Page 8 of Soulmates

“Yeah, but you have your I know something but won’t say what face on.”

Jake smirked, almost sadly.

“Jake, what on earth could you have of mine that would put that look on your face? Did you steal something? You know I don’t care—what’s mine is yours. And if it’s so tied to your ‘self’ or whatever, I’ll give it back as soon as this stupid night is over.”

“I’m not sure it’s that simple.”

Chapter 6

Jake had thought about it on his walk to Maddox. He knew where Maddox was as soon as he and Santiago went their separate ways. Not the exact spot but the direction. Maddox was the sun, and Jake was the only one stuck in the gravitational pull. Sometimes he wondered how everyone else didn’t feel it too.

Jake knew what the riddle was referring to. He loved Maddox. He had wanted to give himself to Maddox as long as he could remember. And Maddox didn’t know. That had to be what the riddle meant. Maddox already owned him. Now he had to tell him and do whatever it took to give it to Maddox, whatever “it” constituted in this moment, or face peril at dawn. Would Maddox face the same peril? All he knew was that he would rather fall on Santiago’s sword than confess his undying love to Maddox without knowing if he felt the same, not to mention this not being the ideal scenario.

He was supposed to have more time. They were supposed to go home and start their lives. Share an apartment downtown. He was supposed to have time to figure out if Maddox had any inkling of Jake’s feelings and if he returned them. He would eventually be able to tell. Surely.

But now it didn’t matter. Now, they stood in a courtyard, on an oddly chilly April night, at a school neither one trusted, in a challenge they never agreed to, and he was about to have to confess his deepest secret. The only secret he had from Maddox.

“Jake, calm down, please. Whatever it is, we can f-fix it.”

Maddox’s breathing had kicked up way too many notches for standing around, and worry threaded through Jake.

“You can g-give it to me, and we’ll sort it out in the m-m-morning.”

“Jesus, Maddy, you’re turning into a Popsicle.”

“I’m fine. Don’t change the s-subject,” Maddox said, followed by a suspicious rattling sound that had to be Maddy’s teeth chattering.

Jake pulled off his hoodie and dumped it over Maddox’s head. The sweatshirt covered his entire body down to his knees, and Jake barked out a nervous laugh that didn’t sound like him. It was high and tinny. A scared laugh.

Maddox wiggled his way into the hoodie, his head popping out of the neck like a groundhog hoping for warmer weather. His already unruly hair stood up in a static halo around his head as he glared at Jake. “I’m pretty sure this hoodie isn’t something you hold ‘dear,’ Jacob.”

“Oh Gods, I’ve been last named and first named all in one night. Besides, Santiago gave me the idea about the hoodie. Maybe it’s key to my inner self, and you’ve harbored rage for years that I’ve kept it from you. Now you have it. Time for the dawn.”

Maddox scowled and crossed his arms. “You’re acting weird—do not interrupt me—weirder than this situation warrants.” He paused. “Okay, there may not be a reliable metric of comparison for that, but whatever it is, can’t we figure it out and then deal with the rest in the morning? You can tell me anything.”

“This isn’t easy, Maddy.”

“Okay…” Maddox said, clearly at a loss.

Jake looked around, thinking. How could he explain himself without sounding like a pathetic stalker and scare Maddox, or worse, make Maddox never want to talk to him again? How did you explain to your best, closest friend, your soulmate, that you loved them? Not in the way they’d always expressed over late nights and phone calls and texts, but in the romantic sense of, I love you and never want to be apart from you for any moment for the rest of our lives and I want marriage and babies and sex—so much sex—so if you want that too then you can have my whole existence and I freely give it and hope you aren’t grossed out. Was that a thing you could say?

Before he could think of an opening line, Maddox walked forward. “Jake, please. You’re freaking me out here. Nothing could be bad enough to put that look on your face. It’s me. I’m right here. Just me.”

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Maddox was there. Maddox was his everything. And if this made Maddox walk away, then what was the point of anything?

They stood looking at each other for a long moment that seemed, to Jake, to stretch backward through years. Like he could feel the moment his mother sat a screaming Jake in Maddox’s crib. How many times had they been told the story or been subjected to hearing the story told to others?

Their mothers had introduced them when he was five months old and Maddox was four days old. Their mothers, longtime best friends, had gotten together as soon as Maddox’s mother, Julie, was well enough for visitors after the somewhat difficult birth of her firstborn. Jake was just learning to sit, and he stared at and reached for baby Maddox, perched in his mother’s arms. Jake had moved his arms up and down like wings until Julie carefully placed baby Maddox on the ground for him to see. His mom had always described a stillness in that moment as if the two babies synced up.

When Julie took Maddox to his nursery to nap, Jake began screaming and staring in the direction of his new friend. At a loss, the mothers brought him into Maddox’s room, where his screams turned to sniffles and eventually quieted. Any attempt to leave the room with him was met with more screaming. Fed up, Jake’s mom, Haley, sat him next to a quiet but “weirdly alert” (thanks, moms) Maddox. Jake lay down next to Maddox, and they went almost immediately to sleep.

Was that the moment? Not romantic love. But was that the beginning of his unstoppable obsession?

“I can’t stand to see you like this. What is going on in that head of yours?” Maddox asked, frown lines appearing on his perfect face.

No response came to Jake’s mind.

Maddox stepped into Jake, his arms automatically going around Maddox’s smaller, familiar body. He inhaled Maddox’s shampoo, lavender and orange—he should know, he’d checked the bottle. A tear slipped down his face and landed somewhere in the hood of his, now Maddox’s, hoodie. “Just take it, Maddy. It’s yours anyway.”

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