Page 9 of The Soulmate Theory

We’d always missed each other before I moved back. I’d visit at Christmas, and he’d come for Thanksgiving. I came home in the summer, but he’d visit in the spring. I knew the probability that I’d end up running into him would grow the longer I stayed in Brighton, but when I missed him at Thanksgiving last year, I thought I may make it out of here before it happened.

But I didn’t. Thanks in part to my father. I wanted to be angry with him, but only in the last couple of months had I stopped feeling like I was walking on eggshells. I still felt like I was walking on a creaky, dilapidated, splintered wooden floor. One wrong step, one wrong sound, and I’d remind them of what I did– why I was here. Ithadgotten better, though. He now asked me how my days were and made eye contact with me as we spoke around the dinner table.

I continued doing everything I could to prove to them I was the daughter they deserved. I had started applying to graduate programs again. I volunteered at a local history museum some weekends. I chauffeured my sister and her friends around. I’d even taken some classes at the local community college. That’s what my life had become: to prove to my parents that I’m not a failure, work, and think about a future where I no longer felt this way.

No, I decided I couldn’t confront my dad about his meddling, but I could vent to Maddie about it. Maddie and I kicked off our shoes and threw our bags by the door before moving towards the kitchen. It was an old routine of ours back when she was about twelve, and I was about eighteen. I’d pick her up after school, then we’d come home and watch trashy reality tv shows while we ate potato chips directly from the bag.

While not my most shining moment, it was a routine that I didn’t mind falling back into.

My parents had dinner with the Edwards’ most Friday evenings. I assumed my dad would already be over there with Tom. My mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so I figured she wasn’t home yet. Meaning Maddie and I had the house to ourselves to watch our trash tv and eat our trash snacks. And talk about how upset I still am with my parents even though I couldn’t say anything to them directly. Maddie will eventually join them for dinner so she could see Charlie, Carter’s sister and her best friend. I stopped attending family dinners a long time ago.

“He knew I wouldn’t have agreed to do that. He knows I have no desire to teach art. I don’t even know how.” I flipped on the dim light that illuminated the long hallway leading from the entry to the kitchen. “And what about Carter? I’m sure he knew about that too. I can’t believe he didn’t think to mention that he was moving home, that we’d be working together. You don’t think that would’ve been something to, I don’t know, mention casually around the dinner table?

‘Hey Penelope, remember our neighbor? The one you had ahugecrush on in high school? I know you haven’t spoken to him in half a decade, but we’ve decided you two should work together, against your will, obviously. You’ll share an office and everything. It’ll be great!’”

Maddie had been walking a few paces in front of me when she stopped dead in the kitchen entryway. “Penelope, you should stop talking,” she said. She was staring straight ahead but I couldn’t yet see what she could. It was a calm warning. Something deep in my gut had me dreading the turn of the corner.Shit, is Dad home after all?

Nobody knew the extent of my history with Carter. Maddie knew I’d crushed on him when I was younger, but I think both sides of the family always saw us as more of siblings, regardless of how messed up that sounded to me. Maddie only knew because she foundMrs. Penelope Edwardsscribbled into my diary when I was eleven. She made fun of me for years. Right up until the point Carter began looking like theBaywatchversion of Jason Momoa. After that, she couldn’t make fun of me because I’m pretty sure she had a crush on him too.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen, expecting my father’s kind, deep, brown eyes to come into my line of view. They weren’t the first set of eyes I fell on. The first eyes—the only eyes I saw—were a blazing hazel. His eyebrows came together at the center of his forehead. The right side of his mouth tilted slightly from chewing on his inner cheek. My stomach bottomed out as I froze at the corner of the kitchen counter.

It felt as if I could see the world as it spun around me, but my feet planted themselves at the center of it, refusing to move anywhere. Not a single thought existed inside of my brain. Nothing except for the spinning of the room, my planted feet, and those hazel eyes. They crinkled, drawing my eyes to his mouth, which was now showing that grin.

