Soul Mates

Soul Mates

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yes.” And like that, Devon Pol lost his virginity to Rina Lam, his best friend of three years, on her couch on a midwinter’s night, with the fire burning ten feet in front of them. And he was sure that he wanted it, though he did not know why. The thought had never crossed his mind until then. It did not “just seem to happen,” like most people say it does. They had dedicated the night to studying organic chemistry, and, as he would come to understand it later on, things “just seemed to happen.” They had been going over the textbook and taking practice tests for almost five hours. Rina’s housemates had already gone to bed. Devon’s hands hurt from the cold–her roommates were stingy with the heater–and from drawing hexagons, and when he told her this, she suggested they take a break and warm up.

So they lit a fire, gorged themselves full on late-night Chinese takeout, and got to talking like normal friends. They wound up on the topic of looks, and Devon knew he could trust Rina to be candid with him, and so he asked her, “Am I attractive?” Rina told him that he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. In turn, she asked him if he found her pretty, and Devon told her yes, of that there was no doubt.

They were uncomfortably silent for the next minute, both of them wondering what to do with this new information that had so unceremoniously presented itself. She then asked him if he wanted to do something with her, something that might change their friendship forever, but he should not feel pressured to say yes, and even if he said yes now, he could always change his mind later.

“I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you,” she said.

He shook his head. “You aren’t. Promise.”

Attempts to be covert were made, but in the end, they made a lot of noise. Devon was excited and new to all of this, and Rina appeared to be having the time of her life. Her roommates had to be either the heaviest sleepers in all of Chapel Hill or the most unbothered.

When they were finished, they lay together under a thin blanket and she pressed a small ear to his bare chest, thumbing his ribs. They were both sweating profusely but refused to separate their bodies. The most natural feeling in all the world, as he liked to call it.

“Are you sure you’ve never done this with anyone before?” she asked. She wasn’t accusing him of lying. She was just surprised.

“Yes. I’ve heard things and read things. And I’ve watched movies.” He laughed, suddenly. “Maybe I’m a fast learner.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t start, or you’ll be just like the rest of them.”

A week later, after finals were over, they did it again. And again. And a month later, when they’d gotten back from winter break, they started a tentative relationship, still furtive with one another. Though he was excited, Devon had reservations and knew that she did, too. He had never dated anyone before and was intensely afraid of messing it up. His own parents had been through a nasty divorce. His mother had been the one to raise him, and though she tried to hide it, he knew her relationship with his father had affected her in ways that, for some, would take lifetimes to get over.

Rina wanted to be a doctor and knew that getting into a serious relationship now would complicate her plans, deter her and break her down in the face of already discouraging odds. Devon promised to be nothing but supportive and to remind her always of her goals, even at his own expense, for which Rina expressed gratitude.

“You’re very kind. When I told my last boyfriend I wanted to be a doctor, he told me not to bother. He said he could make plenty of money for us, so I could watch the house and kids,” she laughed wistfully. “But you’re different. You’re supportive. That’s why I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by accident. But now you’ve become something more. And so far, it’s not too bad, either.”

They’d been friends for four years. Devon loved her and put all his faith in her because he knew she would never defile it. They were routinely and habitually in the presence of one another, so to Devon, it seemed farcical that they should not be “together.”

To their credit, they grew into their relationship, and quickly, like a child grows into a pair of shoes. It was the most natural phenomenon in all of history, not easy or obvious, but organic. Devon felt it in his bones when he woke up next to her, when he said goodbye to her as he left for work and she for school, when he swept the floor and saw both his hair and hers in the dustpan intermingled.

They danced around the idea of marriage for three years before Devon asked her to be his wife. Any reservations they had at the beginning of their intimacy were now gone as Rina jumped into his arms and said yes. They had a small ceremony in Charlotte, close to Devon’s extended family.

Devon could only describe that day as the most reassuring of his life. Before he met Rina, he wasn’t sure it would ever come. He liked the idea of marriage, found the notion of it—not so much the logistics—to be archaically beautiful, and wasn’t afraid of commitment, but when he tried picturing what his future wife might be like, no one came to mind. As he got older, he wondered if anyone would ever come to mind.

