According to an excerpt of Chinese mythology that I’ve heard or read somewhere, soulmates are connected by a certain red string. This is what they call the ‘red string of fate’, which, somehow despite the distance, connected them no matter wherever they were in the world. It is said that they are to encounter ultimately, the soulmates, come what may, they will find each other by following anywhere the read string may lead. Then they’d fall in love with each other unconditionally, get married, have children and live happily ever after. I don’t know the accuracy of this though, nor do I actually believe in such superstitious conspiracies. It’s mostly because I don’t believe in the sheer existence of some red string of fate the first-place, nor of the existence of a soulmate. I don’t think it’s precise to believe that one’s life partner is always the one on the other end of the string, or maybe there are other strings attached, despite its literal implausibility. However, the most sensible approach to this whole soul-mate business is to think that there are no strings attached at all; and that is not only because I don’t want to be connected to just anyone by my pinky finger and decidedly have her my soulmate; though it might sound insanely pathetic for a boy of my age, I quite have a little wish for the best friend of mine to be attached to me by the string.

I met my best friend somewhere during the first week of our freshman year of university. We majored the same course, belonged to the same department and belonged to the same faculty, miraculously. I sat at the end of the line, her the one before the end of the line; I sat alone, she sat alone, and naturally we began to sit together and became best friends. Needless to say that she’s the definition of all perfection, even the term perfection should be an understatement to define just how much of a fantastically gorgeous creature she is. She isn’t what you’d call conventionally beautiful. There weren’t any roots for her beauty, nothing to point out and acknowledge in particular; not her eyes, her hair, her curves, and the way she walks or way she walks; the beauty of her was just her and I didn’t think she needed anything more than that to be the sheer perfection that she already is. However, I don’t think she quite understands this herself; the never ending whining about being not-so-attractive was a constant battle to fight for me; given that I had the never ending urge to tell her just how perfect she was and well, just ravish her then and there. I think this is because no one has ever really pointed it out to her, that her beauty didn’t lie in her appearance but the entire existence of herself. I have had many instances where I really wanted to tell her this, but sadly I always find such confessions a little too overrated.

I think she and I read this Chinese mythological theory together that she takes it a little too seriously and drags this idea a little too far beyond the scope where it should actually end. She has spontaneous crushes though, but never had a boyfriend that I know of, for my utter relief. She’s developed this habit of looking at random men who’d dare to even throw a glance at her and immediately assume he’s a crush on her. She’d just sit at the lunch table beside me, stir the broth of the soup and stare right ahead while I surreptitiously stared at her side profile. Then suddenly she will point at a guy she thinks is attractive and say things like ‘look at him, isn’t he adorable?’, ‘Isn’t he a peach?’, ‘I so want to wrap him up in a garbage bag and take him home!’ which I find really superfluous and at some cases revolting; I don’t say it though, because I don’t want to upset her. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be adorable or any of this sappy adjectives, a peach or any kind of a fruit or wrapped in a garbage bag and taken home; all I wanted was to be is her best friend who’s been harboring a crush on her for long as he remembers, and just be acknowledged for it. But sadly, it doesn’t even have the sheer possibility of happening. I remember one time when I wondered aloud who my soul-mate was, though I don’t actually believe in it. What I was hoping to hear was something alone the line of ‘though I never thought of it, it might even be me’, but unfortunately, what she actually said was ‘Not me, I will never be your soulmate even if you were the only man on earth’ and that, as sad as it may sound, ruined all the prospects I had of myself being one, and I had to dejectedly and hopelessly discard it. However, in case she realized things, I resumed to be in love with her and go on.

The freshman year went on with nothing significant; we went for lectures, watched the clocks, remained best friends and remained out-casted; such was life that entire year and thus came along the second year of college. 

Even the first three months were no different from the year before. Lectures went on, clocks ticked slower during class and faster during lunch, we were best friends and nobody ever really wanted to talk to us. Three months, and suddenly without warning, my best friend announced that she’d gotten herself a boyfriend.

