And since I’ve been so caught up in everything else, I’d almost completely forgotten how beautiful I thought the pictures were alone.
Seeing it now though? In person? In color?
The wildflowers lining the road, dotting the side of the highway leading into the mountains with purples, and yellows, and oranges, were one thing. The actual mountains rising up around us were something else.
The stunning views and the fantastic architecture of the Gothic-style buildings that make up most of the university don’t stop the unexpected pang I feel when I think of how Beth would absolutely love it here. I can see her with her camera strap slung around her neck, viewfinder up to her eye as she takes countless pictures of the lines and shadows lent by the buildings. How she would probably squeal in excitement if she saw how many willow trees are scattered across the lawns.
I try not to let the hurt hit me all that hard. I knew this was coming, but I’ve been able to put off thinking about it for this long.
And it’s not like Beth will be stuck back at home, pining away for her best friend. No, Beth is taking a year off to not exactly backpack, but travel through Europe. She’s far too high maintenance for any actual backpacking, but plans to stay at youth hostels and with host families for the duration of her trip. She begged me to come with her, but by the time she got around to ironing out the details, I’d already gotten my early acceptance letter in the mail and that was that.
Also, and she knows this already, part of the reason I love Beth as much as I do is because of how unlike me she really is. Because of what a free spirit she is. She’s a fly by the seat of her pants, wanderlust-filled pixie while I am the pragmatic, level-headed—most of the time, shut up—worrywart.
Honestly, if we were to ever take an extended journey like that together, I would fear for the state our lives and friendship. She knows she has to send me photos and postcards though. And how if I don’t hear from her at least once a week via email I will mount a one-woman, worldwide search. And then proceed to kick her ass once I finally find her, most likely hanging out in some Buddhist temple or carrying on in a bar somewhere in the seedy back alleyways of Venice.
I don’t even know if Venice has seedy back alleyways. Does a city covered in water even have proper alleys? Another reason she’s the one with the grand, travel the world while she’s young aspirations—I’m already worrying over things that don’t, and will probably never, apply to me.
And those are just all of the things I feel about leaving Beth behind. Or, well, not having her with me. I don’t even want to start down the road that leads to thoughts of not being right down the hall from my parents. Maybe it’s lame, I don’t even know, but I love my mom and dad. I’m not ashamed of the fact I love them.
And God, do I worry about my father and how much of an adjustment this is going to be for him. Maybe we can video chat during his dinner shifts each Friday. And four hours… It isn’t really that far. I know this. I’ll have to buy a lot of books on tape to listen to on the drives back and forth. Maybe I could use the time to learn another language! Italian—So I’ll know it when I have to hunt down Beth.
Ugh.
I don’t realize I’ve vocalized the ugh until my father turns to face me, concern etched onto his features. Somehow we’ve already exited the car, crossed through the parking lot, and are three steps away from entering through the large double doors of the Student Information Center. And I’ve stopped in my tracks.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
I shake my head a little from side to side, hoping my smile doesn’t look too forced.
“Nothing. I just … I totally forgot they were supposed to email our roommate assignments out to us sometime this week. I didn’t even bother looking for it.”
It’s true. I totally forgot about it. Another thing I should have spent more time focusing on.
Aside from sleepovers, I’ve never shared a room with anyone before. What if it’s awful? What if I hate her, or she hates me? Or, I don’t know, snores, or stinks, or listens to really awful music without ear buds in? Oh God, what if she’s here today and somehow knows who I am, and comes up to me to introduce herself and I look like some kind of awful, self-centered jerkface?
Digging through my purse faster than I think I ever have, I manage to locate my phone within seconds. Maybe even fractions of a second, but probably not since I have a lot of crap in my purse. I veer off to the side and vaguely note my parents following me as I lean against the building. The hope there’s decent Wi-Fi briefly crosses my mind before I realize if there’s going to be Wi-Fi anywhere, it’ll be here on campus and I should have nothing to worry about.
