a String

Backstory

A little red string, a lot of love. We all learned in school that you get your String "when you are ready". It's pretty much the the short version. You get it when you experience a traumatic event, or your soulmate does. But you don't know who they are. Pretty much the definition of love at first sight, if you even ever see them. Yup. I got mine at the age of 12. Pretty early, right? Yeah. It happened when I was walking home from school. My parents told me to go straight home. Instead, I walked to my friends house. We hung out for like an hour before I left. My parents were going to kill me. But when I got home it was the opposite. I saw my parents body's lying lifeless on my kitchen floor, blood everywhere, after school. The pot was boiling over with water, and the oven was smoking. It looked like they were cooking. The worst part was that their eyeballs were gone. So we're their wedding rings. Like a sick trophy. I started screaming and crying for a good half hour before the cops came. I guess one of my neighbors called the cops for a domestic disturbance. And they took me away kicking and screaming. I guess it was the next in a chain of serial killings. It happened 4 times before. Despicable. They caught the guy though. Just killing for fun. A forty something psychopathic old man.  They got back the rings. I never take them off. They put me with one of my neighbors, Mrs. Watson, because they said it would be easier with a familiar face to jumpstart the grieving process. It was a pretty rough time for me. After about a day, I stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Stopped talking. Stopped functioning. I wanted to die for what I did. If I just got home a little earlier, or if I didn't go to my friends house at all, I could of stopped it, or at least died with them. I preferred the latter. The next day, a red string appeared on my wrist, leading into nothing but the wall. I tried and tried and tried to get it off, but nothing. I know what it meant. But who could ever love me? A sick freak who disobeyed their parents, and they paid the price, not me. I then tried to kill myself. Slit my wrists. But Mrs. Watson came at the wrong time. Called 911. I woke up with my wrists strapped to the hospital bed, with healing drugs in my system. They asked me why. I never answered. Still don't. Never talked again. Even three years after the fact. They put me on anti-depressants. Still take them. I have a boyfriend. Not my soulmate, no, but I will never stop looking for them. With all my heart and soul, I still believe, but I'm kinda happy now. Yes, I still am mute, and I still am depressed, and I get bullied, but I have someone who even remotely loves me, who I can actually see and touch and feel. And that's enough for me right now.

My name is Olivia Palmer, and this is my soulmate story.

What a load of bullshit.