The party was at full fling when I finally reached the destination; people, girls and boys alike were dressed in classy attire, each holding a flute of what seemed like fruit punch (definitely not champagne since the college had a non-alcoholic policy which was also pretty lame) and what I happened to realize was that none were dressed in anything to do with pirates. No hooked-hands, no wooden legs, no gold teeth nor eye patches which evidently showed how pointless it was, coming up with a theme. I immediately regretted wearing the eye patch myself but it occurred to me that it was even more embarrassing to pull it off after I had already arrived. It wasn’t like I was gaining anyone’s attention anyway thus I too got myself a flute of fruit punch, trays of which were being carried around by a set of waitresses dressed in maiden pirate dresses which barely covered their legs clad in stockings and downed it in two gulps. I found myself a moment to walk around the gym which had now been transformed dexterously into an inside of a pirate ship. I was feeling satisfied, quite, since I was responsible of all the things which hung down the roof which were basically silk and hanging glittery stars and pretty much everything to do with the ship. There were people who didn’t exactly appreciate the hard work, there were people who were amazed and genuinely impressed; there was a third kind too who didn’t seem to give a thought on it as if it was always there. It wasn’t like I was upset about it or anything, it would be pretty gullible if I were. Perhaps I only needed to be acknowledged, admired, because we were all humans and that was what we lived for.

I was going on a parade of fruit punch since I hadn’t much to do but walk around, looking at the couples and girls and surreptitiously searching for one girl in particular that I had, though non-committedly, downed about five glasses in a row. They had probably mixed in a little brandy or vodka into it that I began to feel a little queasy. I sat down a little, just as the DJ (Who was high up there in the crow’s nest which I always thought was a sad place for him to be, given that he played a prominent role of the event) began to play something retro-punk rock which was cool and matched my style. I closed my eyes for a second, sat back on the wooden chair and let the music take over my mind and allow me to float away. I was floating away alright, at least for a moment too short, and soon I was brought back to the pain of the reality by a voice screaming in my ear “Interesting eye patch!”

I sat up with a startle, only to meet the most asphyxiatingly gorgeous creature I had ever laid my eyes on, who was my best friend. She was dressed in the turquoise dress, her hair put down in an insanely striking mess, her cleavage on display, pale against green and glitter; lips soft pink and eyes unfocused. What I realized the moment I saw her was that she wasn’t the excited, jumpy happy-go-lucky Smitten-by-boyfriend best friend I happened to leave and avoid a week ago. She was something, someone different, someone I hadn’t met in my life before throughout the one year that we’ve known. For a moment I didn’t know what to say, whether I should complement on just how killingly gorgeous she was tonight or whether I should question her look of discern I opted to silence, which seemed the best answer momentarily and also which I later regretted. I could have said something, something but I didn’t so that she had to say something instead, which she did. “Can I…Can I talk to you for a moment?”

I was all about to answer, all about to say ‘yes!’ because I’ve been waiting for it, for her to return for a time too long and actually explain things to me; apologize, maybe and accept my apologies too. But I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. Because the moment I felt a hand holding onto my clothed arm I realized, I was going to say nothing at all.

I looked to my side, and standing on my side was a girl, a first year whom I immediately recognized as someone who was admiring my height and my ability to, well, hang things on the roof for a few days at the set prior to the ball. She was dressed in a pale blue dress, glittery and shady and a little too short. She was smiling, her eyes glimmering but she had reddened a little, as though she was suddenly embarrassed of what she was doing. I should have been amused, though I actually wasn’t, when she said the exact same thing that my best friend said a moment ago. Yet in a different tone. My best friend, sad and desperate while her, lively and hopeful. So I thought I could do with lively and hopeful for a little before I get to sad, moody and depressed because, spare me, my days were moody and depressed enough already, what with a best-friend-soulmate fiasco. So I gave the freshman girl a nod, a smile, excused myself from my best-friend who seemed slightly perplexed and very irritated, and finally followed after her through the crowd, past the ship, past a circle of people who were arguing on who had the best legs and out of the gym to the corridor.

