ethan

2 hours to go.

I paced my room as I waited for the cause of my panic for the past week to show up.

I tried to calm myself with games and trying to take a nap, but the second I'd close my eyes or try to concentrate on a level, I would feel the nerve-racking thoughts bouncing around inside my head.

What's going to happen when he realizes that I'm his soulmate?

What am I going to do to hide it from him?

Will I ever tell him?

Am I going to be good enough for him?

*knock* *knock*

I froze in my computer chair, the light knocking repeating as I felt a panic attack rising by the second.

I threw myself onto the door, taking a quick glance at my wrist to make sure it was covered before opening the door, unconsciously holding my breath as my eyes found a red shirt to where my eye level defaulted to.

I slowly looked up as I blushed at the muscular figure of the man in front of me.

This is Tyler, the guy who's your potential soulmate.

Be cool.

I found in the few seconds of looking at him that the fact that he could be my soulmate was becoming truer by the second.

Tyler was tall and had a physique that made me blush.

His smile was bright and his brown curly hair was being squished into a blue New England Patriots cap.

He had a backpack that was on the brink of bursting open along with a duffle bag at his feet.

"Uh, hi, I'm Tyler."

He outstretched his hand for me to shake, my eyes catching onto his wrist seeing no name, after coming up clean with the other one as well.

"Hi, I'm Ethan."

Tyler had no reaction to me introducing myself.

No widening of the eyes, no checking the soulmark routine, none of that stuff.

Is he not my soulmate?

"Glad to be rooming with you, Ethan."

I gestured to our room, showing off his empty side of the already heavily decorated room.

"Nice setup."

Tyler set his stuff down on his freshly made bed. (Yes, I did wash his sheets and made his bed for him, I'm not an asshole)

"Thanks," I said that with a hard swallow afterward.

Tyler smiled at me and started unpacking his stuff, leaving me to start small talk between us.

"Did you want to go out to lunch with Mark, Amy, and Kat?"

Tyler turned around to me, a little shocked that I just said that as if we'd been doing that for years.

"Uh, sure." Tyler grabbed his wallet and his new room key, pulling a hoodie from his bag on as I went to grab my stuff too. "How did you meet all of my friends before I met you?"

"Um." I walked out of the door, waiting for Tyler before closing it. "Let's just say it's because of my lack of upper body strength."

Tyler laughed and accepted that as an adequate answer, walking with me to meet up our friends after I texted them.

"What are you majoring in, Ethan?"

"Video Games."

"Well, you have to give me more than that." Tyler nudged me with his arm. "I mean, you already know a lot about me than I do you, might as well give me something."

"I want to be a video game developer and make games for people to enjoy." I thought out my answer so it wouldn't sound too cliché. "I want to make people feel something with my characters and my stories."

Tyler nodded his head and weaved his way through people to try and continue our conversation.

"So we both want to help people."

"Well, I wouldn't say I'd be helping anyone."

"I don't know Ethan. I can confidently say that video games have helped me in more ways than one, as I'm sure you could say the same thing."

Mental Note: Ask Tyler about video games.

"You're going to be a doctor, your way of helping people is far more important than mine."

Tyler pulled me aside onto the grass.

"Just because I'm going to be saving people's lives doesn't make my future career more important than yours. If it makes you happy then it's important." Tyler pats me on the shoulder. "Not a doctor, by the way, a Cardiovascular surgeon."

How ironic.

I rolled my eyes and continued walking to meet the gang for lunch, Tyler catching up with me and hitting me on the arm.

-

"TYLER!"

All three of our mutual friends ran up to Tyler and nearly made him collapse from the sheer amount of weight being thrown at him in a huge hug.

"How's it going dude?! I miss having you around!" Mark was excited, to say the least.

Tyler gave them all a big squeeze before regaining his balance and filling them in.

"Let's just say medical school sucks, but it's all worth it in the end."

"Havin' any luck finding that lucky soulmate of yours?" Amy punched his arm.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

Wait, does Amy not know his soulmate name?

She would have asked me if mine was Tyler right?

Does Kat or Mark know?

I tried to keep my cool while Tyler answered her, hiding the internal panic ringing throughout my body.

"Nope, unfortunately not."

Why is no one putting two and two together here?

Why is no one asking me if I'm Tyler's soulmate or not?

Am I not his soulmate?

Can I stop panicking?

"Hey, it's alright man, you'll find him eventually."

WHY ME. WHY ME. WHY ME.

Great, that's another possibility that I am his soulmate.

"We should get going before it gets even busier, did you guys figure out a spot to go?" My diversion of the subject helped immensely with my quivering anxiety.

"Oh, yes! Tyler, there's this really good local pizza place, they make the best pizza known to man!"

"Yes, Fong's is so good!"

We all gladly dragged Tyler to our favorite pizza joint, home to the Crab Rangoon and Mac'n'cheese pizza.

(Those two are different pizza's by the way.)

-

"That was the most fun-filled night I've had in a while."

Tyler collapsed on his bed, beat from the various activities we crammed into that night.

"Welcome to my world."

Tyler yawned and rubbed his eyes as I sat down on my bed across from him.

"I'm gonna head to bed, I have to figure out my classes in the morning-"

"I can help you with that if you want."

Tyler smiled at me.

"Thanks."

After taking care of the bare necessities of getting ready for bed, Tyler cleared his blankets of his belongings and snuggled in for a good nights sleep.

"G'night, Ethan."

"Night, Tyler."

Saying that made me feel all kinds of wrong.

-

I waited out until I knew for sure that Tyler was asleep before sitting at my desk for some midnight research.

"How common are misplaced soulmarks?" I mouthed to myself as I typed it into Google.

"1 in 1,000,000 babies are born with Misplaced Soulmark Disorder. MSD can be caused by various influences; genetics, premature birth, and developmental issues. In other cases, the cause can be unknown."

So it's probably not likely that Tyler has a misplaced soulmark.

"How common is it to be born without a soulmark?" Yet something else I felt the need to mouth to myself as I typed it.

"1 in 25,000 babies are born with Absent Soulmark Disorder. The causes of ASD are unknown."

But that doesn't make sense, Amy asked him about his "soulmate" and Mark even said "him".

"Is it possible for a soulmark to be invisible but still knowing the soulmate name?" I realized how stupid that was as I typed it.

I gave up on the research, my brain being too tired to contemplate it any longer and harder at that time of the night.

We'll have to wait and see how much panic I'll be living with for the rest of college or not.