Less than a minute later, I have my roommate’s name, Daphne something or other that I’ll never remember how to spell or pronounce, know what she looks like, or at least looked like when her most recent FriendSpace profile picture was taken, that she’s local—maybe that means she’ll go home on the weekends—and am prepared to step inside. Or as prepared as I’ll ever be, anyway.
Barely inside the building, a tornado of dark skin and inky-black curls, not entirely unlike my own in the way they seem to not only defy gravity but also spit in its face, flocks to me like a fly to honey. She introduces herself as my new roommate and says something to the effect of how she knows the two of us are going to be great friends.
I don’t pay attention to any of that though. I can’t. Because Daphne is dressed almost head-to-toe in color, starting with lemon-yellow pants, moving upward to a sea-green top, and ending with tiny, pink button studs in her ears. I can’t take my eyes off of it.
Because I totally needed another reminder of what else I’ll be leaving behind me when I move at the end of summer.
Once I’m able to shake myself out of this ridiculous, melancholy stupor, I’m happy to find Daphne is actually pretty awesome. Awesome meaning she is remarkably friendly, outspoken, and outgoing in a way that reminds me of Beth, but without the blackmail material that can be held over my head in order to goad me into being outgoing along with her. And she doesn’t think she snores. Also? She says she more than likely will be returning home most weekends.
We sat next to each other during the short introductory speeches, our parents making small talk that sounded polite and relaxed from what little I paid attention to. We were shown our dorm, unable to go in, but wondered which side our room would face—the courtyard or the mountainous view that served as the campus’ perpetual backdrop.
At the end of the day, after we’d said our goodbyes and promised to be in touch via email, I realized not once did she mention her Soulmate. And not for one second did I stop thinking about mine.
We pull into the hotel parking lot after having dinner with Daphne and her parents, and I feel my phone vibrate inside my purse. I stop walking to pull it out as my mom passes me on the sidewalk. She looks back and raises a brow.
“I’ll be there in a few,” I say, waving my phone in the air. “Just want to check in.”
She nods, not asking who or what I’m checking in with, and slips an extra key card for the room into my hand. I watch as they disappear into the lobby and then follow the sidewalk to the gated pool area. I sit, legs stretched out on the faded lounger in front of me, and watch the surface of the water as it ripples with the breeze. I squint a little, studying the pattern on the pool’s liner and the way it turns the water blue before I tap the home button on my phone.
I offhandedly note and dismiss a notification I’ve received of a friend request from Daphne, and hone in on the other FriendSpace alert instead. It says I have a message from Drew, but doesn’t show anything in the preview section. I slide my finger across the screen and wait for whatever he’s sent me to load. It does, and I nearly drop the phone, but manage to recover at the last second.
It’s not until I blink and my vision goes all watery and spotty I realize I’m tearing up. There are no words on the screen, only a picture. A picture of what’s got to be, at least for now, the most bea
utiful sunset I have ever seen.
Chapter Twenty-One
Not only do I have the honor of attending my senior prom all by myself, I get to spend at least three hours setting the stupid thing up beforehand!
So yeah, I didn’t even get to sleep in late and wallow in the misery that is my loneliness. The manicure Beth also talked me into getting with her yesterday evening? Also mostly a waste. I knew as soon as I moseyed my way into the Centennial Ballroom at the Hyatt Garden Inn and saw the sheer amount of work needed to be done that my nails were soon to be a casualty.
It’s a shame, too. The little sparkly gems they talked me into adding at the last minute really were kind of cute.
I look down at my hands, spread my fingers wide, and sigh. That’s right. They were cute. When they were still affixed to the matte navy polish. At least the actual polish isn’t too chipped and beaten. Although there is a tiny spot on my right pinkie that… No. No, I’m going to ignore that. Otherwise, it’ll be so picked at and picked off before I even manage to get home and start getting ready I’ll be forced to strip the rest of my nails in order to match.
