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August was a romantic who believed in soulmates. How could he not, when there were soulmates all around him? He grew up watching his parents and grandparents be perfect matches for each other.
Sure, he knew not everyone found their soulmate and they were perfectly happy without them, like Uncle Liam. There were even plenty of people that found their soulmates after they were in an established relationship with someone else and chose not to pursue that. But he also knew how special that soulmate bond could be. He saw it in his parents, who were lucky to meet young. He saw it in his grandparents, who both gave up committed relationships to take the plunge with each other.
Maybe he wasn’t going to sit around waiting for his soulmate but was it so wrong to dream about meeting the perfect person for him?
—---
Sadie was not a romantic and she didn’t really believe in soulmates. How could she be, when she hardly saw any soulmates around her except on TV? Her mother never found hers and never needed one. She had Sadie and her friends and that was just fine with her. Most of the couples she knew at the library weren’t soulmates either.
It may have been a practice in the past to wait until you found your soulmate before marriage and children but, like a lot of traditions, it just wasn’t practical, especially in this day and age. With 9 billion people in the world, what were the odds she’d actually find her supposed soulmate? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
She knew what was supposed to happen. There was supposed to be a spark at first touch and then they’d be able to read each others’ minds. How anyone could find that romantic was beyond her.
Honestly, Sadie would be perfectly happy if she never met her soulmate. She’d even go as far as to say she’d prefer it if she never did.
—--------
The first time soulmates meet is always unexpected. People rarely find their soulmates on a dating app or at a singles mixer. Soulmate meetings happen during everyday activities, such as going on a morning jog or running errands at the local strip mall. It was a mixture of fate, destiny, and a little bit of luck.
Those forces are what brought these two souls together on an unlikely day.
Sadie Yoo came to The Side Step bar to meet friends of her late long-lost father. August Walker came to The Side Step to help set up for the charity concert taking place later that day. When they shook hands, everything changed.
The moment their hands connected, there was a spark. It wasn’t anything like either of them read or heard about before. It wasn’t a gentle spark or like fireworks. It was hot, almost burning, and stung even after Sadie jerked her hand away. A flood of emotions crashed through their minds, like a tidal wave after destroying a protective wall.
August was overjoyed. And why wouldn’t he be? He’d found his soulmate! Sure, it wasn’t quite like all the stories he heard, but that was okay. He was just happy to be here.
Sadie was confused. What were the odds that she’d find her soulmate here of all places? And this guy? Really? Sure he was cute but based on all the heart emojis she felt exploding in her brain, he was naive and over the top. Not exactly her ideal partner.
August reached for her again and she stepped back. “I-I have to go.” Saide ran out of the bar without a word to anyone else and tried to ignore the pang of disappointment seeping from her soulmate.
—----------
It took a few days for their connection to sort itself out. This meant that there was no longer a free flow of thoughts and feelings from one brain to the other. Sadie and August had to deliberately send something to each other for it to come through, something Sadie was eternally grateful for. She didn’t want someone else digging around in her head. It was scary enough with just her in there.
The only problem is that August. Would. Not. Shut. Up.
Good morning, Good night, I saw a cool rock, What kind of flowers do you like, on and on the messages went. He didn’t pester her for a response, which was nice, but he. Just. Didn’t. Stop.
Geri kept insisting she give him a chance. “He’s a nice boy and he is your soulmate. What’s the harm?”
Sadie just counted herself lucky that the Walker family was mostly staying out of it (though she did catch Stella giving her a side-eye from time to time).
She wasn’t scared of all this soulmate nonsense or anything like that. This just wasn’t something she wanted. She didn’t want someone else in her head. She didn’t want to be tied down to another person for eternity. And she didn’t want to be the weirdo or “heartless bitch” that turned down her soulmate. She didn’t ask for any of this. She just came here to find out more about her dad.
This is why she never wanted to meet her soulmate. They just made things complicated.
After about a week of dealing with side-eyes and well meaning advice and a far-too-frequent look into the mind of August Walker, Sadie had had enough. There had to be a way out of this. So, she started researching soulmates and how to block them.
Most of the information she found warned her against doing it. The connection may never be restored. There was little research on the extent of the effects of cutting off a soulmate so there was no way to know if it was even safe to do so. She found little anecdotal evidence of good or bad results. But there was a way to do it.
It couldn’t be that bad, could it?
—-------
Cordell got home from a long day at the office and smiled when he smelled dinner cooking in the kitchen of the farmhouse. Though he and August never did move off of the ranch, he had made efforts to put up some more strict boundaries between him and his parents, especially when it came to raising August. So, more often than not, they had dinner here instead of at the main ranch house. He tried to come home earlier so they could work together but August was pretty competent in the kitchen by himself (more than Cordell had been at his age despite Abeline’s best efforts) so a lot of times he ended up cooking by himself, like tonight.
Based on the variety of smells coming from the kitchen, August had been experimenting. That was good. He’d been feeling down since his soulmate literally ran away from him. Cordell could tell August was trying to stay positive but it didn’t look like Sadie was turning around and changing her mind anytime soon. As sympathetic as he was to his son’s situation, Cordell couldn’t help but feel a little relieved that Sadie wasn’t going to be his daughter-in-law anytime soon. “I have no idea what you’re making but it smells amazing,” he called from the entry way while he hung his hat and jacket.
