sleepyspoonie

Not everyone believes in soulmates. Five-year-old Zoey doesn't think she wants to, as she piles her stuffed animals as high as her arms can reach against her bedroom door. She always locks it, when her parents fight like this; yelling and crying and screaming and sometimes there's a slam, or a shatter, or a thunk. Always worries that they'll bring the fight to her. They never do.

“Are you and dad soulmates?” Her mother bursts into tears. Zoey never asks again. 

But she dreams of pearlescent dawns peaking out from sharp, zigzagging clouds. Imagines tracing those stripes of sky with her fingertips as she wakes. Swears that they feel warm beneath her hands.

She collects iridescent shells; sustainably sourced, once she learns what ‘sustainable’ means. Buys a bottle of swirling nail polish with her allowance money. Stares at oil puddles in gas station parking spaces for a little too long as her dad fills up their rusting Toyota.

…

Five-year-old Rumi does believe in soulmates. But she hears Celine cry at night, sometimes, long after she has been tucked in with Teddy and whispered “goodnight” to and forehead kissed and is supposed to be asleep. She sits in front of her mother's gravestone, long after her legs have gone numb, and watches Celine light another incense with minutely twitching fingers. She watches her mother dance on the TV screen and sees a younger Celine smile. And she believes. And she doesn't want one. 

But she dreams of constellations. Of the Milky Way. Of faint stars dusting across the beginnings of twilight.

She sneaks onto the roof on clear nights, a blanket in one hand and Teddy in the other, and looks at the sky for hours, until Celine appears to shoo her back to bed. Decorates her room with star charts and NASA posters. Unwraps a telescope for her birthday and stares through the eyepiece, first with one eye, then the other, until both sting with salty water. 

…

Fourteen-year-old Zoey stands against the back wall of the conference hall, notebooks clutched to her chest and a thick square of paper stamped with the number 247 crinkled in her palm. She catches glimpses of a folding table on the far side of the room through the undulating flock of teenage idol hopefuls, sees seated figures huddled close to be heard by one another over the excited din.

She goes to chew on her lip, remembers her lip gloss, starts tapping her shoe instead. Glances to her left. 246 girls in front of her. This is a mistake, she isn't as talented as half of these girls. Glances to her right. Three behind. This is a waste of time, they'll pick someone way better before she even auditions. Glances to the table. This is-

One of the seated figures is watching her. Eyes locked on even as bodies pass between them. Zoey feels a tug in her chest, so strong she almost stumbles into the pull of it against her sternum. Is this the tug? Is this girl, so far away that all Zoey can make out is lavender hair, her soulmate?

…

Rumi bows deeply, hours later, as Celine, the Celine, introduces her and Mira, and Zoey feels that tug again. But the images from her dreams don't click into place with any of Rumi's features. And almost no one finds their soulmate before their 20s, anyway. So Zoey bows back, stiff and awkward, notebooks threatening to tumble out of her sweaty hands, and decides that it's nerves. And, later, when it keeps happening, that it's the honmoon, even if she doesn't feel the same pull towards Mira. Decides, over and over and over again, as Rumi starts to pull away from them, from her, that she's not disappointed. 

…

Mira nudges Rumi's foot under the table. “Do you feel that?”

Rumi nods, eyes scanning the swarm of leotards and stage outfits. “She's here.”

Mira tries to school her features into an unpolished imitation of Celine's stoic nonchalance, but Rumi can feel her excitement radiating off of her. “Was this what it felt like when you found me?”

The presence of another soul calling to her, the thrum of her pulse in her veins, the subtle ripple of the honmoon above them. “Yes.” Rumi nudges Mira's foot back, smiling. “Exactly-”

Constellations burst behind her eyes. 

A girl against the back wall shifts slightly toward the double doors. Rumi's arms break out in goosebumps. ‘Not her not her not her. Please, not one of them, not like Celine and my-’

The honmoon sings. Mira nods. “Notebook girl. I see her, too.”

…

The Milky Way paints Zoey's cheeks, the bridge of her nose, and Rumi bows, long and formal, for a chance to look away, to catch her breath. Waits for Zoey to say something. The years pass. She never does. 

…

Rumi's patterns shine iridescent. Tiger stripes, Mira affectionately calls them, as she and Zoey cling to Rumi on their couch, the morning after everything changes. But Zoey looks at them and sees the dawn. 

