Soulmates

Chapter One: Young Memories
Wednesday, August 30, 1995

“Can I join you?” I had asked, careful not to overstep the boundary of the sandbox edge.
It was a sincere question, and yet, she peered up at me through round, sparkling glasses with a gaze that clearly stated “I’m looking at an idiot.”

And her response didn’t hide it.
“Why would I wanna play with you, stupid boy?” she replied, nudging the glasses further up the bridge of her nose and returning to her creation in the sand. It looked like...well, I really couldn’t tell.

“I don’t know,” I found myself replying, shuffling my feet in the dusty recess in the grass from all the activity around the sandbox. A warm August breeze blew all the dust back at me. Cursing under my breath, I shrugged. “I figured I’d make castles with you.”

She snorted. “They aren’t castles, you idiot, they’re turtles. Can’t you tell?”
I tilted my head to better view the mound of sand which she sculpted. It was crude, but now I saw it. A quaint, tail-less sand turtle.
She stood up and brushed the sand from her blue jean knees. “Besides. Mom says not to talk to strangers. How do I know you aren’t gonna lure me back to your car and take me away?”

I almost laughed at this. “Now you’re the dumb one,” I retorted. “I’m eight. I can’t drive!”
She snorted again. “You could be a stranger in disguise. I wasn’t born yesterday.” She held up seven fingers. “I’m six. I practically know everything.”
I sighed. “Listen, I just wanna use the sandbox. I thought I’d be polite and ask first.”
She shook her head. “Well, no. It’s my sandbox.” She picked up a small red pail and knelt to fill it with sand.
“It’s a playground! You don’t own it!” I argued.
She stuck out her tongue at me, and continued to fill her pail.
I turned on heel and began to walk away. “Fine. I don’t wanna make stupid sand turtles anyway.”
She stood up and put a hand on her hip, shaking the other hand's finger at me. “For your information, I’m making sand castles!”


Chapter Two: ¿Como te llamas?
Monday, August 30, 2004

The sun beamed down through the trees, filtering golden pillars of blinding light through the emerald foliage. Hard to see through, and annoying too—especially when you have your chatty little sister in the car with you, radio blaring on the crappy “chick music” station while she yammers away on her cell phone, paying little attention to anything else.

Another year at Galesburg had come, and I had found myself driving my black Toyota Tacoma to the high school yet again. Well, not…again, per se, since I had just gotten the truck. It was kinda nice not having to take the fucking bus to school.
The downside? Like I said. Chatty lil’ sis.

I mean, it’s not that I mind bussing Autumn around. What bothers me is she’s still immature. I could never stand freshmen because they were still of junior high mentality—and if anyone was a stereotypical schoolgirl, it was my sister, Autumn Lindsay Martinic. Sure, Autumn got on my nerves, but I loved her regardless. She’s my sister, y’know?

She was very talkative. And loud. And obnoxious. And often times hyperactive. And at this present described moment, including-but not limited to-all of the above. Just sitting there…babbling away to some shrill lass about which current fad-rapper was hottest. Or whose shoes were cuter. Or what “this one chick I know’s friend’s brother’s girlfriend was doing in the library with this one dude’s friend’s brother.”

Whatever.

I kept my eyes glued to the road. Despite my annoyed state, I was having a good morning. Back on the schedule, I thought. Breakfastless mornings leading to long, excruciating minutes in boring, rank classrooms. Repulsive lunch, followed by more crap classes, rewarded only by the sweet release of nightfall, where I shall return to slumberland once more.

Autumn said a quick goodbye and folded her phone shut with a heavy sigh.
I glanced over at her, then back at the road. “What’s up, sis?”
She shook her head. “My ex has been spreading rumors about me being the biggest slut in the entire school. He’s just making a big deal outta our breakup.”
Wow, I thought. That was quite a change from the last few seconds that I had eavesdropped.
“Now now, you know that’s not true,” I said kin the most sincere, consoling tone of voice that I could muster, “you’re only about the fourth biggest slut in the whole school.”
She flipped me the bird. She knew I was joking, though.
I shrugged. “Like you said. The idiot’s just making a big deal outta nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
She glared at me. “But I’m not even in the door yet, and already, I’m the school’s patron skank..”
I shrugged again. “Welcome to high school, sis. It’s the drama of junior high magnified a few times. Anything that goes on is a bigger deal than the Michael Jackson trial. But like anything people get interested in…” I paused as I stopped behind a school bus picking up kids. “…they’ll forget about it.”
Autumn sighed. “I hope you’re right, Leon.”
“I know I am.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I was wrong.
As soon as I stepped in the doors, I felt like I was swarmed by the scavenging minions of Beelzebub. Classmates, ones I particularly never hung out with, taking every chance to mock my actions and words of asinine from when I was younger. See, before I had moved away from Galesburg, I was a problem child. No teacher could handle me–I was the misbehaved, hyperactive, Calvin and Hobbes type of horror that tested a teacher’s worthiness to their postsecondary education to the maximum. And my old classmates, though I had come back to Galesburg just last year and they had ample opportunities to bother me about it then, decided this was a prime time to bring it up.
It makes me wonder if I’m really the right person to be giving sage advice to my little sis.