He paused fishing his keys out of his pocket when he didn’t get a response. “Augie?” he called, walking further into the house. He started running when a low groan answered him. “August!”
August was curled up on the kitchen floor, groaning and clutching at his chest. Cordell cursed softly and tried to get him to sit up. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Hurts,” August whimpered before falling unconscious.
Cordell didn’t remember the ride to the hospital, nor calling his family, but somehow they all ended up there. It was probably only a few hours since he brought August in but it felt like years before the doctors came to him with a diagnosis.
“We weren’t sure what it was since it happens so rarely, but the best we can figure is that he’s suffering from Rejection.” The doctor explained that, on the extremely rare occasion that a person’s soulmate cuts off their connection, both parties experience various levels of symptoms. It can be as mild as depression or as serious as a coma. “Basically, he’s got a broken heart. And there’s no medicine in the world that can fix that.”
There’s an implication in that statement. That nothing can be done. That August is going to be this frail and weak husk of himself forever. That all the family can do is keep him comfortable until he finally passes on (too soon, it’s always too soon with them).
The next thing he’s aware of his Geri’s hand on his shoulder and her gentle words in his ear that it’s all going to be okay, they just need to be there for August and he’ll get better, Cordi, don’t worry.
He knows, logically, that this isn’t her fault. He knows Geri’s been telling Sadie to give August a chance and telling August not to give up. He knows Geri loves August like her own child and doesn’t want to see him like this anymore than Cordell does. He knows that she would do anything to make this better.
But all his grief-stricken mind can remember is that she’s the reason Sadie and August even met in the first place and that they wouldn’t be here right now otherwise. He shrugged her hand off. “You wanna help?” he snapped. “Then go talk to that girl and ask her what the hell she did to my son.” He saw the hurt on his best friend’s face and the shock on everyone else’s, but at that moment, he didn’t care.
He just wanted August to be okay. Was that too much to ask?
—-------
Of course Sadie heard about what happened to August. It was impossible for her not to. And she felt awful about it. She’d known there would be risks to both of them but she didn’t think it would be this severe….
She should go visit August. She should apologize and try to explain herself. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to see him like that and know it was her fault.
She ran away instead. Just packed up her suitcase and sped out of Austin in the middle of the night. She just needed some space. She needed to think. She needed to figure out why she felt a dull ache deep inside of her, like there was a hole that needed to be filled. She needed to figure out why purposefully cutting off her connection to a boy she just met hurt almost as much as losing her mother. All she knew was that she couldn’t get any of those answers under the judgemental eyes of the Walker clan.
She drove for days, only stopping for gas or to sleep. She didn’t know where she was going; she just knew she wasn’t there yet. She slept in the car most nights, tossing and turning in the back seat while echoes of August’s thoughts bounced around her head. Sometimes, she’d see things that reminded her of him and feel a pang of sadness that she couldn’t share them. Then she’d turn up the radio and try to drown out the thoughts of someone who didn’t belong there in the first place.
Her endless driving eventually ended at the library her mother used to work at. After her mother died, Sadie had lost almost everything to the government taking its “fair share”. But no one could take this little safe haven from her. She could remember countless days of wandering the stacks after school and helping run the kids’ section for extra pocket money in the summer. The library was home in its own way, a place she could breathe and think and just be .
She found a book, then went to her usual reading nook, sat down, and proceeded to stare blankly at the pages while her mind wandered back in the direction of her current problems.
Maybe cutting off the connection hadn’t been the right move. She’d known there would be risks. She’d known she wouldn’t be the only one affected. But finding out she’d had a soulmate was a bit overwhelming. She remembered how hard it was to differentiate her own thoughts and feelings from his for those first few days. That was why she never wanted a soulmate in the first place. The idea of being so intrinsically connected to another person, almost reliant on them, was scary.
But now the connection was gone and she didn’t feel any more like herself. She didn't feel any better or more at peace. If anything, she felt worse . She felt like a piece of herself was missing despite nothing really changing.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Cutting August off wasn’t supposed to hurt them; it was supposed to set them free. It was supposed to keep her safe and sane and let August go find someone who could really love him in a way Sadie didn’t think she could. This was supposed to make everything easier, not harder.
Time passed in a haze and she turned pages she wasn’t reading just for show. She bought a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream ( Because it doesn’t really matter what temperature it is outside, does it August? Hot chocolate is always good. ) from the cafe and choked it down without tasting it.
A couple sat at the table next to hers. One of them was talking excitedly about a book they just read and the other sat next to them with the dumbest, lovesick expression on their face. She watched them out of the corner of her eye and remembered Geri’s insistence that she give August a chance.
If she was being honest, she didn’t hate the idea of dating. She’d had plenty of boyfriends and a couple of girlfriends. She like dating and getting to know someone. Based on her limited experience with August, he probably would’ve made a nice boyfriend. He was nice and decently cute. He probably would’ve been the perfect gentleman, every girls’ dream.
