2. Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Katherine
Present day
S tanding in a dimly lit and over crowded bar was not really how I wanted to spend one of my last nights in New York.
In all fairness, half of the people here are my friends—or at least acquaintances—but still, it feels like too many people. Maybe letting Isabella organise this was a bad idea. But she’s the social butterfly in this friendship, these things are more her speed.
People I’ve only seen in a lecture hall or campus corridors keep coming up to me with drinks I didn’t order. But I take them to not be rude. I can practically feel the hangover I’m going to have tomorrow.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other as I wait for my best friend to come back from dancing with some guy. My feet hurt already and I regret my shoe choice, black strappy heels, but Bella insisted.
I can feel my ponytail tickle my shoulder blades as I sway to the music slightly, checking the door every other second. The tight green dress I’m wearing feels like I’ve been rolled in saran wrap. It keeps riding up every time I move too much, meaning I look ridiculous with one of my hands permanently attached to the hem of it.
It’s not even slightly similar to what I would normally wear on a night out, but this is our last night together for god knows how long and I don’t want the last thing Bella remembers is us arguing because the dress she brought me is too tight for my liking. It makes her happy to pick things for me and I want her to be happy, even if I don’t really look like me.
I see Bella making her way back over to me from the dance floor. When she reaches me, her cheeks are flushed. She takes the glass I’ve been holding for her and downs it in one gulp. She sends a bright smile my way as she takes my hand, leading me back over to the bar. My eyes land on the door again as we pass it, thinking how easy it would be to slip out and leave.
“So, Sunday,” she yells over the obnoxiously loud bass music playing. Bella is not the kind of person to get sad, but I can see the hint of it lingering in the corners of her eyes now.
When I finally made up my mind that I would be going to Australia, I knew I didn’t want to leave until the summer was over. It meant I could keep working my waitress job over the busy tourist period. Of course, I’ve been saving money since I was eighteen for this trip, but the tips were too good to miss.
Waiting until now also meant that as our summer is coming to an end, spring would be in full swing in Australia. I had planned it to a T so that I got even more of my favourite seasons.
My extensive collection of summer dresses have never been so happy.
I feel my fingers reach for the soul stone around my neck. A necklace I’ve worn since I got it over six years ago. One that matches the ones my mom and Nan made, and still wear.
The thing is, for once, I’m not scared. Or nervous. Or worried.
I’ve been scared about most things my whole life, I only became more anxious when I lost my dad five years ago. I didn’t think that day would be the last time I told him I loved him, I didn’t think that would be the last time I got to hold his hand and he would hold it back. But it was; that next day he fell into a coma and a week later he was no longer here.
But going to Australia to find my soulmate is the only thing I’m not nervous about. Because this is what I’ve been thinking about my whole life.
This is the last miracle I have.
Bella told me I’m setting my expectations too high. That when I find my soulmate, it’ll be nothing like I’ve dreamed. That I’ll end up disappointing myself.
She has also tried to change my mind a million times about leaving. Says I’m too young, beautiful, and smart to be wasting my time with ‘stupid, ungrateful, unworthy men’—her words.
We’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember, I can’t think of a time she wasn’t by my side, helping me fight my battles and being that shoulder to cry on when I needed it. But we are complete opposites. She gave up on finding her soulmate when we were kids. I guess it’s because she didn’t grow up with soulmates around her all the time like me.
Most people my age don’t even believe in them.
My parents didn’t get that much time with each other, and I don’t want that. Forever might not be real, but I want as long as I can possibly get.
“Will you be coming with me?” I ask in response to her. “To the airport,” I clarify. I had asked her months ago when I got my plane ticket if she wanted to come, too, but unlike me, she has an internship at a photography studio starting in a couple of weeks.
If you knew us both, you would think it was the other way around. Bella has always been the wild child of us both. The impulsive one, the ‘do almost anything for a good time’ one. But she’s the one with a real job, and I am the one going off on a crazy adventure .
“Of course, but I still think you’re crazy. There are plenty of good guys here that could make you just as happy as any guy in Australia could,” she grumbles, gesturing around the over crowded bar as if I would change my mind about the whole matter, about the thing I’ve been planning for over three years.
