I could not sleep that night. And not for the right reasons either.

This was a first. So I lay there contemplating my faith, trying to figure out whatever the gods had in store for me.

I was never one to surrender to divine power. I even somewhat doubted the existence of any divine presence at this point in my life. But this particular night, I felt compelled to pay my respects to the deities, and wonder, just in case.

My mother had always told me tales about faith, true love, the gods equilibrium. She brought them with such fervour and joy, like they were not only more than mere fantasy, but suggesting they gave actual meaning to our lives. That our squalor was inconsequential or maybe even worthwhile in the light of love’s true calling. 

And when I was little, I had believed her without question. Bought into the fated romance that was supposed to fulfil one’s adult life. A predestined love that overcomes all and is worth truly everything.

Around the age of eleven or twelve, I started to doubt my mother’s convictions. I realised that, whatever she told me, my father was not actually coming back. That if he truly had returned her love in this intensity, he’d leastwise have sent word by now. That if he wanted me as his son, he would have reached out to us.

My mother had sent letter after letter. And I can’t remember a time in my childhood where I wasn’t making crayon drawings to send to the palace. But when that realization hit, I stopped drawing. I stopped writing. Because I understood that whatever we sent, we would never get anything back.

My father did not care.

Not about me, not about my mother, and certainly not about her ideas on romance. He didn’t care that she never looked at anyone else. He didn’t care she denied offer after offer to become a rich man’s mistress, waiting for him in poverty instead.

He probably hadn’t even read the letters we sent him. He’d chuck them in the fireplace unopened with all of his other fan mail. All while he lavished himself in riches in the palace, surrounded by beautiful young women just like my mother, who he cared for just as little. He’d probably send them off to live in a threepenny sharehouse somewhere as soon as they grew great with child.

And my mother had been just like those silly girls. Naïvely tricked by a handsome face and a velvet voice, too stubborn and foolish to realise her mistake years hence.

I told her that one day. It was a gruesome fight. And I not a day goes by where I don't wish I could take back the words I said to her. But I can’t. Ever. Because that was the day she died.

Fighting with her on the last day of her existence was the thing I always regretted most in my life. Yet today, I regretted even more.

For I finally understood the feeling whence it all came. The feeling that you know someone, even though you’ve never met. The feeling that they belong to you, even though you’ve done nothing to deserve them. The feeling that you belong to them, even though they never asked you for anything. The feeling that, without their presence, the air you breathe is sour and poisonous. The intensity of the craving to hold them in your arms…. Nothing compares.

My mother had been right all along. She couldn’t not be. For this fated love she spoke of, I knew it now. And I had never been so certain about anything. Which meant my father WAS coming back for us. He just hadn’t in time. It was tragic. No more, no less. There were probably reasons for his disappearance from our lives, as well as his failure to return to us in over fifteen years.

I still couldn’t think of any affair that would give one’s heart sufficient strength to ignore a feeling as transcendent as the one that set my soul alight. Yet, I believed. How could I not?

I regretted how I had taken her for granted. How I had thought her naïve or misguided, swindled even. But I was enlightened now. I knew true love existed, and I would fight for it. For her memory and my own happiness. Forever if need be.

“I need to find him.” I told Edmund the next morning, pressing my hands to his shoulders as I looked him straight into his eyes, to convey the importance of my statement.

“Viv, please…” he sighed, clearly not impressed. “He’s either gonna be there tonight, or he’s not. That whole thing is up to him, or the gods, whatever you want to believe. And if he doesn’t show then boo-dee-hoo, he’s just not that into you. But if he does, you can try and do your thing. Whatever that is. I know what he looks like, so if he tries to flee during your encore again, I’ll get a hold of him. Alright? That’ll be my task for the night. Will you let it go now?”

“I can’t ever let it go. He is my soulmate.” I stated, flicking my raven hair over my shoulder dramatically to reinforce my point. Edmund, who definitely didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, responded by groaning like his head hurt. Which I’m sure it didn’t. He just likes to overdramatize me.

“Yeah yeah, I get it.” Edmund patronised me. “But soulmate or not, tonight is all about repeat performance. You were absolutely ablaze yesterday, and I need you in exactly that same shape today. So, whatever you do, focus on setting the house on fire. If you see the dude, clue me in and I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you suggesting you’ll kidnap him for me?”

“Fuck no. I’ll just make him stick with freebies and empty promises. You know me.”

I sighed in agony, for this was no mere fling. This elusive stranger would be the love of my life. My soul had already attached itself to his in the few heated glances we exchanged. He had to return, there was no other option. And when he did, Edmund must not mock the fates trying to amuse him by throwing in some lame remarks about my virility.

Oh by the gods, my reputation of promiscuity is going to bite me in the ass isn’t it?

What if he aspired to marry a virgin?

No, that wouldn’t be a fair assumption. You cannot court a handsome 25-year-old musician and expect him to be a virgin. Um, 27-year-old musician. Um…

Drat, I’m going to have to reveal my actual age, won’t I?

Oh, woe is me! He’ll think I’m old!

A lecherous old man who beds anyone with a pretty face. Who wouldn’t be abhorred by that?

Well, many aren’t. Since there are still a multitude of people vying for my attention on a daily basis. But he is different. How he regards me matters. And more than anything I dread his disappointment.

I shouldn’t though. As certain I am of my affections, nothing about my lover’s past would sway me to reconsider. As if I even had a notion to consider in the first place, since mere thought had none of it. As I was struck by my fate, so must he. Therefore, he would accept me. Therefore, he would come back tonight.

If not, I would roam the plains searching for my lost love for eternity.

I shivered, for I knew that there was no way I could accept Ed’s crude theory. If he does not show, then something must have happened.

There, now I had something else to be anxious about.