It’s somewhere in the first semester and I had really lost my track on dates so I can’t exactly recall what day it was; I had started the day tardily and it had gone on in the same boring pace. There was calculus in the morning therefore in my brain were numbers already flying in circles; and during lunch I remembered that I had homework which I had completely forgotten and I had to hand over the next period; I proceeded to complete it, just as another one of my socially-rejected friends who had statistics with me slid into the chair in my right. We talked about things, statistics basically while attempting to complete a fair part of it when my best friend materialized in front of me from god knows where. She looked as though she had run circles around the campus; her hair was disheveled, her face wet in perspiration and breathed approximately ten times a second with her chest heaving up and down in a constant pace. She had her hands on the base of her neck and her pale green T-shirt pulled to a side, revealing a pink strap with roses embossed on it; but what caught my attention was the strange gleam in her eyes. Knowing her for over a year allowed me to assume what could have happened without any difficulty, so I asked her; “What does he look like, a papaya?” and she got impatient like a little girl for a new doll-house and grabbed my hand in a tight grip. “No! I’ve got to tell you something…”

I was a little perplexed then so I didn’t say anything further, abandoned my homework and followed after her outside the lunch hall to the patio where the rejects hung out. She made me sit down, she sat down next to me, and before even I could tell her anything she started to squeak so loud but in a whisper, “I just got myself a boyfriend!”

I didn’t know how I must be feeling right then, happy or completely rejected or angered by the revelation. I didn’t know what to say either. Would ‘congratulations’ suffice? Should I also tell her that was happy for her? I couldn’t exactly bring myself to say that because I was not sure if I was, in fact, I think happiness had quite drained from me momentarily, all I could feel was rejected and like a complete utter fool. A voice inside me was singing without cease; ‘That’s the end folks!’

I stared at her without a word as she explained. “He’s this guy from the drama club; he’s such a sweet thing! He just came out and said it, ‘I like you’! I’m amazed at the confidence, just…amazing”

I didn’t listen to her any further because I couldn’t be confident let alone be amazingly confident the first place; I just nodded, agreed to whatever she said and acknowledged the fact that she had finally had her childish desires coming true. I watched her then, silently as she flew off in a haste as though she were a bird released from an imaginary cage. I watched her until she was only a blurry image in the furthest end where the sun met the earth, and while I did, I couldn’t help it but think that I had been the imaginary cage all along.

That was the last of her I saw for a while; she was asked out so she spent all her time dating while I spent all my time thinking and regretting the sheer foolishness of myself. We began to distant a little then; and I am not entirely sure of who distant themselves from whom. I suppose it was all because of the fact that we had our own lives to live and drone about. The semester exams were coming just around the corner and we had lessons to learn and a syllabus to finish so half of my day was spent in the library in the furthest corner, often having my nose buried in books. I would have one or two socially-rejected statistic geeks around me time to time but I deliberately secluded myself from the rest of the general crowd just because the general crowd was annoying and was constantly climbing up my nerves.

This didn’t go on for long, however when the aggravation of a student’s council decided that they need to hold a freshers night for the freshmen at the end of the semester and load all the responsibilities regarding the boring tasks in planning it on us castoffs. They held a special meetings, a forced meeting rather where all us rejects were naturally gathered in the library where we were already hanging out, studying (I didn’t mention to them that it was unnecessary) and we were told that we were to support the council for the preparations. Honestly, it wasn’t like we were given another choice; and if there really weren’t any verbal violence involved, we would have made ourselves a choice; I suppose none of us rejects really fancied women screaming at us on top of their lungs so, yes, without further discussion, we agreed.

The following day we were taken to the gym where I have never been to or so much as seen with my eyes despite the year I had spent in the campus. It was where the freshers ball was supposedly held at and we were appointed the decoration committee whereupon we were supposed to decide whichever which goes with the theme ‘pirates’. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t very much interested in pirates, let alone the freshers’ dinner itself. Throughout the so-called meeting I was in a constant battle, torn between the ideals of killing myself and killing another human being. Sitting across from me was my best-friend, although we were seeing each other after about gazillion minutes, she didn’t seem to care to even notice me for beside her sat the bluffy and short little nuisance of a humanoid who was her boyfriend.  I know that I shouldn’t get blatantly distressed over someone who didn’t even seem to match my congeniality all for the fact that he didn’t reach my level of congeniality for one; he wasn’t even close to being five foot ten as I were, which should also be discarded because height really wasn’t in her boy-friend criteria and two; he laughed too much, talked too much, well basically he did everything too much that naturally his existence itself seemed to emanate bit too much of presence in the small group. And three, despite all that, my best friend seemed so smitten, so terribly smitten that she seemed to have forgotten that we all belonged to the same circle of university rejects, which also included her too-much-of-everything boyfriend. I didn’t say anything though, and I tried my best to not spare a glance at her and be disconcerted in pure jealousy. Instead I tried my best to concentrate on whichever which was in discussion. At that moment one of the council people were considering with genuine interest; building a pirate ship in the gym.