I shake my head at her, letting a small laugh fall from my lips. She laughs with me knowing she won't win.
My eyes scan the room as she orders us another round of drinks from the bartender who has been paying her far more attention than anyone else here. I don’t blame him, she’s gorgeous.
Her dark curly hair falls around her face framing her amazing jaw line and striking features. Her beautiful olive skin is basically glowing under the black dress she’s wearing, the girl makes anything look like it should be on a page of Vogue. She’s the spitting image of her grandma when she first moved to New York from Spain. The picture of her hanging in Bella’s family apartment always brings a smile to my face, especially the ones of both her grandparents together.
As she turns back around while waiting for our drinks, the sad look in her brown eyes has grown bigger. I suspect the amount of alcohol we’ve had is playing a part in her actually showing her emotions for a change. The girl is one of the most closed books I’ve ever met, she’s my best friend and sometimes I don’t even feel like I get the whole picture for what's going on in her head. Considering all the things she’s helped me with over the years, I would like to think I’ve helped her open up a little more. I wear my heart on my fucking forehead—my sleeve is too subtle.
“Come on, Bella, you should be happy I’m finally getting that life you’ve always told me about, and—” I’m cut off by the feeling of two broad hands landing on my shoulders, a feeling that at any other time in a bar would mean I’m about to get super irritated with a guy, but the familiar scent of bonfire and fall spices fills me .
When I turn around there he is, Nick. Or Nicolás, when he’s with his family; Bella’s twin brother and my other best friend.
Nicolás Sainz—any girl's dream boy. I would know, I was one of them. At eight years old, Nick ran into a seven year old Kat roller skating down the corridor of our apartment building. I kinda loved him right away.
Fast forward to a sixteen year old Kat having her heart broken when her stone didn’t glow for him. And that was that. The love I was so sure that I felt was pushed down to the deepest, darkest parts of my heart, but still, it’s there in a wistful kind of way.
In the way we sometimes look at each other from across the room, in the way we dance together on a night out, that’s just how it is.
Neither Nick nor I have ever said anything or acted on any possible feelings, because sometimes at the end of the day, a best friend is all you actually need. It sounds ridiculous, but I’ve had six years to come to that conclusion. Time heals all , they say. That’s true for my heartbreak about Nick, but not for everything.
He is equally as beautiful as his sister. Brown short hair, deep brown eyes I’ve gazed into a million times before. His skin tone is a little deeper than Bella’s that seems to glow even more under the white t-shirt he is currently wearing. And how is it fair for boys to have such long lashes.
Okay, he’s not beautiful… he’s hot. But I’m not meant to think that.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Katy. My shift ran over, and—” I cut him off by throwing my arms around his neck and bringing him in for a hug. I feel his arms wrap around me, too. The warmth from his chest seeping into my bones, his fingers grazing the bare skin on my back and I feel the goosebumps rise.
I don’t care why he’s late, I’m just happy he’s here .
Apart from Bella, Nick has always been there for me, even when he moved to Kentucky for college. We were always on the other end of the phone for each other. He moved back to New York after graduation, and uncharacteristically for him, he has no idea what he wants to do. So, he’s currently working shifts as a bartender.
Before I can think of anything else, he’s slipping out of our hug and is holding his hands out to me and Bella. “Fancy a dance, ladies?” On a normal day I’d probably be playing referee to another one of their fights, but every once and a while, they take a break from ripping each other’s heads off.
I’m not sure what I expected from being best friends with twins.
I wake up as the sun starts to pour into my room.
The majority of the night is a blur. I remember more drinking, lots of dancing and a very slow and painful stagger back home.
A headache begins to swirl itself around in my brain. Making its way from the front to the back. It’s the kind that will sit behind my eyes for the whole day and honestly I don’t have time for it.
I lay for a moment longer regretting not drinking the glass of water I left out for myself before I’d gone out.
Lifting my head from my pillow, just enough, I scan my room. My eyes lock on to the mess of clothes and shoes on the floor and I smile in spite of it. Bella and I won’t get to do this for a while, I’m almost glad for the mess. Then the two half packed suitcases off in the corner remind me that I am leaving tomorrow, and I’m not ready .
