#kellysashcroft

"No, I get it" I answer quickly, realising that I did actually want him to stay and a silence falls over the two of us again as we both look anywhere but at each other.

"I'll just, get" he points behind his head, "get my coat then" he says quietly as I look back at him as his voice grabs my attention. 

"Okay, I'll walk you out" I say back as I get up and walk him towards the front door.

He hesitates just outside the door frame as he turns back to me and I lean slightly on the door.

"Embry" he starts, "do you? I mean, um, I" his nervous energy makes me stand up straighter, my heart racing in my chest. He lets out a breathy chuckle as he rubs the back of his neck with his hand again; I guess he does that a lot when he's nervous. "I had a really nice time tonight, thank you" he smiles up at me once he's decided on his words.

"I had a really nice time too, we should do it again sometime" his smile only grows wider at my words and a second later he leans in and places a quick, unsure kiss on my cheek and I feel my face blush.

"See you tomorrow" he says quickly as he turns to go to his car, looking back towards me as he gets into the driver’s seat and I offer a small wave and then he's gone.

I go back into my house, making sure to lock the door and find my phone, already having received a text from Will.

   ⁃    I really had an amazing time with you. Sorry I fell asleep. I really hope we can do it again, maybe next time I can cook for you? Good night, Em. 

I can't help but smile and notice the nickname he's given me and I realise no one else has ever shortened my name. It seems weird to think about because it seems so obvious, but no one ever has and I like the thought that maybe he will be the only one to ever call me it. I quickly text back.

   ⁃    I had a great time too. It's okay, you look cute when you sleep. I'd love that. Goodnight.

I walk up the stairs into my bedroom, put on my favourite pyjamas again, now that they're washed, and slip into bed, hoping for a peaceful night’s sleep, but that's not what I get. 

-

"You really just can't stay out of the way can you?" I hear a woman's voice say in an angry tone as I feel something being dragged from my face and I take a deep breath. "Always in the way!" 

The woman grabs my left arm and picks up a metal device as she places it over the mark on my wrist and I let out a scream in pain. 

"It'll stop hurting soon, we've done this before, stop fidgeting" she scolds and my blood turns cold at the pain and fear I'm feeling.

"What did you do with him?" I whisper through the pain. "Where is he?"

"Oh he's fine, don't worry, you won't remember him soon enough anyway" she says. What does she mean, I won't remember him? 

The woman keeps the device pressed against my skin for what feels like forever and the pain increases and decreases in intensity over time. I hear my own screams and whimpers and I try to fight her off as she has more straps added to restrain me. 

Eventually she stops and the pain subsides a little as she removes the device. I manage a glance down at my mark through my hooded and watery eyes, exhausted from the torture I've just endured and notice that the mark on my wrist is lighter, less prominent.

-

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

I jolt awake, yet again, to the sound of my alarm blaring and slowly I reach over to hit the snooze button, hoping for just five more minutes; enough time to collect my thoughts, before I get up out of bed, and start my usual routine of brushing my teeth, washing my body, putting on make up and getting dressed. 

I decide again to drive to work today, feeling too tired to walk, as much as I miss my near the beach walks home and as I stop at some traffic lights I remember being here and my wrist hurting. I realise it was him I saw, Will. He was the guy walking across the street. I remember the same dark brown hair, the same smile, the dimple. He was the guy who's hand I shook and felt the same pain again. But the mark isn't supposed to hurt. I've never heard anyone ever say it hurt them to get their mark, so why did mine hurt?

I'm pulled from my thoughts yet again as the lights change and I continue my drive to work but I can't seem to shake the feeling that something's wrong. Surely there must be a reason that ours was so different? I make a mental note to go to Clive's after work and ask him if he knows anything about it. He knows an awful lot more about them than me, he practically wrote a thesis on them at one point, maybe he can help. 

As I pull into the car park at the school, I see Will walking across a few metres from me and he raises his hand in a wave as he catches my eye and I think about how used I'm getting to seeing my mark on his wrist, and his on mine. 

"Hey" he says as our paths cross near the doors of the school and we smile at each other. 

"Hey, you okay?" I start as he shakes a plastic cup at me containing my favourite mocha, passing one to me and keeping one for himself. “Thank you”

"No problem.” He pauses as he smiles at me. After a few seconds he shakes his head as he looks down to the floor and continues, “Yeah, didn't sleep the best though, you?"

"Me either actually, I had the weirdest dream" as I'm about to start to tell him about it, the bell rings for the first class of the day and I feel like I've lost time, not a lot, only about ten minutes or so, but like as if somehow, the day is passing by earlier than it should. I was sure we had longer to talk.  

"So today, class, we're gonna have a study session, so if everyone could take their notepads and textbooks out, I want you to all read through your evolutionary perspectives of eating behaviour essays and write notes on your essay. Try and shorten it into key points and then that into bullet points until you'll be able to know your paragraph from a few key words. If you need any help, just ask, otherwise, you can work in small groups" I finish as a few tables scrape across the floor, kids moving closer to their friends as a quiet muttering overtakes the room and I sit in my chair behind the desk. 

