Piece by Piece Part One

Piece by Piece Part One

"He's an artist," is the first thing Taylor says when she walks into Alex's room.

"I'm glad to see you, too," Alex says drily, "I had a lovely Easter holiday, thank you for asking, and I'll give you your souvenir when I finish unpacking."

She laughs, ignoring him. "He's smart and he's witty and he's so, so kind. It's early days, obviously, but I think he might be the one."

Taylor's his best friend so of course he's far too invested in her happiness and he stops unpacking his suitcase to pay her proper attention. "Yeah, what's his name?"

"I don't know."

Alex stares at her, "You don't know his name? How can you be so head over heels for someone and not know that?"

"Well, he's my soulmate." She shrugs, sharing none of his concerns. "They say it's bad luck to ask for a name and I don't want to tempt fate."

It's then Alex notices the swirl of ink resting on her collarbone, her shirt slipping down with the delicate movement of her shoulders, and it makes sense then. Because Taylor isn't talking about a man she's met in the conventional way but, instead, a man she's met through her own skin.

It's a worldwide phenomenon. Scientists believe everyone has a person out there for them, that one person who they can communicate with, and the romantics seized hold of the idea and never let it go. It takes a special kind of ink to communicate together but Soulpens aren't expensive and there's one in nearly every home. Alex remembers he used to have one of his own, too.

"I didn't know you two were talking," he says slowly, as he processes the information.

"We weren't. He didn't believe in soulmates originally but then his sister met hers and he decided he was curious enough about me to write. I was surprised at first but I gave him a chance and I don't think I could've made a better decision. He's," she takes a breath, a beatific smile on her face, "just lovely."

"You're going to meet him, aren't you?"

"This summer, after exams."

There are a lot of things Alex wants to say. He settles on "I'm happy for you."

Taylor stays a little while longer, gushing about the guy like a lovesick teenager and Alex listens patiently. She takes a seat on Alex's bed and hugs his pillow close to her chest as she smiles softly, secretively. He's never seen her so enamoured with someone and he wants to celebrate it but he can't seem to give the right responses and she notices.

"I'm tired." He says, when she asks. "It's been eight hours of travelling for me, with the waiting time at Victoria, and I just really want to crash right now."

"Oh, of course! You should've told me."

He smiles at her. "I wanted to listen."

"I'll tell you about it tomorrow," she said, getting up. "You should rest for now."

He watches her leave, wondering if he can actually see a spring in her step or if he's imagining it. Either way, it's a good look on her and he really is glad she's started talking to her soulmate. He just doesn't really believe in it himself.

Alex has never believed in soulmates.

Like, he gets it. Some people are romantics and love the idea of having that one special person out there for them to find, love talking to them through their skin and sharing little snippets of their lives. But that isn't him, hasn't been for a while, and he's never written to his soulmate before.

His mother used to encourage him, handing him a Soulpen and sitting him down with stories of a soulmate. As a child, he used to. He'd draw stupid, silly things and get the same brightly coloured drawings in response. A child's hand, his mother would tell him, and she'd look so proud that he couldn't help but feel like he was doing something right.

And then he'd watched her marriage implode around them.

Alex was still young then, just four or five years old, and those memories of his father are the only ones he remembers. There are arguments with his father's loud voice and his mother's cries and Alex hides under his bed and covers his ears until they stop. At the start, his mother would come and find him after they'd finished, hug him and promise him everything was okay but she stops doing that.

Then, one day, she doesn't have to. The argument was quieter than usual, and his mother tells him later that she was just tired of all of it, and then there's the slamming of drawers and wardrobe doors. His mum gets him to come downstairs, tells him to say goodbye, and he doesn't understand but he does it anyway. His father won't look at him, jerks away when Alex tries to touch him, and the man who's always seemed so strong and dependable just looks defeated.

That's how Alex remembers his father: a slumped back as he walks out of their life forever.

It's also the day Alex stops believing in soulmates. He thinks it brings him and his mother closer, suddenly just the two of them against the world, and they bond over burning his father's photos and belongings, throwing out every soulmate pen in the house, and crying together when it gets too much. They cry a lot in the early days. He has temper tantrums where he howls and beats his fists and his mother sometimes gets this lost look on her face, goes quiet and retreats into herself for hours.

It certainly isn't easy but they make it through.

"You know," his mother says once, when he's a teenager and excitedly talking about plans for summer break, "you could always try finding your soulmate."

"What?"

If she looked hesitant before, the question strengthens her resolve. "Your soulmate, you should find them."

Alex hasn't given much thought to them. After a few years of not drawing back, his soulmate had all but fallen quiet, probably thinking him dead, and the lack of ink on his skin had made it easy to forget. Coupled with the fact he didn't care or want a soulmate, it was easy to pretend he'd never had one.

Still, his mother was looking at him earnestly so he nodded, reluctant. "Yeah, sure, I'll try."

He never does.

