Chapter Text
The first time T.J remembers seeing the designs was on the first day of second grade. He was sitting while the teacher was teaching math, and he wasn’t paying attention. He hated math anyways. He felt a tickle on his arm and looked down, seeing flowers and swirls sprawling about. He stared at his arm puzzled, rubbing at it, but the designs wouldn’t smear or fade. He put on his jacket and kept his sleeves rolled down all day.
When he went back home, he was trying not to cry, freaking out and showing his mom. She smiled and stroked back his hair.
“Honey, everyone on Earth is born with a soulmate, the person that’s perfect for you and who you should be with,” she said. “And the universe decided to help us find them by letting us know what’s drawn on the skin of the other. Look!” She pointed to his arm and the drawings started smearing before disappearing. “Looks like your soulmate is washing them off. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“So whatever they draw I see on my skin?”
“And whatever you draw will show up on their skin.”
So T.J. Kippen moved on with his life, and he kept looking forward to what would show up on his skin. It was highly discouraged for people to use the writing on the skin to reveal their identities because if you met and knew who your soulmate was too early, there was a 99% chance of the relationship not working out and being forever alone, someone dubbed soulless . So he didn’t get his soulmate’s name. He looked for the drawings, and sometimes, he would draw over some of the designs with his own pen and would watch almost all of the drawings fade, wait a good few minutes, and then wait for the trademark frowny face to appear on his forearm. That’s when he would chuckle and wash off his own side. The frowny face would be crossed out with a big X and a smiley face would be drawn next to it, and that always made TJ smile, no matter what was happening in his life.
He loved watching the designs show up on his arm, the way they seemed to swirl. He tried picturing what his soulmate looked like. For several years, he pictured someone like his friend Joshie. Joshie was a cute boy who always had paint on his cheek, but his parents always talked about his soulmate becoming his girlfriend. He always frowned but accepted it. It was probably a girl and he was still growing out of his “girls are icky” phase. His sister Amber acted the same way whenever they referred to her soulmate as her future boyfriend. They were just growing out of it. That’s what they kept saying to each other.
In the meantime, T.J. would just watch the designs every day. He watched it while he was at school, giving up on trying to understand math. He was just stupid with numbers, and he wished people would stop being so hard on him there. He was good at English, Basketball, and even somewhat decent with Spanish since he was able to string together several coherent sentences from Dora the Explorer alone.
He was in the fifth grade when he moved to Shadyside after his dad died. It was just him, his mom, and his sister Amber. When his father died, his mom developed a black band in the middle of her forearm, the sign of a Lost Soul , someone who lost their soulmate.
It was the summer before sixth grade when the drawings stopped. All he would get were pencil smudges or ink stains on his hand from his soulmate. And whenever he helped do some repairs on his mom’s car and got oil stains, the frowny face would reappear, and if he was in the middle of the job, he would take out a pen and write:
-10 minutes-
-O.K. Counting.-
That was the most the two ever wrote to each other as messages. They didn’t want to risk it going any further. When T.J. was about to wash his hands, he’d draw a checkmark, and wait for the smiley face. That was all he got. No more drawings. He was sad, but he moved on. Tons of people would find their soulmates with nothing but ink stains and paint smudges. He moved on.
He joined the basketball team, and eventually, he made captain, and he became the best player on the team. He was forced to allow a girl onto his team, Buffy Driscoll. She was good, but he would never admit that. This was the boy’s basketball team and Driscoll was ruining the vibe. His mom said he had a crush whenever he complained about her. Amber knew Driscoll and the gang, and she knew that T.J. had absolutely no interest in her. He just wanted her off the team so she that the other basketball teams could stop making fun of them.
It was the eighth grade when T.J. looked down at his arms absentmindedly in math class when T.J.’s spirits lifted. It wasn’t him magically understanding the problems on the board. That was never going to happen. It was his arm. On his left arm, the doodles were returning. He smiled and looked over it. There were flowers and leaves, and swirls in the spaces between. He traced them with his finger, looking over it. It felt like his soulmate was back, really back.
He had so many questions. Who were they? Where did they learn how to draw? And why did they stop for so long? He wanted to go rushing out the school hallways and look at everyone’s arm, but he stopped himself. Did he want to know? Was he ready to know?
He decided to shake it off and go to basketball practice, thankful that Buffy was in meetings with the principal to create a new girls basketball team. Not that he would ever tell her, but he supported that. The sooner she got her girls team, the sooner she was off of his. He quickly got changed and went to the gym to go practice some layups.
“Whoa, Timothy Jimothy!” a voice behind him said. T.J. rolled his eyes.
“Not my name, Reed.”
“Dude, I’m running out of T and J names.”
“Yup. You’ll never figure it out. And I’m not telling,” he said, shooting another basket.
“Dude, why did you draw all this crap on your arm?” he took his arm and started looking over it. “Flowers, squiggles, turing fag on me, bro.”
“Dude, shut up,” he said, giving him a shove back. “It’s my soulmate you idiot, see?” he licked his thumb and rubbed it on the doodles. “No smudge. Not me.”
“Damn, you really got some girly girl to draw all over you?” he said.
“I don’t even know who my soulmate is yet,” T.J. said. “All I know is that there’s this drawing on my soulmate’s arm, and it won’t come off until they decide to wash it off.”
“You know,” Randy said, jogging into the room. “The amount that you two argue, nobody would think you guys are best friends. Honestly, even for me sometimes it’s more believable that you two are soulmates.”
“Gross,” Reed said. “T.J's dude!”
“Yeah, gross,” he said, shooting more baskets. “As if I’d want to spend the rest of my life with this dickhead.”
“Oh you’re so sure,” Randy teased.
“Randy, Reed’s arm is clean, mine has doodles all over it. My soulmate is active. Unlike yours...Randy?” T.J. let the ball drop and he rushed to his friend’s side, who fell to his knees and started breathing heavily.
Reed looked at his arm. There were swirling black lines all over it and then it settled on a black band on his forearm.
“Shit,” T.J. looked. “Man I’m sorry…”
“Just... just leave it,” he said. “I gotta go home…Maybe it’s good I didn’t meet them yet. Maybe I’ll meet another lost soul and just...see if we have fun.” He grabbed his stuff and left.
“Okay, I won’t say another word about soulmates...I swear...”
T.J. watched Randy walk away. He knew that sort of thing happened and opened his phone to see if there were any news stories that could have explained that. The good news is that there were no national tragedies to report, but that didn’t change the black band on Randy’s arm.
He remembered the car crash like it was yesterday. They weren’t in the car, but he remembered his mom screamed in pain and dropped the salad bowl she was holding. He remembered looking around confused while Amber rushed over to help her, and he remembered her breaking down crying when the band solidified. He looked up what happened later that night because his mom didn’t want to talk, and he and Amber just held each other and cried.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t want to remember the funeral, and he didn’t want to think about how his mom said that it feels like there’s a hole in her heart and that she’ll never be warm enough again.
“Whatever man…” T.J. said. “I’m gonna go study for English…” He put on his hoodie and froze when, as soon as she walked into the gym looking annoyed, he saw Buffy’s right arm. The patterns looked way to similar. He grabbed a blue pen and drew a small slash on his wrist. Thankfully, nothing happened, and he quickly cleaned the mark off before he left. Maybe Driscoll just drew on his soulmate’s arm, or maybe his soulmate was the artist. Either way, one important thought remained in his head.
“Not Her.”