It Was A Whole Thing | Herophine

First Love 2: Soulmate

You know that feeling when you see someone and you just... know. You just know that you've found your soulmate.

That's exactly how I felt when I first saw him.

Hero.

My next door neighbor, Hero.

My classmate, Hero.

My soulmate, Hero.

Everything was perfect from the moment he and Felix fell from that birch tree and we introduced ourselves with one another. They became my brothers but there was nothing sisterly that I felt when it came to Hero. Even at the young age of eight, I already knew he's the one for me. I worshipped him in secret, always ever so careful not to let my young feelings show. But as the years passed, it became harder and harder especially when girls in our school started noticing how he was growing into a fine lad.

I was always jealous as you could guess.

And so I finally decided on confessing my love for him during that summer. That summer just before we entered middle school. I was giddy and fidgety the entire morning as I picture myself sitting in front him, spilling my heart out. I was hopeful that maybe he felt the same for me too, if only for the way he was always too protective of or too soft for me more than Felix ever was.

I went skipping on my way to his house that afternoon and by the sound coming from their backyard, it looked like Felix was already there. Well, I'd probably get my chance tomorrow, I thought as I continued to make my way to them only to stop when I heard Felix say, "Bro, tell me you aren't really crushing on Jo."

"What? Of course not! She's just like a sister Felix, don't be so stupid," Hero scoffs.

In that moment, everything crumbled around me. In that moment, I had lost both my soulmate and my best friend.

Needless to say, I started avoiding them after that summer, deciding that I can no longer stand being around the only boy who owned my heart but who will only ever treat me as a sister. I didn't want him as a brother. Never have, never will.

I became friends with a group of girls and they were a lot of fun. I learned that guys were actually starting to take interest in me and I eventually learned how to use that to my advantage-getting free rides, gifts, moving up the social ladder of middle and high school. I learned how to drink when I found out Hero started drinking as well. I learned to fool around with the douchebags I dated when I heard Hero started fucking around with random sluts. I always made sure to put on a show whenever I knew he was around, be it at the school hallways or at house parties. But every time I was alone with those dicks, my skin would crawl from their kisses and touches. It was clear I was only using them.

It was a sick kind of game that Hero didn't even know about.

It was my game.

To say that I was grateful for Hero saving my ass from getting drugged, and consequently saving my virginity that fateful night, might just be the understatement of the century. I was elated. It had been so long since we were that close in one space and it only ever proved that my feelings for him never wavered. And when he mentioned about liking someone who doesn't like him back in our drinking game, the irony of it wasn't lost in me.

That one night of rekindling old friendship was followed by another and another, until it became a tradition whenever we see each other at parties. And of course, being one of the queen bitches of our school, I was always invited to all the parties. We had a thing going on, Hero and I, that nobody knew or at least nobody dared to talk about if they ever saw us entering or leaving the same room. We were discreet with our... rendezvous. I would make sure to get the room closest to the bathroom by any means-kicking teenagers in the middle of sex or pot sessions-before Hero steps in with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses in hand.