She didn’t hate August. She just hated that she never got the chance to choose him.
She spent a few more hours moping in the stacks, wandering from the fiction books to the cook books to the mysteries to the non fiction. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the thing she didn’t even know she was looking for.
The Science of Soulmates: A Universal Truth or a Choice We All Need to Accept More?
She went back to her nook and started to read.
Soulmates were a fact of life; it didn’t matter if you wanted one or ran away as soon as you met yours. It was just something humans had to deal with. While some people jumped in without thinking, most people tread those waters a little more carefully. Studies showed that soulmates that took the time to date before jumping headfirst into a committed relationship reported being happier with their chosen life partner. Similar results were found for those who chose not to be with their soulmates and rather picked a partner from the general dating pool.
Sadie found every book and paper mentioned in the bibliography. She spent the next week reading through all of it, absorbing every last detail about why and how people chose to be with their soulmates or take another route.
Maybe she’d jumped the gun with August. Maybe she should’ve given him a chance. Maybe she should’ve ignored the judgemental looks and gentle pressure from the Walker family and just focused on her soulmate instead. Maybe they both would’ve been better off.
But maybe there was still a way to fix it. Maybe they still had a chance, even if they weren’t soulmates anymore.
Sadie returned her books and headed back to Austin. She needed to see August. She was ready to face her fate.
—----------
“You should let her come in,” August said to his father, not looking up from the book Stella brought him earlier. He was feeling a little better than he did two weeks ago but he still wasn’t strong enough to leave the hospital yet. Cordell stayed with him most of the time and everyone else came by to visit. August didn’t mind having his dad around- this was probably the most father/son bonding time they’d had in months- but he did hate it when he went into Guard Dog mode.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m bedridden, not deaf,” August muttered, glaring at Cordell. “Sadie’s been coming by every day for the past week. You should let her in.”
“You’re telling me you actually want to see her?,” he asked incredulously. “She’s the reason you’re here in the first place!”
“And? I’m already in the hospital; what else could possibly happen?” Before Cordell could answer, August continued. “She’s probably here because she wants to apologize anyway. And you’re not helping.”
“But-”
“Dad. Let her in. I want to talk to her.”
His dad huffed but didn’t argue further, leaving the room and calling for Sadie. August set his book aside and smiled when Sadie finally entered the room. She looked beautiful, if a bit tired. He glared at his dad over her shoulder until he left them alone in the room. “Hey, Sadie.”
“Hi….” Sadie chewed on her bottom lip while she took everything in. “You look… better.”
“Yeah. Doctor said I should be able to leave in a few weeks maybe. You look good too.”
Sadie’s lips twitched in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile and she moved closer to the bed. “I brought you some cookies; Geri gave me the recipe.” She handed him a plastic container full of what he recognized as the Sad Cookies his mom would make. “I hope they taste okay….”
“I’m sure they’re great.” August smiled and set the cookies aside. “How are you?”
Sadie snorted. “Pretty sure I should be asking you that. I’m not the one in the hospital. But… I’m okay. Been better but…been worse.”
August hummed. “I feel about the same.”
Sadie looked down at the hospital bed sheets. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know it’s all my fault. I was just- I was dumb and scared and- I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” Sadie sat in the plastic chair next to his bed. “I acted rashly and I didn’t think about the consequences. I mean, I knew there would be consequences but I didn’t think it’d be something like this. I thought- I thought it would be better this way. You could find someone who wanted to be with you and I wouldn’t have to deal with the soulmate crap. I didn’t…. I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”
“It’s-”
“I swear to god if you say that it’s okay I’m taking those cookies back home with me at eating them myself.”
August laughed. “Okay, okay, I won’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, August. I really am sorry for all this. But…. I think there’s a way to fix it.” She pulled a binder out of her tote bag and handed it to him. “I’ve been doing a lot of research on soulmate bonds and how they grow stronger or weaker based on the relationship between the soulmates and I think- Well, okay there’s no real evidence for this because it hasn’t been studied- but I think there’s a chance we could get the bond back or-or remake it if… If we give this- us a chance.”
August flipped through the binder, not skimming over the pages. “You…did research?”
She shrugged. “Yeah…. My mom was a librarian; it’s in my blood.”
“And…you want the bond back.”
She nodded.
“But- I thought you didn’t want it.” I thought you didn’t want me. “I mean, you did break it; that’s not something you do on accident.”
Sadie looked at her feet. “It’s not that I didn’t like you or anything. I just- I don’t like being tied down. It’s selfish of me, I know, but I just- I came here to Austin to find out more about my dad and then all of a sudden I meet my soulmate and I’m forcibly welcomed into his family and- It was just a lot for me. And I never really cared about meeting my soulmate before so I wasn’t anywhere near ready for it. Honestly, being so intimately attached to someone… It scared me.” She looked back at him. “But I know now that breaking the bond was a mistake. And…. I think I’d like to give this a try. If you’re willing to put up with me.”
August smiled. “I think I want to give us a try too. If you’re willing to put up with me.”
Sadie really smiled for the first time since they met and a small spark lit up deep inside both of them.