"Hey, maybe you'll be with the statue next," my friend Margot joked as we walked past it and sat down at a nearby bench.
"Very funny, Mar," I replied, rolling my eyes. But in the long run, I decided I was hopeless when it came to love. I might be overexaggerating since I found my boyfriend of about 5 months, Aaron, with some other girl.
"Seriously, Misty! Remember the legend?" I sighed, glancing to the statue of the young man. Burnham Park has a legend centralizing around that very statue. It starts way back when Chicago was founded, about 200 or 300 years ago or something like that. There was a witch that lived in the woods surrounding the area, and she didn't like the idea of strangers coming near her land. She marched right up to the settlers and confronted the founder. She told him to leave before they regretted it. Their response? They all laughed in her face. Her response? She looked at the founder's eldest son, and in a fit of retaliation and anger, she turned him into a statue. The founder, in a fit of rage, demanded that she changed him back, but she didn't budge. Finally, giving up, he wanted her executed. As they were about to kill her, her last words were how the only way for him to return to his human form was for the hand of his soulmate to touch his hand.
"So mote it be," she finalized as she dropped. Thereafter, the founder's life began to fall apart. First, his wife threw herself into the lake and drowned. Not long after, his kids all either ended up disfigured in some freak accident, losing a limb, or dead. It wasn't long before he slowly wasted away as a result from alcoholism. It also wasn't long before girls lined up to touch the founder's son's hands...to no luck. This went on forever, and even some men tried it as a joke, since no girls were waking him up. These days, people just do it for fun.
I never believed in this kind of stuff and passed it on as a myth, something to get a rise out of the tourists. Besides, I had just about given up on love, and I wasn't about to be desperate and touch a statue's hand to see if he came back to life.
"Go on and hold his hand and take a picture or something. If he wakes up, I'm going to cackle." I glared at her, and her face softened.
"Come on, Misty! Alright, let's make a deal. You go and take a picture with him and touch his hand. If he doesn't come to life, I owe you money. But if he does-"
"I owe you. How much do you want, $5?" She scrunched her eyebrows together.
"Too small an amount."
"Well I'm sure as hell not giving you something bigger for nothing." We then began bargaining until we reached $20. With a defeated sigh, I stalked over to the statue and stepped up to the podium, taking his hand and opening my camera. I took a selfie with it and looked over to Margot.
"Are you happy now, Mar?" I asked. But she didn't answer. Her eyes grew wide as her mouth formed into an O.
"M-Misty..." Passerby's began staring at me, too. But then I realized that they weren't just looking at me, but rather behind me. I was confused, and turned around to see an equally confused young man. he took a step towards me and I stumbled, about to fall from the podium when he lunged forward and caught me.
"W-Who are you?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. His sky blue eyes stared back at me.
"I could ask you the same thing," He replied, still holding me. Wait a second. I went up on my toes and looked behind him. The statue was gone. Holy...
"It's true!"
"That girl's his soulmate!" We looked to each other again before blushing and looking to the ground. Soulmates...
Margot pushed through the crowd until she got to the front. She took a deep breath and regrouped.
"$20. Fork it over."
