Chapter 5
NO MURDERY OR KIDNAPPERY VIBES
VIOLET
What are your expectations for using FYS?
SilenceInMidnight: To find someone who’ll love me… for me.
I stare at the FYS chat window for far too long, the blinking cursor daring me to make the first move, to say something meaningful and iconic to the man who’s been algorithmically declared my soulmate.
Under preferred mode of communication, he wrote just one word.
SilenceInMidnight: Chat.
Of course he had.
Another one-word answer, and it sends a ripple of doubt through me.
After hearing Archer’s very loud, very dismissive opinion about online dating—an opinion that received an unspoken almost-unanimous agreement from everyone else—it feels harder to hold on to my certainty.
It’s not that I don’t trust FYS. I do. I really do.
But what if he doesn’t?
What if he’s just testing the waters? Or worse, what if this is just something fun to him?
I always imagined the first conversation with my soulmate would be cinematic and memorable. It’d be something I’d replay in my head years later.
Instead, I’m sitting here wrapped in doubt, my excitement dulled by fear, my confidence wobbling in a way I don’t love.
My hands shake as I open the chat room.
The interface is gold text against a black background, elegant and intimate, true to FYS’s color scheme.
To hell with it, Violet.
When have I ever second-guessed myself like this? Never.
Then why would I start now, especially with the person I hope to spend my life with? That’s insanity.
So I type, not giving myself time to overthink it.
ChaosInPurple: Are you serious about finding your soulmate, or are you treating this like a casual dating site?
His reply comes instantly.
SilenceInMidnight: I think anyone who wasn’t serious would’ve stopped somewhere in the middle of those weird questions.
A smile tugs at my lips, and then, as if he knows I need more reassurance, another message appears.
SilenceInMidnight: I’m still not sure what information they extracted out of asking about the sound of my thoughts. You remember that one? I didn’t even know what that meant.
This time my smile blooms fully, threatening to tip into unhinged territory.
I read his words again and again, savoring the fact that they aren’t clipped or minimal. He chose to expand and let himself linger in language for the first time, like he knew I needed it right now.
SilenceInMidnight: What about you?
ChaosInPurple: What do you mean?
SilenceInMidnight: Do you trust FYS? Online matchmaking? Finding your soulmate or whatever this is?
Crap. How unfair and caught up I am in my own vulnerability that I forgot this isn’t a solo leap of faith. He’s standing on the edge of the same cliff, trusting the same intangible thing. Putting belief into a system most people dismiss as unserious or na?ve. He’s just as exposed as I am.
ChaosInPurple: I trust it one hundred percent. Like you said, why would anyone answer those soul-stirring questions that make your head ache and your heart hurt at the same time, if they didn’t believe in it?
I hit send, then immediately feel the familiar itch to add more.
ChaosInPurple: And I really hope Find Your Soulmate stands up to its promise.
SilenceInMidnight: Me too.
This time his two-word reply doesn’t bother me.
I actually like it. It’s consistent with the image of his personality slowly taking shape in my head.
ChaosInPurple: I was honestly shocked they matched us. Based on our responses, we seem like very different people. Don’t we?
SilenceInMidnight: Maybe it’s not about how we responded but what we said. Didn’t we both say we just want to be ourselves?
I freeze.
His words rearrange something inside me, and suddenly his earlier answer—No words. No pressure. Just be.—clicks into place. All that time I spent frowning over his six words, when my few-hundred-words response could’ve been distilled into the same quiet truth.
ChaosInPurple: Oh my gosh. This website deserves an award.
SilenceInMidnight: Let’s wait a few days before we start handing out gifts. You might end up not liking me.
My smile slips. Is he serious? But his next message arrives almost immediately, answering the question I didn’t type.
SilenceInMidnight: I’m smiling.
Thank God. He has a sense of humor. With the air finally cleared, I ask the question that’s been hovering at the back of my mind since FYS first sent me his name.
ChaosInPurple: I’ve been wondering… what does SilenceInMidnight mean?
SilenceInMidnight: I’m open to hearing your theories.
I grin, pushing myself off my chair and wandering to the couch. I curl into the corner with a plush blanket pulled up to my chin.
ChaosInPurple: Maybe you work night shifts.
SilenceInMidnight: Like a bartender?
ChaosInPurple: I was thinking more like a male stripper who specializes in slow, quiet songs instead of loud ones.
SilenceInMidnight: I just spit out my coffee. Now everyone in the room is staring at me.