It was silent out in the corridor, and colder and darker and emptier than the rest of the gym at that time. The music was pulsating through my veins that even though I was far from it, my heart beat along the rhythm; the floor felt like it was shaking a little under my feet. Perhaps it was the fruit punch but I was already beginning to miss my best friend. So I turned to look at the freshman girl, who at that moment seemed like she was having a difficulty to breath.

So in order to break the ice, I said; “Hey”

“Hey” She returned, and then we were back to being the awkward pair in the empty corridor. I was beginning to get impatient, my mind going back and forth from the memory of my best friend sitting there all by herself, minus her too-much-of-everything boyfriend, and I wanted to get back to her, I wanted to know the reason for her coming alone, for her looking dejected. I wanted to extricate myself from being in the awkward pair but I couldn’t. It was like I wanted a moment of enlightenment because sure as hell when I got back to her, I wouldn’t still say anything and ruin it for good. So I waited, and she said.

“You know, you’d probably think I’m pretty weird and well…yeah, basically that I’m pretty weird and I don’t really mind if I do because I probably am and-,” Nervous fake laughter and I watched. “To be honest…I like you, really really like you. I think you’re pretty cool and amazing and really really cute and yeah…I like you and I thought maybe, If I be really honest and tell you the truth, we could work things out-,”

Standing in the empty dark corridor, listening to a girl I barely knew confess to me in the stark cold night of the ball when the music pulsed through me and the floor shook to the rhythm, I realized, moments of enlightenment were for real. I could have been anywhere, the washroom or in the gym or even in my bedroom just studying my back off and realize, all too strangely and all too quickly that what I had been missing there all this time all along was appreciating the need to speak. Maybe I wouldn’t have grasped it elsewhere, maybe the girl confessing to me was the trigger, the key to it; whatever the case was, I happened to be hit by the fact continuously, where I had gone wrong with the girl I loved. I didn’t say it, I didn’t tell her the truth, I wasn’t being honest because I let the silence and time do their thing. Silence and time wouldn’t have done anything unless I spoke, unless I was being honest, and consequently silence and time hadn’t done anything so far. I realized that it was high time to tell her the truth, the high time to tell everyone the truth, so I made it the moment of resurrection. I said to her then, with much determination, in hopes that I’d get my message through.

“I love my best friend”

She was silent, suddenly and then went; “Huh?”

“My best friend, I love her”

I didn’t think it’s the most appropriate way to reject someone who had just confessed, but I couldn’t care less because I probably had no time, time to wait and time to waste.

“Well…okay then-“He voice became tiny and vulnerable, suddenly, like she was talking against a heavy wind and was on the brink of crashing down. I looked at her straight then, straight and clear as though I was afraid she wouldn’t understand it and said to her; “Look, I appreciate that you liked me, I appreciate all that you told me but you see…there is no red string, there aren’t soulmates; there is only falling in and never falling out of it. There is only belief and honesty. God doesn’t decide whom you love, only you do. And I do decide that I love my best friend and only my best friend so yeah…I got to go”

She listened, though I didn’t know why I was even telling her that. Then she was nodding nodding and nodding; a sad smile on her lips and the gleam vanishing by the seconds. She was cute alright, but I loved my best friend, and I knew it that now I wasn’t taking any chances.

I didn’t walk but so much as bolted into the gym and over to where I previously sat, my eyes endlessly searching for the familiar sight of her. Sure enough, she wasn’t sitting where I already left her; and I suddenly remembered the look on her face. Maybe she got dumped, maybe she needed a shoulder to cry on, maybe she needed me; of course she needed me but I just left her, so she left me.

In a state of pure paranoia, I began to search in every nook and cranny of the gym, walking through the pools of people who danced and laughed and fueled on fruit-punch. She was nowhere in sight; nowhere that I could possibly reach. I was already going to give up then, and despondently I fell into a nearby chair; feeling like a complete idiot, I watched as the people passed by, miserable and hopeless. A moment, and the girl from before was already standing before me.

I didn’t say anything because she did first. “You best-friend, she’s the one whom you sat with, right?”

