Finding The Write Words

Chapter Two

By the time he was in high school, everyone around him knew about their soulmates. They would spend every free moment of their time at school talking about the marks on their skin, their soulmates, how they were going to meet them over spring break.

Virgil almost felt left out. Everyone else in school had their soulmates talking to them, meeting them, loving them. But at the same time, he knew that he wanted nothing to do with his, so maybe it was better that she didn't write to him.

So when he felt the strange, warm tingling in his arms again, he only looked out of instinct. He most certainly didn't actually want anything to do with the person writing to him.

That would be insane.

"Hello."

The word scrawled across his skin in red glittery ink, looping in an interesting and dramatic script, and he debated for a moment grabbing the pen off his desk and writing back to her.

He looked away from his arm, pulling down his sleeve to cover the writing.

He ignored the warm tingly feeling on his skin.

The other students thought he was strange. While they were talking about their upcoming meetings with their soulmates, Virgil spent his time buried in books. When they asked him about his soulmate, he simply shrugged, claiming he must not have one.

They didn't ask anymore.

He found solace in his books and writings, plunging himself into a world of his own making and worlds created by others. Anything was better than the world he lived in now.

This world was too loud.

Too bright.

Too crowded.

Too much.

He ignored the warm tingly feeling on his skin.

He sat at the back of the room in every class, as far away from everyone as he possibly could get, one eye on the door prepared for an escape.

He ignored the warm tingly feeling on his skin.

He tried talking to his grandma about his feelings of crushing overwhelmedness every time he was in a crowded room. She tried her best to understand, she really did, but the world wasn't the same for her as it was for him. She didn't live her life in constant fear of the world around her the way he did.

She did, however, get him in to see a therapist.

It took him a long time to speak at all during the appointments, and when he finally did, he didn't tell the therapist about the warm tingly feeling on his skin. He claimed he didn't have a soulmate, and when his grandma told the therapist otherwise, he panicked. He told him that he simply hadn't heard from her. That his soulmate hadn't written at all.

He suggested Virgil try writing to her.

Maybe they're shy.

He scoffed at the idea, remembering the words he had received months ago, how the warm tingling had persisted nearly nonstop since then.

He had ignored it.

Virgil quickly steered away from any conversation about soulmates with the therapist - Dr Picani - and he didn't press. They talked instead about his life at home, his schoolwork, his hobbies... and when he grew more comfortable, more trusting, Dr Picani delved into the deeper topics. The accident. Grandpa's cancer. The loss. The sadness. The crushing weight of overwhelmedness that swallowed him on a daily basis.

Anxiety, he called it.

There was a word for it.

That should have made him feel better.