Soul Watch

Chapter 8

My eyes were still puffy, and my nose was still red from the timeI cried in the bathroom. When I was reduced to sniffing and wiping a fewleftover tears, Helia pulled me to my feet, smiled but said nothing andled me out.

Now, I was sitting in her kitchen, and when I said her kitchen, itreally was hers. She had her own personal kitchen on the second floor ofher house. She loved cooking and baking, she told me while she whippedup two cups of hot chocolate. It was the prospect of making somethingfilled with love for the people you loved and from your own heart thatmade her love cooking so much.

"Plus," she said as she placed a big mug of hot chocolate in frontof me. "I've always fancied having a country home type of kitchen." Sheconfessed as she took a good look around her kitchen. And it wasbeautiful. Red and white tiles lined the floor, and the walls were tiles ofvarious farm items like a small chicken or a carrot. Her cabinets werepinewood, and her stoves and furniture were white. Even the small-conjoined wooden table that we were sitting at had a clean checkeredpicnic cloth draped across it. Her kitchen was beautiful and very likeher—cozy and inviting.

"Hold on." She put a finger up to stop me from taking a sip.I held the mug between my fingers and looked up at her as shewent over to the counter to take a small pink plastic container.I let the warmness of the steaming hot chocolate against theporcelain cup seep into my fingertips and travel over the rest of my body,taking comfort in the fuzzy feeling it gave me.She came back to the table and dumped a handful ofmarshmallows into my hot chocolate. "You can never forget this for atruly unforgettable cup of hot chocolate. And it cures everything." Shewinked.

I gave her a small smile and brought the mug to my lips, lettingthe warm liquid seep into my mouth.Immediately, my mouth was an explosion of flavors. I had noidea what she had put into the hot chocolate, but it was chocolatey, ofcourse. There was the hint of creamy sweetness from the meltedmarshmallows, and I could taste a faint hint of vanilla or cinnamon. Itook a big gulp down, feeling the hot chocolate coat my whole mouthwith its sweetness and fill my stomach with its warmness.Somehow, Helia was right. A cup of hot chocolate curedanything. Even the feeling that had built inside me, it was somehowretreating like a scared animal from the sunlight. I took another big gulpand set it down, sighing in utter contentment.Helia smiled at me, almost smugly like she knew the effect itwas having on me.

She sipped hers and closed her eyes, savoring the moment thehot chocolate hit her belly."Now then, do you want to talk about it, honey?" she asked me,her eyes leveled.

My lips parted for some form of explanation, anything that couldexplain me crying on the bathroom floor in her home, but I could findnone. How was I supposed to put into words all that emotion that Ireleased with the tears, all the repressed feelings of ignorance, pretendingnot to care and trying to be strong? How was I supposed to tell her how Ifelt like I was losing someone that didn't exist? It was like gettingdepressed for days after a fictional character in the novel you werereading dies.

I looked at her helplessly and shook my head. There was simplyno way to put those emotions into words, let alone tell her about it.Still, she didn't avert her eyes. She kept them trained on me as ifshe could read everything running through my head, and yet again, shesurprised me.

"You reminded me of someone. You two have a greatresemblance," she said quietly and took a sip from her cup.I looked at her silently, clutching my mug in my hands, andwaited for her to continue.She smiled woefully, "Me."This time she looked down. "I only cried like that after Abner'spassing. God, I've never cried like that before. I would rather someonetake a fire infused poking stick to stab me in the heart than hear thosefive words. 'Your husband didn't make it.' The tears never stopped. Thepain didn't either..."

She suddenly stopped, I watched her eyes at half-mast, and herface lapsed into a mask of pain. Her eyebrows were drawn together, herlips pursed and the lines on her face suddenly more evident like a map ofsorrow, from the small worn out lines that crinkled the side of her eyes tothe grim line that lined her mouth like a grimace.It seemed fitting for me to say something now. "It wasexcruciating."

I watched her face relapsed into animation. She looked surprisedat my response. "Yes, it was. And it never stopped being less painful."She suddenly reached over and took my hand."Honey, what is it that made you upset to that extent? Did youlose someone? Did something happen?" She tightened her grip on myhand.

My nose stung with the tears that were springing up again andwith the thoughts of never having a soul mate."Crysta and Carwyn..." I began in the only way I knew how."Crysta is the first person I saw to meet her soul mate. I never knew howit could be so..." I stopped, trying to find a word for the looks they hadexchanged, the way they looked at each other with so much love that itshone in the eyes like wet tears. Sometimes, even the way they gazed ateach other had me looking away. It was as if I was intruding somethingintimate. The way they didn't need words to communicate or the waythey fit into each other, it was so..."Perfect." I finished.

Helia gave me a small smile, with one side of her lips curled."That's what it is, honey, soul mates. They are one of a whole likebroken glass, forming back together. You can't possibly fit the edgeswith something else. Only the fragments that were broken away from itwill be the only match. That is what soul mates are like," she paused andthought, her hand propping her chin up. She laughed shortly at a suddenthought.

"Do you know Abner always told me this Greek myth of howsoul mates came to be? He told me that long ago, the first humans hadfour arms, four legs, four eyes, two noses, two mouths. And that Zeus,the most powerful God that ruled the sky, was terrified of them,believing that they would rise up against him one day. To prevent that,Zeus split each human in half and left them to wander aimlessly aroundthe mortal world, searching for their missing half."

She looked at me this time. "To find their one true soul mate,"she finished. "He used to say this gives a deeper meaning to 'youcomplete me.'" She laughed like a tiny tinkling of bells at the memory.I gave a small smile and looked into my mug. The chocolateliquid was almost gone, but the warm steam was still coming out from it.Humans were split into half to find their other half. Perhaps, it was true.It all made sense the way I couldn't imagine Crysta without an image ofCarwyn popping up. The way they completed each other like missingpuzzle pieces or as Helia said, like broken glass that could only bematched with the right fragments. Soul mates were two halves that wereseparated and then returned together to form a whole—two peoplebecoming one.I set the mug down, and the liquid inside rippled. And that wholewould affect everyone else around them, like the ripples in my mug.But the only question that was running inside my mind was thatif soul mates were two individuals that formed as a whole, what was I?Was I a whole on my own or was I solely one without a whole?