I just nodded, absently. She then gave me a small but dejected smile. “I saw her going up the stairs…probably to the rooftop” She was silent then added quite firmly. “Hurry. I think I saw her crying”

My friend wasn’t the type to cry, she wouldn’t cry unless it was a movie where the dog dies towards the end, and that was only once so I reckoned this time it was something that I should really care about. I ran upstairs, despite my ragged breathing and the only eye which made it possible for me to see in the darkness of the stairwell. It took me only a moment to get there, then I threw open the iron door, then I found my best friend sitting on a wooden box. I realized that something wasn’t right. She was crying, her sobs so loud like of a child, ripping through the cold, silent air. Mt heavy breathing was the only sound except for her cries, and I happened to take a moment long to gather what she was actually doing there. With the broken piece of glass in her hand, she was trying to rip open the skin of her wrist.

I reacted immediately, my feet thudding heavily on the concrete as I made my way across towards her. She seemed surprised by my sudden arrival, and her cries stopped momentarily. I grasped her hand in mine immediately and ripped off the eye patch since it was inconvenient. I examined where she was trying to rip. There was a prominent pink patch on the pale skin of her wrist but not a real cur which could bleed. I couldn’t even believe it that she found this as the only resolve; but I couldn’t speak because I was never ready to face anything like this. Instead of speaking I pulled her wrist up to my face, parted my lips, pressed them on her skin and began to blow warm air onto her. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know whether even it helped, but honestly I couldn’t care less. All I wanted to do was help her the best way I could.

But when I pulled away, I was angered by what she was trying to do. She could have hurt herself for real. People had problems, every one of us did, because we were only human. I couldn’t understand why people would resolve to die and run away from them when we could just face them bravely and die when it was time. So I told her, yelled at her more precisely, and so loud that it scared her;

“Are you out of your mind?”

She was silent, just as I expected and it angered me even more, as though her speaking would actually keep me down.

“Are you bloody crazy? Do you really think doing this would actually solve everything for you?”

She was silent, and I went again. “What’s the bloody problem with you!?! If you wanted to die, just die and see if it actually helped, Jesus!”

And then, to my utter surprise, she began to shake her head. Moments passed, I went on holding her wrist and slowly my pulse went down, the grip loosened and my heart softened, the anger diminished in this light. I looked down at the hand which I held, small and pale against mine. Finally I let go and lowered myself on my knees before her.

“What’s wrong…?”

She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it. After much inner dwelling, in the end, she said to me. “He dumped me. After he took all the advantages of me, he dumped me”

And I thought of the theory which I lived by; there were much worse problems in the world. Then was her reason worth enough to die? Her reason was the boyfriend and probably also her lost purity; but then again there were people who go through things a lot terrible than that and as truthful as it may be, many of them were still alive. And here she was, trying to rip her wrist open, watch it bleed and die.

“You’re an idiot” I muttered under my breath before I could stop myself and looked away.

“But he dumped me!” She screamed, her voice shaking but resonant in the wind. “I don’t care that he did but he took everything away from me! I…I…It was-,”

“Then you shouldn’t have let him to!” I screamed back, matching her intensity. “If you knew it was important, you shouldn’t have let him to!”

This silenced her, so I stood up. “Look, I know you’re hurt, I know that it was important and all…but you see, it’s gone now. It’s all gone and never coming back”

“But-,” She began to argue. “I…I thought we’d go on… you know, get married and…” Sigh, “I thought we were, you know…soulmates…”

I looked down at her, irritated. To be honest, I wanted to point it out to her that she and the too-much-of-everything, constant smiley face nuisance were never ought to be soulmates since it was never the case but I didn’t, since I thought it would be quite overdoing it. Instead I made a face, suppose it came out as a smirk and I said to her, trying not to sound harsh. “Soulmates do not exist. So you don’t give your purity to soulmates, you give it to husbands”

“I….”