The first year of marriage was not particularly exciting, though he and Rina did not need it to be. Rina started medical school at their alma mater in Chapel Hill. Devon continued his job in the petrol industry. When they came home from their respective practices, they would be exhausted and asleep by eleven, but not before cradling around each other like intertwining vines and confiding in each other in low voices about their days’ luxuries and battles. On weekends he drove her to the library to study, and when he came to pick her up they would explore the town together, find a restaurant they hadn’t yet tried, catch a late night picture. One of Devon’s favorite things to do was walk in the park with all the other couples and see how they measured up.

The second year of marriage was more or less the same. They adopted a cocker spaniel and named her Shelby, and she grew big fast. They started cultivating a small garden in the front lawn of their apartment, where Shelby would chase bees and accidentally crush their neatly blooming tulips in the process. Devon’s family came up to see them for Thanksgiving, and Devon and Rina went down to his family for Christmas.

“Your mother told me that we should bring Shelby the next time we come visit,” Rina told him on the drive back. “And that you should call her more. She worries about you.”

“Yeah, I know I should,” he said. “And I will. But what’s there to worry about? She knows we’re good. I’m good. We have money, a house, we’re eating well.”

She shrugged. “Parents don’t ever stop worrying about their kids, even after they grow up. That’s part of the deal. It’s sort of how I feel about Shelby whenever we leave her alone for too long.”

He nodded. They said nothing for a while, before he asked, “Do you think we’re ready for kids?”

“Nah. Give it a couple years.”

Again he nodded, and smiled to himself. He’d hoped she would say that.

In their third year of marriage, Devon quit his job and switched companies for better hours and benefits. His first client at this new job was a young man, enterprising on behalf of an agricultural business looking to increase their annual yield. When the exchange of phone calls and paper mail could not bridge the gap of understanding between the two companies, the agriculture business flew in a representative to talk with Devon in person. His name was Jeremiah and they would work together for a week.

Maybe it was the switch in career. Maybe it was neat, little things that piled up into bigger, more delightful things. Like how Jeremiah held a pencil. And wrote with his index finger arched up so that only his nail made contact with the wood. Or how when he coughed, he always scratched his stubble afterwards. Or how his mellow voice seemed to flow directly from the fountain of youth.

Devon enjoyed his line of work, but not that much. He was a dependable employee when there were eyes on him, but when left to his own devices, he struggled to find consistent motivation. During meetings he would doodle rockets and spacemen. He took too many “bathroom breaks” to simply hide from his duties for fifteen minutes uninterrupted. Work paid the bills and put food on the table; as far as he was concerned, that was enough. It didn’t need to be the thing he looked forward to everyday. But during the week of Jeremiah Devon found that when he woke up, he could not wait to step into his office and do nothing but honest, focused work.

At the end of the week, it was time for Jeremiah to leave and Devon’s days became a little more humdrum, but he figured it would pass. Maybe Jeremiah had been unusually fun to work with, and now that he was gone, of course things would feel mundane. The only thing he looked forward to now was coming home to Rina. And Rita had been enough before Jeremiah, so why should anything be different now?

But something was different. And at the turn of the year, when the ball dropped and everyone kissed their loved ones–Devon and Rina included–and reminisced over what a hell of a year it was, Devon thought of his week of pouring over refined chemical equations and manufacturing processes with Jeremiah. Their relationship hadn’t been anything special. They didn’t become best friends. It was a coin toss whether Jeremiah would even remember Devon’s name when his plane landed halfway across the country, and this thought filled Devon with inexorable bitterness and heartache.

He didn’t share any of this with Rita, mostly because he didn’t know what “this” was, only that it made him uneasy. Something was suddenly missing from his life. No, it wasn’t suddenly missing, it had always been missing. He just hadn’t felt it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him one day. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing.” She said this gently, telling him he could not fool her but also that he shouldn’t feel the need to try.

“I think I’m unhappy,” he told her plainly, and this was true. “I think I need to make a change in my life, but I don’t know what.”

“Then I will help you find it.”

But after a year, nothing had changed, aside from Rina making a noticeable effort to spend more time with him. He tried things. Hobbies, sports, books. They all told him what he already knew. He still loved Rina and he proved it daily. And he felt the same proof from her. But every night when he went to bed, he was confronted by the same terrible question: what if love–at least, as Devon had come to know love–had nothing to do with it?

In the fall, he called his mother and asked her what love felt like, at which she seemed both surprised and indignant. “This is the only time you’ve called me first, and this is what you want to talk about?”

