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Soulmates can feel each other’s emotions. See and smell might be better words to describe it—but that’s not quite right either. If you concentrate on your soulmate, you can sense what they’re feeling through colours and, sometimes—if your bond is strong enough—scents.
If your soulmate is really happy, for example, you might feel yellow and smell sunscreen. Others may sense orange and citrus, or bright green and freshly cut grass. Every couple has their own colours and scents and combinations, which they learn to understand with time.
In that exact moment, Alex wasn’t trying to see Michael’s colours.
But that didn’t stop the universe from showing them to him.
How cruel, he thought.
He was surrounded by a beautiful pastel pink, and he couldn’t help but smell roses—delightfully sweet and delicate.
Alex would have thought of it as something romantic, hopeful, achingly sweet.
It would’ve made him smile and swoon like an idiot—
except for one, single, most insignificant detail:
These emotions weren’t for him.
Alex knew Michael was with Maria.
He knew they were building something together.
And he was happy—for Michael, that he could feel like this again; for Maria, that she had found someone who felt this way about her.
But yellow and sunscreen weren’t how Alex was feeling.
He knew that if Michael tried to sense his emotions (not that he would—why would he?),
he would see grey and smell ash and smoke.
Smoke that was slowly choking him up,
blurring his vision.
His heart ached at the thought that their relationship had once been a sweet, rose-scented, pastel-coloured thing—
sweet and hopeful,
for a future that never came.
It hadn’t been pastel for a while, though.
It had quickly turned into bright colours:
shining gold and burning reds,
beautiful purples and sad blues,
muted greys and blinding whites.
He’d always thought of those colours as something good.
The brighter they were, the more he could feel—
undeniable, unforgettable.
After all, something so vivid, so alive,
can’t be denied or abandoned.
But now…
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe love wasn’t supposed to be blinding.
Maybe it was meant to be made of pastel pinks and calming lilacs,
meant to smell like rose, lavender, peony, and jasmine—
not rain and gasoline, pine and ginger.
There had been moments—
quiet nights in bed,
when Alex had sensed pastel green and the sweet, comforting scent of apples.
And he couldn’t think of anything else but the soft hopefulness in the air.
Other nights,
they would lie in silence, watching the stars,
bathed in pastel yellow and the soothing smell of jasmine.
He misses those moments now.
Wishes he had cherished them more.
Wishes he could be the one to make Michael smell like roses again.
Wishes he had been the one Michael could have shared a pastel life with.
He had tried.
He’d shown up at Michael’s place smelling like spring—
like rain,
like something new and alive,
hopeful and ready to make things right.
But all he had now was a smothering grey that wouldn’t let him breathe,
surrounded by smoke and the ashes
of what could have been.