My mind falls back to the dream I had last night and I can't help but feel like there's more to it, like it's not just a dream and like I'm missing some of the information. I start to look at my mark and notice that it's full in colour, unlike my dream, but as I stare at it, it starts to itch again and I get a sharp pain in my head as a flood of words enter my brain. They're all fumbling over each other too fast for me to hear most of them, the only ones I make out don't make any sense to me and I hold the side of my head as I scrunch my eyes, opening my mouth in a silent scream and hope the pain will subside quickly.

"Embry?" I hear and just as quickly the pain started, it goes and I look up to find Will, his hands on my forearms, his body twisted as he tells the class to pack up their stuff and that they're dismissed for the day. As the class empties he turns back to me with concern in his eyes, "are you okay? I walked past and you looked like you were in agony. What happened?"

"I, I don't know, my head just started hurting. I couldn't make much of it out"

"Make what out?"

"The words" I answer, "my head was flooded with words, I could only make a little bit out through the jumble: lost, taken, soulmate and you, but it doesn't make any sense, I don't know what happened". He sighed in response as he moved one of his hands behind my head and pulled me into his chest and held me.

We stay like that for what feels like forever, one hand never moving from the back of my head while the other dances up and down my back, trailing small shapes over my green dress. 

After a couple of minutes he pulls back from me and wipes the remaining tears that have fell from my eyes off my face. “I’m gonna go and get you some water okay? Don’t go anywhere”

I nod as he hesitantly stands up and leaves the room, coming back only a minute later with a bottle of water. “I haven’t drank any of it, you need to have a drink okay? It’ll make you feel a bit better”. He says as he crouches down in front of me again, one hand finding its way back to resting on my forearm.

“Thank you” I whisper as I take a big gulp of water and he continues to look at me with worry in his eyes. “I’ll be okay, I just haven’t been sleeping very well” I say through a still croaky voice and he gives me a small smile in response.

“Just, relax for a little bit” he advises as he moves in slightly closer to me, “you’ve got like twenty minutes until the next class, will you be okay?”

“I’m good, honestly” I answer too fast, “you can go, but thank you”.

We share a tentative smile as he stands up and leaves the room, and again, I’m not unaware of his eyes lingering on me as he does so. 

I spend the next twenty minutes trying to breathe through the almost crippling anxiety I keep feeling, devising it’s probably better to just leave the remnants of my coffee rather than adding more caffeine to this situation. I find a small post it note and write down the words I felt drum around in my brain and stare at them, holding for an explanation to drop from the sky when the bell rings again. Too quickly my students pile into the classroom and still not feeling great, I inform them they will be doing the same study exercise as my previous class as I sit back in my chair, tapping my pen against the desk trying to figure out what this could mean. 

Not much longer passes before lunch has come around and before I can even move from behind my desk, Will is at the door waiting for me. 

“I was wondering if maybe you’d want to sit with me at lunch today?” I hear him say.

“We sit together every day?” I question with a squint of my eyes. 

“I guess that’s true” he laughs, “I mean, just me” he says as he slowly moves into the room as I walk around my desk. 

“Are you asking me on a date to the cafeteria William?” I smile as he blushes slightly. 

“No, not a date, I promise” he laughs as he looks back up to me and wipes his hand over his chin. “Just, I’d really like to have a meal with just you again.” 

“I’d love to”. 

Walking down the corridor to the cafeteria, I feel his eyes on me every few seconds and the questions he wants to ask are almost hanging in the air in front of us like a fog. 

“I’m okay” I say as I turn to face him, nodding my head, trying to convince us both. 

“I know” he says too quickly, “I just want you to know that if you’re not, if you need help, me to cover your class, if you need anything, I can feel the anxiety coming off you” his words make me turn my head to look at the floor as I feel him stop next to me and take hold of my wrist, his thumb rubbing absentmindedly against the mark that lives there, “that’s okay too. I’m here”. His final words have me lifting my head to look at him again, a small smile finding its way into my face as he slips his hand down to hold mine and intertwines  our fingers. As I nod my head, he gives my hand a small squeeze before releasing it as we start up our walk to the cafeteria again. 

Sitting down at a table on the far side of the room, we both dig into our meals, mine being chicken pasta and Will’s being bolognese, as we discuss his classes that day. Nothing major happened, like for example, he didn’t freak out all of his students by having an agonising pain in his head and had to have them excused by another staff member, but he did teach one of his classes about an obscure battle that I had never heard of. As the conversation about our classes dwindles down, we both turn to continue our lunches, comfortable in each other’s presence and my anxiety is easing from just being around him. 

“I know you might not want to talk about it but, I meant it, anything you need, ever” he says with a level of sincerity I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before and I know he’s not just talking about today, he really does mean anything and with what time is coming up, I can’t even begin to express how much that means to me. “Chloe mentioned something this morning about this being a tough time of year for you?” He asks innocently and I can’t work out if I’m mad or grateful that my friend started this conversation for me. 

“I don’t really talk about it at work but yeah, um, it’s coming up to the anniversary, of um, my parents death” I almost whisper, being brave enough to continue looking at Will. 

