Chapter 2
“Is this a scam?” I ask Elias, point-blank. Elias recoils like I just slapped him.
“Of course not!” he says, horrified. “Didn’t you see how happy Julian and Rowan are?!”
I squint at him before asking, “Is this why Julian looks like a hostage?”
“A hostage?” Elias repeats, his voice jumping about three octaves.
Next to me, Colten makes a small sound that might be a laugh.
“Patrick,” Colten says, and there’s a tiny smirk on his mouth now, which immediately makes me suspicious. “Didn’t you just say they looked cute?”
I glare at him. How dare my best friend use my own words against me??
“Look,” Elias stiffly cuts in, as he draws himself up to his full height, “if you want to find your soulmate, I can do the spell for you. But if you’re going to make fun of me, I’ll just leave.”
“We should go practice,” Colten says, stepping in because, as always, he is the responsible one. “We already got sidetracked once today.”
I consider this for about half a second before turning to Elias.
“Sure, why not?” I say to Elias.
Colten turns slowly toward me with a frown. “Patrick, do you even know this guy?”
“He seems nice.” I shrug.
Elias narrows his eyes at me suspiciously, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m still making fun of him. I give him a thumbs up, and his whole face lights up.
“Great!” he says. “Follow me!”
He takes off down the hallway.
I glance at Colten, who rolls his eyes and fans one hand out as if to say, go ahead.
Which is how we end up following a possibly magical Greek guy into a random campus bathroom.
Colten looks around the tiled bathroom. “Of all the places to find a soulmate, a bathroom?”
“It has mirrors!” Elias explains, though it honestly explains nothing. Then, for some reason, he locks the door of the bathroom.
Not gonna lie, that is a little concerning.
But also, Elias is lanky and looks like a strong breeze could knock him over, while I’m taller than him and built like a refrigerator, so I’m not exactly worried.
Colten leans back against a sink with his arms crossed as Elias scrolls through his phone, looking for something.
“I should’ve just dragged you to the field,” Colten complains. “Your confidence in a stranger is deeply concerning.”
“Relax,” I tell him, resisting the urge to remind Colten he also went into the locked bathroom with a stranger. “Worst-case scenario, we get murdered.”
Colten’s eyebrow twitches. “...That’s supposed to be reassuring?”
Elias is still looking through his phone as he mutters to himself, “Yeah, I think this is the right one.”
“Should I sign something beforehand?” I ask.
Elias thinks about it for a moment, but then shakes his head. “Nah, I’m sure it’ll work this time.”
“Good, I hate paperwork.”
“Patrick,” Colten says my name with a heavy sigh. “I want the record to show that I think this is beyond stupid.”
I laugh, and Elias ignores us as he steps up to one of the sink mirrors and starts chanting.
It’s not English or anything I recognize, but it does sound extremely cool.
Curious, I wander over and look into the mirror, too. Colten sighs again, but a second later, he comes to stand beside me anyway, arms crossed as he keeps an eye on Elias.
Our reflections stare back. Elias looks very serious.
I open my mouth to make a joke—
And then the lights flicker.
The air in the room shifts, like a pressure change before a storm. There’s this low humming sound building somewhere in the walls.
“Okay,” I whisper, impressed.
The lights flicker again, and the humming gets louder, Elias’ chanting echoing around us in a way not quite right for a bathroom’s typical echo.
Colten goes very still next to me. I glance over at him, eyebrows raised like do you see this?
He looks more concerned than excited, which is frankly a bizarre response to the possibility that magic is real.
I shuffle a little closer anyway. If he's actually nervous, he can hide behind me. Not that he would. Scared or not, Colten would probably fistfight a ghost out of spite before hiding.
Elias’s voice rises as he chants faster and faster in that mysterious language.
Honestly? This is awesome!
And right as everything reaches a dramatic peak, with the pressure in the room building and Elias's reflection doing some deeply concerning things in the mirror—
The lights go out, leaving us in complete darkness.
Without thinking, I grab Colten and pull him close, looking around in the dark on high alert.
Then the lights snap back on.
Colten is pressed tight against my chest, his body warm against mine as he stares up at me with an expression somewhere between exasperated and something I can't quite place.
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or not,” Colten says. “Was I going to be a shield or were you trying to shield me?”
“Hey, it could be both,” I argue, snorting as I let go. “I’m creative like that.”
Colten shakes his head as his lips twist in a small smile.
Behind us, Elias frowns at the mirror. “That’s strange.”
“What’s strange?” I ask.
