The first time I saw my soulmate

SOULMATE"

The first time I saw my soulmate, I was five years old, and she was laughing on a swing set.

The second time, I was sixteen, and she winked at me from the back of a motorcycle as it sped away.

The third time, I was twenty-three, and she handed me a coffee with my name misspelled on the cup.

I knew it was her every time—same crooked smile, same constellation of freckles across her nose—but she never recognized me.

Because she wasn’t my soulmate.

I was hers.

And in her timeline, we hadn’t met yet.

The Rules of Us

I remember every lifetime. She doesn’t.

I always find her first. She always leaves last.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t change the ending.

This time, I vowed it would be different.

Coffee Shop Encounter (Again)

She worked at Beans & Dreams, a hipster café with terrible acoustics and excellent scones. Today’s name tag read "Lena"—different from last life’s "Claire" and the one before that, "Mira."

Her fingers brushed mine as she handed me the latte.

"You’re staring," she said.

"You’re beautiful," I replied—same words, every lifetime.

She rolled her eyes. "Original."

But she wrote her number on my cup anyway.

The Inevitable

We fell in love.

Of course we did.

We always do.

She painted murals on condemned buildings. I read her poetry under streetlights. She hated my taste in music but stole my hoodies anyway.

Then, one rainy Tuesday, she asked:

"Have we met before?"

My heart stopped. This never happens.

She traced the scar on my wrist—the one from when I’d saved her from a falling beam in Life #12. "I dream about you," she whispered. "But you’re always… leaving."

The Choice

The universe gave me two options:

Walk away now. Let her live. (She dies in a car crash next month if I stay.)

Stay. Love her. Lose her. Repeat the cycle.

I kissed her hard, memorizing the feel of her lips.

"This time," I said against her mouth, "you leave first."

Then I vanished.

Epilogue: Another Lifetime

The first time she saw her soulmate, she was five years old, and he was crying on a swing set.

She didn’t know why, but she hugged him anyway.