The meeting ended after taking too long and we were released to head on to our respected classes. I had statistics next, so did my best friend and for some strange reason I was feeling insanely nervous. I reckoned it as jealousy since it was the first time I factually witnessed the love of my life entangled with someone I really didn’t like, and for once I began to feel possessive of her, for once I wanted to up and be honest with her. The moment I walked into the class, however, and saw her sitting on a table with her legs on display, I really couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I was again made a fool, and so went on the day.

The rest of the weeks passed by in a haste with planning and meetings and brief trips to purchase whatever needed by the committee to put up the so-called pirate set; and then there were the exams coming around the corner; the sleepless nights of studying and group discussions among the rejected-geeks pretty much summed up that particular phase of my life. However, it is a lie if I didn’t say that I felt a significant absence of my best-friend, it was as though a momentous part of me had dissolved somewhere in my despondent life. I sat alone then end there on the patio or in the library or in my dorm room, staring into nothingness and just thinking of her. Going on without her presence was far worse than spending a week at home; needless to mention how I considered resolving to other kind of things I won’t generally do; drinking, for an example. But the thing is, whatever I did, drinking, droning and studying just for the sake of studying only seemed to take me on one full circle and bring me back to square one. Later I realized that I was droning about not only the fact that I missed my best friend but also I was repenting on the fact that I was too much of a jittery, mottled fool who couldn’t even gather the confidence to go tell the girl I liked that I liked her.

Clocks ticked by so fast, and soon we were a week ahead of the freshers’ night with the preparations going on in full fling. I was pretty immersed in doing it since I was made the leader of the team which was responsible of the things which needed to be hung, scarcely due to the fact that I was the tallest of the geeks. And strangely enough, I enjoyed doing it. Being in the decorations committee quite supported my hopeless mental status momentously by being a considerate getaway. Since the exams were long gone and I had pretty much the entire day free except for the compulsory language lessons in the crack of the dawn, I spent the rest of the day engaged in discussing and planning and well, hanging things down the walls; though we didn’t speak much among the committee members since we weren’t much conversationalists the first place, I liked it. The silence was comfortable while talking would always be confining; and it actually got all the work done thus nobody complained.

And all was well until one day when my best friend who never really came to engage in decorating and planning all from the beginning, came hurling in to the gym, she was calling my name.  We were putting the sails of the pirate ship at that time, and as those of the council wanted we managed to set up a ship we decided to turn the entire gym into an inside of a ship; with ropes and sails and the steering and all. It seemed pretty nice of a design and certainly showed the prospect of being a great artwork towards the end. The lecturers liked it, the council liked it, the girls liked it and the geeks were praised, also in addition we were claimed to have a hint of creativity. I just wanted to tell them that they knew nothing but I didn’t say it because talking always drew too much attention. So anyway, I was putting up the sails, massive sheets of pale white clothes sewn onto thick ropes and knotted onto heavy massive poles of wood; I was on the top of a two-legged ladder, tying up the knots when my best friend turned up. She was a tiny porcelain doll from a doll-house under my feet, a rather animated one and her voice was solely a shrill cry when she called my name. I didn’t know what I should think or say. The thing is, after being away or purposefully avoiding your crush after they’ve gotten themselves boyfriends it becomes so pessimistically hard to get back to where you were with them, especially if they were your best-friends. I didn’t know if I should merely ignore her or leap at her in delight; and in a situation where these two equally insane resolves seemed so equally smart that it made a dilemma; I resolved to do something in the middle. So I signaled her from up there to wait which she did impatiently, tugged and tied the ropes leisurely-not-too-leisurely, shrugged expressively and climbed down the ladder to meet with her.

She was dressed in jeans and a pale silk blouse which I had never seen her wearing before, her hair was wet in perspiration and her eyes widened for a reason unknown. As always she was hopping in exhilaration and all I could do in return was just watch. Then she suddenly got hold of my hand.

“We’re best friends, right?”

I didn’t know the truth and the accuracy of this, not entirely, so I just nodded,

“Good, because you and I are going to select for me the best outfit of all for the ball”