Doing my best to drive off the swarm (a large stick or a baseball bat would have come in handy), I escaped to a quiet table on the far end of the commons. I tossed my crimson bookbag onto the table, causing a girl sitting there to look up at me, annoyed.

“Must you make so much noise?” she asked, holding up a small novel that her thumb held open somewhere in the middle. The DaVinci Code.

“Sorry,” I said holding my palms in front of me in surrender. She rolled her eyes and continued to read the text. She was kinda cute. Short stature, brunette--just above shoulder length hair, slender build, glasses that made her look a little dorky, but that was alright, it added to the attractiveness. I laughed at myself in my head. You haven’t even known this girl for five seconds, and already you’re checking her out, I scolded myself in my head.

Ignoring that pleasant little voice, I sat down across the table. “So, I haven’t seen you around. Freshman?”

Great, I thought, scolding myself again. That’s a real icebreaker, dude.

“Yeah,” she said, barely moving except to speak, her eyes transfixed on the book.

Okay. Good...start. Say something else...

“Good book?” I asked, hoping that a sentence fragment would suffice.

“Yeah, I guess,” came the reply. Still little to no movement.

“So...you got a name?” I was eager to know. Somehow, in my mind, I knew this conversation was getting dorkier and dorkier. But hey, that’s just how I do.

She sighed, slid a bookmark into her thumb’s place in the book, and placed them down on the table before looking me in the eye. “Look,” she said, obviously annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m trying to read, okay? I came over here to the quiet side of the room because I thought no one would bother me here.” She grabbed her messenger bag and carefully placed the book in it. Like a magazine in a rifle, it seemed to have a specific place. I started to speak up to stop her, perhaps apologize for disturbing the peace, but the first bell rang just as I got the first word out.

Wonderful timing, Martinic, I thought to myself. Excellent timing.

As I left the commons, I couldn’t help but wonder why that girl seemed so familiar to me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Algebra was a slow hell for me. Math was never really my subject, and it would take an hour and hundreds of pages of sheer boring-ness to express just how bad it really was. I’ll spare you all and just say–it’s simply dismal. I didn’t think that my next class–Spanish would be any better. I simply felt that I lacked the mental capacity and sanity for foreign language.

When I arrived at class, I had just beat the bell. Sighing at my luck, I glanced around the room–we had taken the Biology room for lack of school size to accommodate Freshman Spanish on its own–and this time, I groaned at my luck. All of the classroom’s seats were full except for one–

–next to the irritable brunette I had met earlier.

I sighed and let my bag slip off of my shoulder and onto the table in front of my seat. The girl jumped in her seat, and glanced up from her book to glare at me.
“Do you ever learn?” she asked, her tone full of scolding contempt.
I shrugged in reply, lost for witty retorts.

Spanish kicked off without a hitch. We got right down to buisness–grazing over the Spanish alphabet, all the different ways to conjugate the verbs (we even had a song to the tune of a preschool melody to go along with it–strangle me now, please), and finally, we praticed our first phrase–how to introduce ourselves.

By now, the teacher, a bubbly blonde named Ms. Stern (Ha!) was nearly bouncing off the bloody walls. As if she was jumped up on too many shots of caffeine, she rapidly gave orders–we were to practice with the person sitting next to us at our tables–an order that warranted a groan from my classmate.
I chuckled. Oh, that hurt.

So we practiced. Me llamo...Leon. ¿Como te llamas? Me llamo...so and so. The girl was quiet now, but willing to work with me to a certain degree. During the practice, I don’t think she once said her name.

“You know,” I pried, “if we’re going to work on introducing ourselves, perhaps we actually should...you know...become introduced?”
“Why?” she returned quickly. “I could remember this in my sleep.”
We didn’t notice we were the loudest talkers until Stern pointed us out.
“You two–you seem to be the loudest–how about you two stand up and show the whole class how to do it?”

The girl stared at her, her mouth gaping wide open, like someone had just asked her to commit harki-kiri. “Are you kidding?”

Stern shook her head. “Not at all. Stand up and demonstrate for the class.”

I was immediately out of my seat. Let’s torture her a bit longer, I thought to myself, smirking. As I did so, she glare at me again, forcing me to stop smiling.

We both cleared our throats in unison, and I stuck out my hand.

“Okay. Hola! Me llamo Manuel-Leon Martinic. ¿Como te llamas?”
Reluctantly, she placed her hand in mine. She spoke equally as carefully–
“Me llamo...” she sighed. “Me llamo Payton Cross.”
We exchanged a handshake and a “Mucho gusto,” and took our seats as others demonstrated for Stern.


AUTHOR'S NOTE--this is a work in progress--more will be added as I go. This chapter kinda sucked, and I'm getting ready to ship off to college next weekend, so the next chapter might be slow in coming.