He points at the mirror. “Your soulmate’s face should’ve appeared there.”
All three of us look in the mirror.
I squint. There’s Elias, Colten, and me. That’s it.
There’s no mysterious soulmate or magical stranger looking back at us. It’s just the three of us standing in a slightly dingy campus bathroom.
“Huh,” I say.
Elias leans closer to the mirror, as if we all might’ve missed something.
“Maybe magic isn’t real,” I offer.
Elias looks personally offended by that possibility. Oh well. At least Julian isn’t actually in a hostage situation.
“Interesting experience,” I say, clapping Elias on the shoulder. “But we should probably go.”
Colten nods immediately. “Yes, we need to practice.”
I groan. Magic isn’t real and I need to practice?
Well, I guess I can’t avoid it forever. Elias waves us off, muttering some more as he taps away on his phone.
We shrug and easily slip out of the bathroom, once again heading towards the athletic center and leaving the whole situation behind. At least physically.
Mentally, I can’t stop thinking about it.
“That was weird,” I say.
“Yes,” Colten agrees. “One day I hope you develop at least some survival instincts.”
“Says the guy who followed me into the bathroom ritual.”
He raises a judgmental eyebrow. “I followed you to make sure you didn’t get jumped.”
“That’s true friendship,” I say warmly, putting a hand over my heart. He rolls his eyes.
I grin and bump his shoulder with mine before asking, “So, do you believe in magic?”
Colten goes quiet, which means he’s thinking.
This is one of my favorite things about Colten. Most people, especially me, answer questions immediately without thinking.
Meanwhile, Colten actually pauses and considers the question. I’ve learned to wait because whatever he eventually says is always interesting and worth it, unlike most other people.
We walk across the quad while he thinks. The sun is nice and warm today as students finishing finals trudge past us. Thankfully, my finals were done days ago, and whether I pass or not is not currently my problem.
Finally, Colten says, “I think there are a lot of things in the world we don’t understand.”
“That sounds like a yes,” I say, excited.
“It’s not a no,” he says. “Just because I haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
I grin. “So magic could be real?”
“Hypothetically.”
“Then what about soulmates?”
He thinks again, and I wait patiently.
“Logistically, the idea of soulmates doesn’t make much sense,” he says.
I make a questioning noise.
Of course, Colten would think of the logistics of soulmates. All I can think of is unlocking cool powers with the soulmate, maybe even going to an alternate dimension to fight off a horde of zombies to save them. That’d be so sick.
“What even counts as a soulmate?” he asks. “Is it someone who complements you? Someone who understands you perfectly without trying? Someone you’re destined to meet?”
“All of the above,” I say. “They should also be able to help you fight off a horde of zombies.”
Colten snorts, shaking his head. “Including zombies in this hypothetical, that would mean millions of people are incompatible with almost everyone else. You don’t just wake up and immediately fall in love with someone, at least not enough to want to fight a horde of zombies for them.”
I nod thoughtfully. Even if she’s the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, I would be hard-pressed to go up against zombies for a stranger, especially if they’re the fast zombies. “Fair.”
“But…it is a nice idea,” Colten quietly adds, looking off into the crowd of sunbathing students on the grass.
“Right?” I say, wondering what a soulmate would even be like. “They’d be like, the one person who’s just for you. Someone who always listens and never gets boring.”
Colten snorts softly before glancing at me. “That just sounds like a good friend.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Too bad the magic didn’t work.”
“Yes, too bad,” Colten replies, chuckling.
It makes me wonder—can soulmates be just friends?
Because honestly, if soulmate friends were real, Colten would be mine.
But if he was a girl… Ah, no, that’d be weird. He might be short, but he’s still a guy, and I wouldn’t want him to be anything but himself.
I would go up against a horde of zombies for him, though. I think we’d make a good team, even against the fast ones.
We reach the locker room, where a few of the guys from the soccer team are already inside.
Rich is leaning against a locker, still wearing his letterman jacket and tapping away at his phone like we don’t have evaluations next week.
“Well, look who finally decided to show up,” he calls out as soon as he notices us, grinning. “Not too busy with another date?”
“Shut up,” I say cheerfully.
“Nah, it’s 'cuz he was training hard, right?” Brian asks.
“Extremely,” I drawl, which gets a laugh from a couple of the guys.
Colten and I weave through the locker room toward our lockers. He doesn’t engage with the conversation, but that’s fine. I’m what he calls a social buffer, which I think is his polite way of saying I prevent him from getting annoyed at people.