I got you.

My cheeks flooded with pure humiliation. My sister leaned against the counter watching us like we were the trash reality tv shows we enjoyed. My feet still refused to move but my breathing had returned, anger rising with the air bellowing out my throat.

“Why are you in my house?” I asked, my tone unintentionally cruel. Yet, I didn’t waiver. I didn’t allow my face to soften, or my arms to become uncrossed from my chest.

I had a bad habit of sticking to a reaction once I had it. Even if it was unwarranted, I didn’t want to give up control of my emotions for even a second. So even though I’d snapped at him in a state of shock, I’d continue to pretend he offended me for some inexplicable reason.

He frowned. “Sorry.” I chewed on the inside of my lip, feeling guilty. “Dinner is at my parents’ house tonight. Lena is cooking. She needed olive oil, and your dad asked me to come grab some.” I nodded at his perfectly reasonable explanation. “He also asked me to let you both know to be over by seven.” His tone was flat, even for someone like him. Someone who was normally sunshine trapped inside a human body.

He side-stepped me, keeping as much distance between us as possible. Nodding curtly at Maddie, he turned the corner and out of my sight. “Let Dad know we’llbothbe there!” Maddie chimed as the front door opened and shut again. She turned to face me. “You’re kind of an asshole, Penelope.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

? ? ?

I sat at my desk, blankly staring at the digital clock that rested atop my nightstand.

The minutes ticked by slowly as I waited (dreaded) for the time to reach seven o’clock. I didn’t even argue with Maddie when she specified that we’d both attend dinner tonight. I knew that Tom would want to talk to me about my new position, anyway. I, however, did not expect Carter to overhear the conversation I had with my sister earlier, so I was looking forward to this dinner less than I already had been.

The sun slowly faded beyond the heavy clouds outside my window as it set on the early March evening. The last twenty-four hours had me feeling as if I was in the Twilight Zone. I kept searching for glimpses of proof that I was.

Maybe the sun won't come up tomorrow morning.

Maybe I died and this is purgatory.

Being stuck in my parents’ house, no future to speak of, had kind of felt like a year of purgatory. Throwing Carter in the mix made it feel more real. I wouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. A religious person would certainly believe I had more than a few sins to atone for.

Logically, I knew Carter hadn’t done anything wrong. He had just as much—if not more—of a right to work for the school district in which his father was a Board Member. Dwelling on the last twenty-four hours had made me realize that being around him was more than my brain was capable of handling right now. I ignored him entirely at work, and when I found him standing in my kitchen, something snapped. I realized there’d be no escape.

It felt as if every teenage raging hormone I thought I’d outgrown came rushing back when I was in his presence. My stomach would flutter, my hands would get clammy, I’d start to sweat a little. My mouth would either move on its own volition, or not move at all. My body did the same. I’d either run away entirely or I couldn’t move, period. When I tried playing adult in England, it blew up in my face. I spent months trapped in this adolescent purgatory, crawling my way out of it, only for Carter to return and seemingly kick me back down.

I wanted him all my life. As long as I knew what it felt like to want someone. I was fucking in love with him. In love with him in the most desperate, tragic, cheesy kind of way. It was almost humiliating how much I dreamed about him when I was younger. He was so close, and so out of reach. So far out of my league I wouldn’t voice my feelings to anyone. I could hardly even allow myself to acknowledge them.

Until that very brief moment five years ago in his parents’ kitchen. He finally looked at me the way I always dreamed he would. And, oh my God. I knew then. I knew at that moment that he felt, at least a little, of what I felt. That was the first—the only time—I let myself fully give into what I felt for him. Walking away from that nearly killed me. He’d made me no promises, and he confessed nothing. Words were never said. There was only the pounding of our hearts as our bodies pressed against each other in the dark. Only the ferocity of our mouths as we soaked each other in, knowing it’d be the only time. His mouth, his hands—his soul—had left their prints all over me.

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