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This is the moment your entire life has been gearing you toward. Obviously.
The moment you told yourself would come and somehow never quite was able to believe your own words, because you were told that soulmates are harder to come by than unicorns in this day and age. Soulmates do not happen to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, you were always assured, and that is okay. You can settle for the second best thing and, who knows, if you live with them in the same house for enough years and have enough wigglers—or children, whatever—then maybe you’ll fall in love with them just enough and die contented or senile, it doesn’t matter which, because somebody will be there to cry over your funeral. Don’t hold out! Don’t preserve your most sacred complexes! Choose the first adequate person who crosses your field of vision, tie the knot sometime within the next year, and get a job.
But, you always protested, if soulmates don’t exist, then where did the idea come from? What, in that case, is every romance movie you have ever watched based on? It must have come from some place. Some place you might, maybe, find one day.
Society cooed into your embittered aural sponge: Oh, but you misheard! We never said that soulmates don’t exist; it’s just that they are so very rare you will probably never find yours and become an old man knowing that you could always have done astoundingly better had you just been the teensiest bit luckier.
You grew up trying to believe in soulmates the way other kids believed they would become president when they were older. Everybody told you that soulmates didn’t exist, and no matter how hard you believed otherwise, there was always that part of your head mirroring the world’s opinions. No, no, silly! You don’t just bump into a stranger in a coffee shop, look them in the eyes, and immediately know that you’ll cross oceans, defy physics, and/or ruin your life to be able to be with them forever and ever.
Turns out, they were right. You don’t lease your heart to a stranger in a coffee shop; you lease your heart to a stranger in the parking lot of a strip mall, which actually does happen to contain a coffee shop but that is beside the point.
He’s this guy who looks about your age, sitting on the curb, crying. Normally, you would think that nothing good can come of running into a sobbing stranger at nine at night in front of a tanning salon, but he looks up when you try to inconspicuously shuffle past him and his eyes tell you everything. That’s it. You’re fucked and utterly in pity with this boy, no going back, you get no say in this because it just happened.
He gives you this apologetic look that says ‘this is embarrassing and I’m sorry for making your night so awkward but whatever’s just happened to me can’t wait to be dealt with in private so I’ll just sit here and quietly cry my heart out if that’s okay with you.’ You take a shaky step away, but then swing it around so you’re facing him, walking over to him, sitting down next to him. He looks a little surprised, still so sad, yeah, but also surprised. He has these bright blue eyes and thick glasses that are the sort hipsters wear but that obviously isn’t his intention because he probably has no fashion sense and just picked the cheapest frames he could find.
So now what? You have accomplished your life’s goal and proved society wrong, but there is still a crying boy and you don’t even know what’s wrong with him. How do you comfort people? Time to call on your repertoire of romcom enlightenment.
“Want some chocolate?” You ask him. Yeah. Romantic as shit. The surprise in his expression is almost stronger than the sadness, which you appreciate. He sniffs and rubs at his eyes with nails that look painfully short.
“Sure.” He croaks, throat thick with snot. Crying is gross in real life and you’re always so pissed that movies make it seem attractive; this is not a raw, beautiful display of emotion, this is just a splotchy-faced college kid who really needs to wipe his nose and talk about his delicate flower feelings. But you don’t mind. As long as he doesn’t get any goobers on your coat, that is, but he doesn’t look like he was raised by a pack of wolves so he should know better than that.
You slip your arm around him and help him up, walking just a little too close to him on your short exodus to the 24/7 grocery, the sort that seems to be a staple of strip malls across the nation. You brace yourself before entering, because as a late night frequenter of this grocery, you know the sorts of people who wash up here alongside your good self. You might wear too-big clothes because you don’t have the kind of money to afford the ones that fit, and you might cuss a little too much sometimes, but you’re one of the more decent patrons for this hour. There’s often a bunch of rednecks, sometimes without shirts, and an oddly large amount of angry women who all seem to know each other and yell to each other across the store in Spanish.
There aren’t too many weirdoes here tonight though. Bonus.
You buy him the nicest chocolate you can with the five dollar bill in your pocket, which means three king-sized Hershey bars because places like this don’t carry nice chocolate. You feel like driving him somewhere nicer and getting him caramel and seasalt truffles or some other debonair crap. But you don’t because you haven’t even learned his name yet and that could easily be misconstrued as creepy.
After paying at the self check-out, you go back with him to the curb and sit down. He nibbles his way through half of one bar before starting to cry again. Your brain makes sputters that go along the lines of ‘shit oh shit why is he crying fuck I’m horrible at emotional support fuuuuuck’ but your mouth just makes quiet shushing sounds as you rub at his shoulder. You sit out there with him in the cold until you can’t feel anything from your butt down, the night-chilled cement seeping through the fabric of your jeans. He stays hunched so that his chin is on his knees, hands over his face. You move to hug him at a slow enough speed to give him plenty of time to freak out and start talking about restraining orders, hoping he isn’t one of those people who don’t like hugs, that this will be a comforting gesture. He doesn’t run screaming into the night, but instead leans against you and clings to the collar of your shirt like on of those helpless baby koalas you see on nature documentaries.
Eventually a girl pulls up in front of you in a smart, dark car. She looks very, very tired and like she’s trying not to appear concerned.
“Get in the car.” She sighs, leaning over to push the passenger side door open. “And, please, refrain from making any Terminator jokes about that.”
“Connor, get in the—” He starts weakly in the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger impression you have heard to date, but she cuts him off.
“Do you want a ride home or not?”
He grumbles, smearing his hands across his eyes again. You withdraw your hug and settle into yourself, a little dismayed. This isn’t how it goes in the movies.
“Hey, uh, thanks. A lot, actually. Really.” He says nervously, starting to stand up. You shrug it off while attempting to find the words that will get him to stay here with you. He stoops back down and hugs you around the neck. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Have a nice night!” His voice is too weak to be convincing, and the broken smile he gives you as the girl pulls the car away makes you feel like eating an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s by yourself, but you can’t think of anything to do to stop him from leaving.
You sit on the curb, alone, for a good long while. That was the man you are convinced is your soulmate. You just let him go. Good going! Great job! Have fun with this horrific, abject failure that is now your life!
What went wrong? You comfort him; you gave him hugs and chocolate. That always works in the movies. The guy finds the girl distraught and is nice to her and she asks if he’d like to meet up again later.
Oh. There’s your problem. Or, more likely, your problems, in the plural, because ruination is an extraverted disaster and always travels in its clique. This isn’t a movie and he isn’t a girl. Oh shit. What if he’s straight? You forgot humans get their knickers in a twist over sexuality. For all you know, that girl in the car was his girlfriend—you somehow doubt this, but still. She could be. Maybe he’s one of the many who don’t believe in soulmates and is never going to think of your ever again. (Or maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and wonder about the guy who bought him chocolate and indiscriminately listened to him cry the previous night. Maybe he’ll wish he knew you.)
You sigh. Fate has gotten you this far, so why shouldn’t you believe in getting a little more mileage? Who knows; perhaps next time you can bump into him at a coffee shop. If he’s feeling better, you can demand he pay you back for the Hersheys by buying you the most expensive thing on the menu and, maybe, later, if it’d be cool with him, go out to eat or whatever. If he isn’t better, you’ll ask for his name and give him your number while desperately attempting to make yourself look like a trustworthy person who knows exactly how to sort out whatever it is he’s going through. You might not know what to do, but you feel like you should try. You should always try.
And if fate isn’t going to help you any longer…well. You might have memorized that license plate number on the girl’s car. Just a little bit. For emergency use only.