He wants to, sometimes, but it's his mother's desires more than anything he feels. It's like he can read her guilt about how she'd failed to give him a home, though it was his father's fault more than hers, and how he'd turned against the idea of a soulmate. He doesn't want to be this kind of bitter when everyone around him is still hopeful and yet he knows he's right. He's experienced the pain of a broken soulbond and he knows better than to believe in a fairytale.

Seeing Taylor seeing so happy, though, gives him pause and he starts to think about it again. When he goes to the supermarket, he hesitates in the stationary aisle, though he never actually buys a Soulpen. He thinks about it, though.

And then he sees his father in a cafe and he thinks it's a sign. His father was the one who originally turned him against soulmates and, well, it'd be fitting if it all came round full circle.

"Hi," Alex says, coming up to his table before he could change his mind, "it's been a while, huh?"

His father looks at him for the first time in fifteen years and his face is devoid of any recognition as he asks, "Can I help you?"

Alex shouldn't be as disappointed as he is. His father, to be fair to him, hasn't seen him since he was four years old, and Alex has changed a lot since then. He looks nothing like the toddler he was. Still, it grates on him that he has to tell him. "Alex, your son."

"Oh." He says, and his face still didn't change that much.

There's a silence for a while and Alex, uncomfortable, ends it before his father does. It feels like he loses a game he wasn't aware they were playing. "It's been a while, I haven't seen you since you walked out on mum and I."

It isn't something Alex means to say but, then, there's a certain amount of anger he's been harbouring towards his father for years now. Honestly, he can't say he's all that surprised it had come out, though he does regret it.

"A good day for me," his father says, showing none of that regret as he sits back in his chair and smiles, "I think it was the best thing I could've done and I should've done it sooner."

"What."

"You were young," he says dismissively, "you don't know how bad it was between us. I only dated her because she was my soulmate and then I stayed because she fell pregnant with you. It wasn't love, or healthy, and walking away from that toxic relationship was something I needed to do."

"You walked away from me."

"I did what I had to do."

And that's it.

There's no guilt at all in his father, no shame in having abandoned his soulmate and a young child, and Alex hates him for it. He hates how assured he is in his decision, in the belief that he did the right thing. Most of all, though, he hates that he even cares about this man's opinion.

Because his father's certainty makes Alex doubt himself. He would never think ill of his mother, who worked hard as a single parent to ensure he wouldn't ever want for anything, so his doubts all form around himself. He thinks that he's the one who's not worthy of his father's love, that he wasn't enough to make him stay and he wonders if they'd be together and happy if it wasn't for him.

It destroys him.

And here he is, crying on the bathroom floor and breathing in air in desperate, heaving gasps. It hurts in his chest and his head aches, too, but it all dulls in comparison to the emotional pain. He thought he'd been getting better but all it takes is one word from a stupid man to ruin that progress and fill him with self loathing.

Alex doesn't know how to deal with it, not really, and he doesn't know who he can talk to about it, either. So he keeps it bottled up inside him, smiles when Taylor tells him stories about her soulmate, and tries to pretend his father's rejection doesn't eat up at him. It's honestly enough to make any man burst.

So he finds an outlet of sorts.

He picks up a Soulpen and starts writing. He begins on the sole of his foot, where no one can see, and pretends he's writing to his father.

I hate you.

I wish you hadn't left.

I think I'd forgive you if you just said sorry to my face. Just one word from you and I'd take you back.

You make me feel worthless.

I wish I didn't care.

For Alex, it's therapeutic to write a message each day and he gets used to sitting down and doing that. It's like a routine and he doesn't realise how much he needs it until, one day, he finds a message on his foot.

I care about you.

He knows it's his soulmate's skin he was writing on and that his messages weren't private but it still feels like a violation. Alex stops writing immediately.

His soulmate doesn't. He writes I love you like it's some fickle thing a person can throw around and draws beautiful pictures on his skin where Alex can't ignore them. People stare and they smile and they think he's in love.

Alex hates that, too.

He doesn't know if his soulmate is foolish or playing a game with him but there's only so much he can bear before Alex feels terrible about it. If it's the former, he surely can't let this continue and, if it's the latter, well, Alex isn't interested in playing. He's never been a prize and he makes it clear to them in a long ugly paragraph that explains just how broken he is.

It feels like a weight's been lifted from his shoulders and he spends the day feeling lighter than he has in a while. He treats himself to a far too sugary coffee and he spends a while sitting on a bench and just watching people. The weather's good and the air warm and there are a number of other people enjoying the weather.

Alex's eyes catch on a group of uni students, and there's one guy who's just this positive ray of light, head thrown back as he laughs. He looks happy, the kind Alex wants to be. His eyes keep turning to the guy and, slowly, he becomes aware of the writing on his left arm and the flowers and hearts around them.

It takes him a second to recognise his own handwriting and then he stares for far too long to confirm it. That this beautiful man, who is far too kind and too joyful would be mated to him. It's unfair, and he can't push his mess onto him so he stands up and ... and he walks away.

Originally, this was going to be similar to the story in the song Piece by Piece by Kelly Clarkson but it ultimately changed to have less of a happy ending. I don't know if I'm fully happy with this but, at the same time, I've had this sat in my drafts for soooo long.