“I’m so sorry” he says quickly, “she didn’t say that- -, you don’t have to-“

“It’s okay, I don’t mind, but like I said I just don’t talk about it at work, sometimes I’m okay but sometimes I cry and I don’t want to cry at work”

“I get it, so do you like baseball?” He changes the subject quickly and I can’t help but laugh. 

The rest of the day goes by without a problem, each class going over the same study exercise based on what topic they’re focusing on currently and I spend my time catching up on grading essays. 

As soon as the final bell rings, I practically run from the school needing to see Clive as soon as possible. As much as sitting with Will at lunch may have eased my anxiety for that time, it came back in floods throughout the second half of the day. 

I walk into Clive's book store, hearing the bell above the door as I open and shut it. I nod in greeting at Clive, still by the counter, where he always seems to be and he nods back.

Knowing that the conversation I want to have with him is probably going to stir up some memories he'd rather forget, I take in a sharp breath as I start to walk over to him and he gives me a quizzical look. He must be wondering why I'm not just walking around the store like I usually do. 

"I need to ask you something, and you might not like it, but it's important, I'll explain as best I can but I wouldn't bring it up if it wasn't really important. Not to you" he gives me a knowing look after taking my words in and gives me a small nod, assuring me that I can ask, but not confirming that he will answer, or even have one in the first place. "Okay, have you ever heard of anyone's mark hurting? Like when they get it? Or even after they've got it? Because the first time I saw Will, it was when he was walking across the road and I was driving and I felt this sharp pain in my wrist; I didn't have my mark then of course and I ignored it, but then later it got itchy and I thought I could see something but I was wrong, although now, I'm not so sure. And then, the first time we touched, after we met, we both got a sharp pain, so bad we had to pull our hands away from each other and then mine was itchy later in the day again, I never asked about his" I'm not sure at what point we moved, but as I continue I realise I'm sitting in my usual spot on the couch at the back of the store, Clive opposite me.

"So then, today all of a sudden, it starts to get really itchy again, but like, painful itchy, like I want to scratch through my skin itchy and then I get this splitting pain in my head and I can't see or hear anything apart from these words going round and round in my head, too many to make out except four. Only four make their way through to me" I tell him the four words I'd told Will about earlier in the day as he leans further towards me, intently listening to everything I'm saying, a look of confusion on his face. "So I think they're connected, I mean, the pain, the itch, and the word soulmate came up, that can't be a coincidence right? So, I mean you know more about it than anyone else I know so have you ever heard of this happening? I mean, is it wrong? Is it trying to fight its way off my body because it's a mistake?" I ask, scared of what the answer could be as he stops me.

"I don't think it's that. The marks are never wrong, ever. He's your soulmate, there's no doubt about that but it hurting?" He turns away from me slightly, looking nowhere in particular as he thinks. "The only times I've ever heard of someone's mark hurting is when someone tried to take it off, they physically tried to tear it from their skin, it didn't work of course, the marks are protected, something in them. And when you spend too long away from your soul mate, mine hurts occasionally when I miss Mary, a few other people who've lost their soul mates or have had to be away from them have said the same thing but it's an ache, not a sharp pain".

He looks back at my disheartened face, disappointed at feeling like I still don't really have any sort of answer. "I see him every day, we talk after work until we go to sleep, he's text me goodnight, every night and neither one of us has tried to get rid of the mark" I trail off, defeated.

"Leave it with me, okay? I'll have a look through my stuff, see if there's anything I can find that might explain it and I'll let you know if I find something but just, try not to worry about it too much, okay kid?" He offers me a small smile as he pats my shoulder and I realise that's the first time since Mary died that I've seen any type of real smile on his face.

"Yeah" I surrender, "thanks Clive, it means a lot, thank you" I add sincerely as I get up to leave the store before quickly turning and adding, "oh I almost forgot, Will asked me to ask you if you could order 1984 for him? You know by George Orwell?" 

"Sure, I'll get on it straight away, I'll make up an invoice when it comes and keep it back for him or if you pick it up, okay?"

"Thanks Clive, for everything" I say as I leave the store and make it to my car.

On the drive home I decide it's been too long since I've walked near the beach and if there was ever a time I needed to be calmed by the ocean, it's probably now when my mind can't seem to stop spinning. I pull up on my driveway, get out of my car, and walk back towards the beach, deciding I'll spend a couple of hours there and maybe watch the sunset before I walk back home. 

Sitting on the beach, this is the calmest I’ve felt since I was laying in Will’s arms. Making that realisation only panics me more, I mean, I’ve only known him a few weeks. How is it that someone I’m still aware I barely know has had such a profound effect on me? I feel like there’s an internal battle inside of me of running away from this and what it means because I can’t help but feel like I’ll be hurt, and another side of me that wants nothing more than to jump in, head first because I know he will never hurt me and I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused in my life. 

Trying to shake all thoughts of Will and the dreams and the mark and my feelings about any of it out of my head, I focus on the sounds of the waves crashing in front of me and the feel of the sand against my bare feet, my shoes being placed carefully in front of me. As I dig my feet further into the sand, I wrap my arms around my knees, bending them up to sit in front of my face and I enjoy the beauty the beach offers. 

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