ChaosInPurple: Everyone waiting for your performance?
SilenceInMidnight: Not the kind you’re imagining.
Of course I’d been imagining the naked, smooth chest of a faceless man ever since I typed the message. I drag my mind away from his male stripping glory and picture him wiping coffee off a desk instead.
ChaosInPurple: I know we’ve chosen anonymity, but I’d still like to know something about you. I can go first.
I glance around my home, a thousand stories clamoring to be told.
I want to tell him about my parents, about how I had them for far too short of a time.
I want to tell him about my grandparents, the kind of people who believed in nature’s miracles and would have adored the idea of me finding my soulmate through something as modern and improbable as this.
I want to tell him about my friends, who aren’t just friends but the family I chose, the ones who stitched me back together every time I was hit with a new loss.
But this is our first conversation, our first step into whatever this might become, and some truths feel too tender to hand over just yet.
So, I pull myself back, tuck those pieces of my heart away for another time, and choose something simpler and safer, knowing there will be time to tell him the rest.
ChaosInPurple: My work involves writing stories.
SilenceInMidnight: Really? Me too.
My breath catches.
ChaosInPurple: I can’t believe that!
Then, because I can’t help myself:
ChaosInPurple: Please don’t tell me you’re one of those rare male romance writers who make women fall in love twice.
First with their fictional characters and then with the man behind the words.
And then you leave us jealous of the woman who gets to share life with you, a man who has such a deep understanding of love.
SilenceInMidnight: Sorry to disappoint. I just work with stories. Nothing so dramatic.
A pause.
SilenceInMidnight: I’m smiling.
ChaosInPurple: I like that you tell me when you’re smiling. That’s something texts usually miss, unlike in a call. But you can use emojis too, if that’s easier.
SilenceInMidnight: If we wanted easy, we wouldn’t have signed up for a matchmaking site, would we?
I said something similar to a room full of people who probably think I’m crazy for even giving a matchmaking website a try. But easy was never what I wanted.
ChaosInPurple: Since our real names are off the table, can I call you Night?
SilenceInMidnight: Sure, Purple.
Warmth spreads through me. I’ve had plenty of nicknames, but this one feels personal.
SilenceInMidnight: I wonder what purple stands for.
My fingers brush the purple streaks in my hair.
ChaosInPurple: You’ll have to see me to find out.
SilenceInMidnight: I hope you’re not a purple-skinned alien.
I snort and repeat his words from earlier.
ChaosInPurple: Nothing so dramatic, Night.
ChaosInPurple: I’m smiling.
SilenceInMidnight: I like knowing that.
Those four words feel like the beginning of something I’ve wanted for a very long time.
“You look awfully happy.” Elodie’s suspicious gaze moves over me, as I bite back my grin, which is no small feat these days.
“I’m always happy.”
She gives me a look that says try again as she walks across her studio apartment and sets two steaming cups onto the coffee table.
“No.” She lowers herself onto the couch. “You look suspiciously happy. Like too happy, even for you.”
I’m not surprised she notices. Elodie has always been frighteningly good at reading people, and I’ve always been terrible at hiding what I feel.
I watch her glance down at her phone as she checks her continuous glucose monitoring app, her expression easing once she’s satisfied. Only then does she pick up her cappuccino, and when her gaze lifts again, it pins me in place.
“Spit it out, Vi.”
I don’t even pretend to resist anymore. I’ve never been good at keeping secrets, especially not the good ones. It’s almost like I’ve been waiting for permission to say it out loud.
“I finally talked to him.”
Her brows shoot up. “Who?”
I frown. How can she forget something so monumental in my life?
“Don’t you remember when I told you guys at Daisy and Charles’s place last week that I got an email—”
“From the matchmaking website?”
I nod, barely able to contain myself. “Yes.”
“Violet. I thought we agreed that wasn’t safe.”
“He’s not a fraud,” I say quickly. “He’s… like me.”
One perfectly shaped brow arches. “You mean he speaks in a million words and comes up with unhinged theories about life and love?”
I grin and shake my head. “Actually, no. He uses fewer words than most people. But it’s not about how much he says—it’s what he says. He gets me, El. He doesn’t think I’m too much.”
“You’re not too much, Violet. You’re just… enthusiastic. Like a kid in a candy store who’s been given permission to buy everything.” She smiles, but then I watch it fade, slowly. “I’m worried about you. There’s so much deceit in the world.”