I glance at my rear view and watch Taryn dump an armful of extra decorations into the trunk of her car. She’s got her phone cradled between one ear and her shoulder and there’s a smile on her face that’s so wide I know she can only be talking to her date. Some guy she met at a youth leadership conference a couple of months back. Kyle? Carl? Something along those lines.
She practically bounces as she walks around to the driver’s side door and slips inside. Her date is not her Soulmate. She was quite adamant in telling me that of course he wasn’t. She rattled off a list of statistics not entirely unlike the one I memorized myself before, well… Just before. Her main point was this Kyle, maybe Carl, guy might not make her see anything in color, but he does make her happy. And being at a forty percent risk of never meeting her Soulmate in the first place? Well, she isn’t going to spend all of her time waiting for him to maybe come along.
Yep. Taryn. In the grand scheme of things, youth leader extraordinaire, head of the prom committee, Taryn has a more open, positive, and understanding view on relationships outside of true Soulmates than I do. She’s going to be whisked around the dancefloor tonight by a cute guy and have the time of her life.
Me? I have a Soulmate and I’m not going to be doing either of those things.
I let my breath out slowly and put the car in reverse. I’d repeat my ‘I will not be bitter, I will not be jaded’ mantra a couple of times if I thought it would actually hold up. Just for today though, I’m going to allow a little realism to take over. I mean, frown lines don’t usually show up this early in life, right? Surely I can get away with a half an hour’s worth of scowling on my drive home.
Even though I politely declined the offer to ride with her and Ryan to the dance, Beth is already waiting when I get home. Getting ready together, she says, is a sign of true friendship and a moment she refuses to let even my grumpy, sullen ass steal away from her. And in response, I told her I’d thought my ass hadn’t been nearly as sullen lately. She finally conceded, but only if I agreed to let her pick out the music we got ready to.
So now I’m stuck with hearing her sing some song I don’t know, by some band I’ve never heard of, all with a whopping six inches of space between us. She rocks her hips to one side and nearly takes out the tower of beauty products littering my desk. And then, because she’s Beth, over-corrects herself. I grab her wrist, halting it midair seconds before the mascara wand in her hand makes contact with my cornea.
“Whoa there, dancing queen!” I gently lower her hand and remove the implement of possible destruction from it. “I get you’re excited, but I’d really like to at least start off the night with both eyes fully functioning.”
“Ah,” she starts, moving to stand behind me. She makes a face at me in the mirror. “So you’re not opposed to injuries later on in the evening? I knew you had something devious planned after all.”
“Oh, shut it.” I bat her hands off my shoulders and lift the mascara wand into the air. “And I can do this part myself. If you think you can help tame the mess on top of my head after I’m done, though… Well, by all means, have at it.”
And, holy shit, somehow she does. I’ll admit, when she tells me to finally turn around, because she has me facing the opposite direction of the mirror—it’s all about the big reveal after all, I don’t expect much. Some people say their hair has a mind of its own. My individual curls have minds of their own. But this… I mean…
“Oh my God.” I state with a voice that almost shakes in surprise. “I don’t know how you did this, but I need for you to do it every day for the rest of my life.”
I do kind of know how she did it. Forty-five minutes, three different curling irons, a flat iron, and more product than a troupe of Elvis impersonators. Worth it, though. Totally worth it.
Another twenty minutes, some severe body-shape-changing undergarments, and two prom dresses later—one slinky and form-fitting, and the other leather and shorter than strictly necessary—we’re standing in the foyer, having no less than seventeen thousand pictures taken. Beth, even though I’m about to drive her back to her house and she’ll have to go through this whole process with Ryan and her parents all over again, plays along like a champ. I swallow down the sudden lump in my throat and try not to think about how much I’m going to miss her this fall.