He felt his ears getting hot. “I’ll call you some other time,” he said, about to hang up.

“No. I’m sorry,” she blurted. “What love feels like.” She thought about it while Devon curled the landline cord in his fingers. “Sweetheart, I might be the wrong person to ask about that. I haven’t been so lucky with love. Except with you. But I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“But I’ll tell you this. I know what love doesn’t feel like. It doesn’t feel like a dead end.” She paused again, and Devon suddenly felt guilty for calling. “Love shouldn’t feel like a chore or a battle, honey. It should be hard sometimes, but if it’s hard all the time, that’s something else. That’s what love might look like, but it’s not what real love feels like. Or what it is. Real love shouldn’t have to be something you get through. It should be the thing that gets you through everything else.” She sighed. “That was a lot. Did any of it help?”

“I think so.”

“Sweetheart, does this have anything to do with Rina?” She asked this slowly, perhaps realizing what this was about. “She’s a good girl, you know.”

Devon answered truthfully. “No, it doesn’t.”

One night during the winter, he and Rina lay on the couch, in front of the fireplace, like they did when they first met. And again something happened that would change their relationship, but unlike then, it really did “just seem to happen.” He hadn’t rehearsed a big speech or set himself a deadline. It was only on that night that he became sure and found it within himself to accept it.

It didn’t appear to sink in right away. The words lingered in suspended animation, and Devon heard, above the crackling of the fire, his own words echo back at him like thunder, followed by a resounding silence as he waited for Rina’s face to change. That neutral, concerned look was harder to bear than any fiery response she could’ve given him, and he waited a thousand years to free him from his agony.

She bit her lip and turned pink, and for a moment Devon thought she might start crying. Then she shook her head and let out a strangled laugh, and for a moment he thought she might get unspeakably angry with him. But she did not get angry or start crying. She squeezed his hand and kissed it.

“Okay,” she said, just like that.

“Rina,” he said, stupidly.

“I know.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know, not for a long time. But then one day, I started having thoughts, and I didn’t want…” he trailed off, waving his hands around as if they could finish his thoughts for him.

“I know,” she said again. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything, I promise.”

“Yes, I do.” He stood up indignantly and faced her, which seemed to alarm her more than his confession. “Rina, why aren’t you livid?”

“Why would I be livid?”

“All these years, for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing.”

“All these years I’ve been lying to you.”

“You didn’t mean to.”

“Still!” He grabbed tufts of his hair and pleaded mentally with her to yell at him, walk out on him, push him into the blazing fire. Again, he said, “I’m sorry, Rina, I’m sorry.”

“Devon, I know.”

“No, Rina—”

“Devon.” He looked up at her. “I know.”

He froze. Of course she did.

“You know my heart,” she told him, her voice small but sure. “And I think I know yours.” He nodded, trembling. “I had small suspicions, about other things. But then you told me you needed a change. Then things didn’t make sense. Then they made too much sense. But I thought…I hoped—”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Whatever she had hoped for, he had once hoped for the same. That it wouldn’t matter, that things could stay the same because they were deeply, unequivocally, soulmates and sweethearts, even if they could not be lovers.

He had hoped that their marriage could be a candidly unconventional one. Many conventional marriages these days didn’t even last, and the few that did remained quietly unhappy and devoid of affection, staying together out of convenience or in fear of the connotations surrounding divorce. Some days, he honestly believed that he loved her more than she did him, if ever so slightly, and those days gave him the delusions—which he had mistaken for conviction—to press on. She kept him honest and human and was never afraid to pull him down if his head ever got lost in the clouds. She would never do anything to hurt him, even after he had hurt her.

And Devon knew that he would not have to say any of this to her in words. For years they had been of one mind and while that ultimately led them both astray, it also gave way to a deep understanding. The most natural feeling in all the world.

“All I ask,” Rina began, “is that we deal with this in the morning.”

He gently lifted her face, then Rina cupped her hands around his. In the morning and the days that followed, they would talk divorce papers and property and last names. She would on to find another lover, and after some time, Devon would ask for counsel on how to do the same. They would grow old separately, both with good men at their side.

But tonight they would reminisce aloud on the greatest hits of a five-year marriage that did not end because the love had run dry. They would marvel at the moonlight pouring through the windows of the house they bought together. And they would watch the fireplace burn steady throughout the night, its warmth nothing compared to that of Rina’s hands.