But I cut her off by saying. “But please, look into perspectives. You’re crying and trying to die over losing it to a man, a proper, boyfriend-material of a man. But there are people who lose everything to everyone else! There are people who…” I sighed, closed my eyes and clenched and unclenched my fists all too quickly but it was all I could do to get my mind straight. I was thinking of the present and past, I was thinking about my life, the life I constantly try to suppress and hide away, the life I constantly pretend to have not lived but unfortunately did live and was still living anyway, “People who…lose everything to their fathers…their fathers who come home drunk and effed up, looking for a prey to get hold of when mommy’s not around; they lose it against their cries and pleas and…” My voice was cracking, and my head began to hurt by the memories. But then again I’ve lived through everything all fine, and I should be fine to live through the moment of recalling for the sake of whom I loved. “It hurts, you know…it effing hurt. Having to hide away in closets in fear of that pain and humiliation…that fear of going home…when your home is never really your home…it hurts that they want to die”

There were the moments that I did…

I looked up to meet her eyes. “But do you know? They lived, they are still alive; they go on living. Do you know why? Because they don’t bloody worth your life…you get hurt but you live because one day the pain will only be a scar, the memories will be history and you will still be alive to see that day…you will move on…”

The wind blew on and it brought strands of hair to her face as she watched me. In the beginning she was confused and slowly but surely, realization dawned upon her like dawn after dusk. Her lips parted, eyes widened and she only watched me until she could call my name.

I responded to her with a smile. “People hide scars, even worse than another. I know that there are people with bigger scars than mine, and so I say to myself; it hurts, true, but there are people who are hurting more, and then I convince myself to get back because they live and so should I. So I try to move on…” I step towards her then and take her paled wrist into mine. The pink patch was yet to dissolve and the first layer of her skin seemed to have slightly ripped. I touched her there and said to her. “There are more fish in the sea, and many don’t bloody care if you have had your first time or not. Love don’t come in packages you know; it doesn’t ever include the special luxury of a first time; if it does, then it’s not for real. But there is the world, there is the society and there are things and beliefs embedded into them. They want us to follow them, they build us our lives; there are times, however, that lives go against them, then what are we to do? We need to go on living, you know…so we don’t bloody care and forget they even exist. We just move on…”

She said my name again and slowly I put her hand down. She stood up, her eyes on the level of my chest due to my height, but we were close alright, and she was crying.
“I’m sorry…” She said to me as if I was the one who was wronged. “I’m so sorry…”

“What are you sorry for?” I asked.

“For…for everything…”

Then it hit me and I looked down at her. “If you’re sorry for what happened to me-,”

“I was never paying attention to you, I don’t think I ever did…”

Everything went silent and it was my turn to call her name.

“But I should have, then I’d have known, I’d have realized…”

My heart began to hammer then, so, so hard that I wondered if it was hitting on my ribs. My head pounded and I was trembling; all of this caused simply by the look in her eyes. They were shining and they were quite similar to the shine of the freshman girl’s eyes but except, more intense and real.

Then she had realized…

She looked into my eyes then, straight and stark clear. Her lips were in a firm line but I knew that she knew, I knew that we both knew.

“Soulmates do exist…” She said to me in the end and smiled. “And sometimes they’re just beside you but you don’t realize it…they do exist”

And then I knew that my heart had stopped. So had the world like everything was paused so that the moment would last longer. We stared at one another, her eyes unmoving, nor were mine like we were trying to keep in mind every inch of ourselves. We stared for so long, too long perhaps that we couldn’t stare any longer so I finally stepped away and let out a heavy sigh. Then under my breath, to the starry sky I said. “Oh sweet Jesus!”

She laughed, I turned to her just as slow music began to play from the party downstairs and took her hand. “Come on! We’re going to miss it”

I had already begun to drag her but she wasn’t moving. I turned to talk her back but she asked me then; “Where are we going?”

I grinned at her almost too cheekily and said. “We’re going to move on”

And we did, at least I think we did and it was nice. It was on that night, however that I realized that belief was more important than knowing or trying to know the actual truth of it. Maybe we both were naïve, maybe we all were. Maybe we all never knew what life was giving us and why it did so, maybe we did but we were too naïve to grasp it, or maybe we never really cared. But the thing is, life is easier if we learned the few things about it, and that we love, we hurt, we talk, we laugh we cry , we lie, we say the truth, we hide and sometimes we just walk into the hall and do the darndest things of all. Life is a lot easier when we know that despite everything about it, good or bad, we would still go on living.

And that was how I came to believe it too, that love was a part of my life, and that came with a soulmate, and that if I believed so, despite the possibility of it, they did exist.