…

A knock pulls Zoey away from her notebook a little over a week later. She glances up to find Rumi leaning against her doorframe in a new t-shirt and cotton shorts, a dusty cardboard box clutched in her arms.

Zoey pushes away from her desk, fingers curling into the leather of her armrests as she fights the urge to rush to Rumi's side. “How was seeing Celine?”

“Good. It was…” Rumi sighs, a bit of the ever present tension slipping from her shoulders with the breath. She and Mira need to get this woman to the bath house. “Yeah, it was good.” Her nails tap a staccato rhythm against the cardboard. “Can you, um, help me with something? In my room?”

Zoey feels that tug, somewhere near her heart. She ignores it. The last week has been a lot. A lot of talking. A lot of crying. A lot of… just, a lot. Especially for Rumi. Zoey is trying to give her space, and patience, and really how important is the whole ‘soulmate’ thing compared to everything-

Rumi clears her throat. “Zoey?”

Zoey jumps up. “Of course! Sorry, sorry. Just thinking.” Her hand finds the small of Rumi's back, fingertips pressing just enough to feel the warmth of skin beneath thin cotton, as they turn into the hall. Does Rumi shiver, or is it just the twitch of her own fingers?

Rumi bumps their shoulders together. Glances at the framed photographs of the three of them lining the walls. “Yeah. Lot of that, lately.”

And then they are staring at the box flaking dust and at least one long dead spider onto Rumi's pristine sheets. 

Rumi picks at a flap. Picks and picks and picks.

Zoey stills her fingers with her own. “Want help unpacking it?”

A nod. “Please.”

Zoey untucks the flaps and pulls out the first item, a folded up poster. She offers it to Rumi. 

Rumi's eyes are wide, her posture rigid, back straight. It reminds Zoey of their first demon fight without Celine, of the moment before they step onto the stage of their first concert, of the first time she and Mira successfully convince Rumi to sneak out of the compound for midnight snacks from the corner store.

Rumi presses it back to her. “You can…”

Zoey carefully unfolds the thin paper to reveal a… star chart?

Rumi unfolds the next one. A photograph of the Milky Way peeking out between mountains. 

A constellation map. 

A close up of the clusters of stars that make up Orion's Belt.

A ziplock bag containing faded glow in the dark stars. 

Zoey looks up to find Rumi's hand hovering near her face. Trembling fingertips trail the freckles sprinkling her cheeks, the bridge of her nose. She watches as goosebumps break out on Rumi's arms. 

“How long have you known?”

Rumi slides her hand down Zoey's jaw. The side of her neck. Pushes her sleeve up to trace the freckles on her shoulder, her bicep. “Since the auditions.”

“Why…” ‘Didn't you tell me?’ Is what she means to say. But what comes out is a thought buried for years. 

“...Didn't you want me?”

Rumi's face crumbles. “I've always wanted you.” Zoey is pulled into her chest, strong arms wrapping around her back, gripping her close. “Even when I didn't want a soulmate, I wanted you.” Zoey feels the familiar pin prick of tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Tries to swallow down the lump forming in the back of her throat. She is so tired of crying. Rumi drops her head to her shoulder. “I was waiting until we turned the honmoon gold. Until I… deserved it.”

“If we turned the honmoon gold I never would've known.”

Rumi chokes on a chimera of a laugh and a wail, forced out of her lungs only to snag in her throat. She pulls away. Zoey immediately misses her. Her body tilts forward, chasing her warmth. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. If you don't want me I can-”

Rumi's lips are slightly chapped, Zoey has caught her chewing on them more than once since the Idol Awards, but soft and pliant and eager under her own. Calloused thumbs trace her cheekbones, her freckles, and Zoey would tease Rumi for her newly revealed obsession if her mouth were not currently very occupied and her hands were not tracing the iridescent obsession of her own.

“So,” Rumi pulls back long enough to suck in a breath and exhale a word, “should,” she presses back in before Zoey can chase her, “we,” groans as teeth nip at her bottom lip, “talk?”

Zoey pauses, her hands flexing on Rumi's hips. “What do you need to hear?”

“That I can have this.” Rumi's lips find her temple, thumbs brushing her jaw. “Have you.”

Zoey lets the statement settle between them. Lets it curl into her chest. Closes her eyes to the weight of it and sees stripes of dawn.