****
Somehow, despite my initial, and continual, refusal, I end up riding shotgun in Ryan’s tiny little hatchback. It started with Beth’s parents’ decision to duplicate the photoshoot we had at my house for their own records. Ryan showed up about fifteen minutes into it, integrated himself, and I was able to slip away for bit. I played photographer myself, already picturing the layout of the photos over the desk in my dorm room come August. Somehow I was drawn back into the fray and eventually shoved into the front seat.
“You sit up front! Your legs are too long for the backseat,” Beth offered, squeezing herself in between the door and folded over passenger seat before I knew what was going on.
I gently reminded her I was perfectly okay with driving myself. She not so gently reminded me we didn’t have too much time left to spend with each other before ‘real life began’. Specifically no time that would permit us to flounce around in pretty dresses.
Joking I had plans to wear this gown at least once a month for the rest of the summer didn’t placate her in the least.
I am glad she accepted my horrible dance moves as an excuse to not spend every second of the night on the floor. Though I’ve forgone the decidedly cheesy photo ops once inside, I sidle up to where Taryn is watching off to the side. It doesn’t escape my notice she’s claimed a tall Director’s chair as her own as she observes couples taking their turns making their ‘acceptance speech’ for the photographer.
“Libby, hey!” She turns to look at me, her legs crossed at the ankles as she swings them to the side. “Wow, you look fantastic!”
“Thanks, Taryn.” I smile at her and it comes so easily I’m actually surprised for a second. “You look great, too.”
She introduces me to her date, a tall, stocky guy named Cary—I was kind of close—with shoulders and arms that scream ‘I play football and can toss you through the air like one if I want’. His handshake is surprisingly gentle and the way he looks at Taryn is enough to make even my heart flutter. She looks down and smiles, and even under the sparkly, but dim lighting, I can still make out the blush that colors her cheeks. I wonder if I would’ve been able to detect it months ago. I wonder if I would have thought it was a shadow crossing over her face.
“I want to say thank you for all of the work you did to help put this together,” she says, reaching forward to grasp my hands in hers. She squeezes and I squeeze back because really, I don’t know that I did all too much to help overall. Other than running errands, printing flyers, distributing tickets once they were paid for… Okay, so maybe I helped out
more than I thought. And I did talk everyone out of the awful jungle safari idea they had. “And I’m really glad we got to know each other better. You have to promise me you’ll stay in touch.”
I might only be going to school four hours away, but Taryn is spending the next year in South America. Missionary work… Doing things that will serve as a constant reminder of how I duped her into helping me essentially, or maybe definitely, break the law. Although after getting to know her, and how sweet she is in her own slightly overbearing way, I can’t help but genuinely like the girl.
I’m about to reply with a promise I actually do intend to keep, when Mr. Ring wanders over. He compliments Taryn on her work pulling this event together and glances over at me mid-sentence. It’s confusing at first because it’s not like he doesn’t recognize me. We’ve interacted plenty during prom committee meetings and I even had him for drafting last year.
“Miss Carmichael,” he starts, and because of the intense way he’s looking at me, I wonder if I have something on my face. His gaze sweeps lower, down over my dress and, oh… “You look lovely this evening. That’s a wonderful color on you.”
“Um… Uh… Thank you, sir,” I stumble over my words and feel my face grow hot.
“Color?” Taryn muses slightly under her breath, looking from Mr. Ring and then back to me. “I don’t—”
“That’s really cool,” Cary offers, and I know the poor boy doesn’t know better and really thinks he’s helping further the conversation, but oh God. “My older sister met her Soulmate when she was still in high school, too. So, is yours here tonight?”
He lifts his chin up, looking over my head to search for whoever I might be here with, and I freeze. I don’t know what to do, or say, or think. So I run my hand along my forehead, my already clammy forehead, and back right into the table behind me. Thankfully nothing falls or spills, but that does nothing to ease the sense of panic I feel.
What's a Soulmate? Page 23