Not ready to pack everything up, not ready to move across the world on a crazy search, not ready to actually say goodbye to everyone.
My anxiety for the situation makes me feel sick, or maybe that’s the alcohol?
Definitely the tequila, my little voice says. She’s right, of course.
I’m wondering if I’ll ever feel ready. If I waited another week, a month, even another year.
No you wouldn’t be, my brain tells me, and once again, she’s right.
I hate her a little.
Feeling under my pillow, I find my phone. The screen reads 10:28 a.m.
One text from Bella at 2 a.m. to say goodnight. But I guess it should have said good morning by the time we got to sleep.
One text from Mom at 5 a.m. to say she was leaving the hospital and she’d probably sleep until lunch time, a reminder to be quiet until then. As if I need one.
And one text from Nick at 10:19 a.m. to say he’s on the fire escape.
I smile at that one and finally pull myself out of my bed and climb out my window, grabbing a sweatshirt on my way.
“Well, fancy seeing you here,” I say as I climb up the flight of stairs to his fire escape.
“What, on my own fire escape?” he asks sarcastically, handing me a mug of much needed coffee as I sit down next to him looking out over a city that’s been up for hours—or that never actually went to sleep.
We’ve always done this. Bella’s not exactly a morning person and I expect she’ll be in bed for most of the day. Which I’m totally fine with. Yes, it’s my last day but we made a big list of everything we wanted to do over the summer together.
We did every last thing on it.
Mornings are more of a Nick and me thing. Guess that’s the best thing about having your best friends live in the apartment above yours. Bella and Nick moved into the building when I was seven, and the three of us have been inseparable ever since. My dad used to say if you saw one of us, the other two weren’t far behind. And nothing was more true.
This is the first time I haven’t known what to say to him, which I don’t think has happened in the fifteen years I’ve known him. With Bella, it’s like we never stop talking, never thinking about what we’re saying. We’re always rolling one conversation into another, never too sure how we ended up there. But with Nick, it’s a little different, and it’s hard to explain. Silence has never bothered us, but this one does.
When Dad died, Bella would come stay over and just let me cry and watch crap TV with me to take my mind off life. But we never really talked about it. When I was ready, it was Nick that I talked to about how I felt. Nick’s brain works in a similar way to mine, he understands what I’m trying to say without me having to say too much.
Which just makes this all a little harder.
He’s been gone for four years for college. We talked every week—on the phone, over email, FaceTime. He even came home for every holiday. But when I told him about me going to Australia, it came as a shock. He hadn’t been there for every late night conversation, every pro-con list until I made the decision. That’s not his fault; regardless, this summer has been hard.
I’m startled when he finally speaks. “Just keep me in the loop, yeah?” His voice goes up at the end, a dead giveaway that there's something else he’s not saying. His smile is small, and I want more than anything for it to be the big toothy grin I’m used to seeing.
He and Bella have the exact same eyes, and the sad look that she was trying to hide from me last night is prominent in his. I wonder for a minute if they think I’m never coming back, and then I remember that I actually have no idea when I’ll be coming back, either .
“Of course. Always,” I say, smiling. And I mean it; I can’t imagine not having him in my life, not sharing everything with him. “Are you going to come to the airport tomorrow?” I ask him.
“Of course, Katy,” he finally says, giving me another small smile.
And that’s all we really say about it. We sat there for another hour or so. I tell him about the sights I want to see and he tells me about the girl he met at work the other night. I smile at that.
When we were growing up, I always thought how easy it would have been if we’d been each other's soulmates. We were already best friends and he’s always been handsome—that’s not hard to miss—but when he got his stone and nothing happened between us, I thought maybe I had to wait till I got mine. When I got mine four months later, nothing.
That was hard for sixteen year old Katherine to get over, we never talked about it. I think maybe he’d been hoping the same, too. Much like Bella, he’s not all that bothered about the whole soul stone thing.
I think maybe sometimes the universe doesn’t want you to have it easy, it wants you to work for the things that are going to be worth it.