"Okay," I say, reaching for the hem of my turtleneck. "But you have to promise not to scream."
"I make no such promises."
Despite everything, I laugh. Then I pull the fabric down, tilting my head to expose the intricate design that now decorates my skin.
Jeni's gasp is audible even over the café's ambient noise.
"Keira." Her voice is barely a whisper. "That's... oh my god. Is that—are those?—"
"Five flowers," I confirm, watching her eyes trace the branch from behind my ear down to my collarbone. "Five soulmates."
"Five." She repeats the word like she's testing its weight on her tongue. "I've never... I mean, I've heard of it, but I've never actually met anyone with more than three. This is incredible. This is—" She breaks off, finally seeming to register my expression. "Why do you look like someone just told you your dog died?"
I pull my sweater back up, hiding the mark from view. My coffee arrives, the barista placing it on the table with a smile I barely acknowledge—and I wrap my hands around the warm cup, letting the heat seep into my suddenly cold fingers.
"I need to tell you something," I say quietly. "About my mother. About why this... why five soulmates isn't the blessing everyone thinks it is."
Jeni's playful energy fades entirely, replaced by the serious, attentive friend who's held me through late-night breakdowns and career crises and every other disaster life has thrown my way. She reaches across the table to cover my hand with hers.
"I'm listening."
So I tell her.
Everything. The words come slowly at first, rusty from years of silence. I tell her about my mother's original soulmate, a man whose name I never learned, whose face I never saw, who exists in my memory only as a ghost that haunted my childhood. I tell her about my father, about the love that bloomed between him and my mother despite the bond that tied her to someone else.
I tell her about the choice my mother made.
"She broke the bond," I say, and even now, even after all these years, the words feel heavy in my mouth. "She loved my father more than she loved the man fate chose for her, and she decided to sever the connection."
Jeni's grip on my hand tightens. "That's possible? I thought... I mean, I've heard rumors, but I always thought it was just a myth."
"It's possible." I stare at the steam rising from my coffee, watching it dissipate into nothing. "It's just... it's not survivable. Not really. Breaking a soulmate bond is like tearing a piece of your own soul away. Most people die in the attempt. My mother was one of the 'lucky' ones who survived."
"Lucky," Jeni repeats, and I can hear the quotation marks in her voice.
"She survived the breaking," I continue. "Spent months recovering, her body fighting against the trauma. The doctors called it a miracle. But the wound never healed. Not really."
I pause, gathering the courage to say the next part. The part I've never spoken aloud to anyone except my mother herself, in those final days when her hand was cold in mine and her eyes were already seeing something beyond this world. "I was twelve when she died. Twelve years of watching her fade, year after year, until there was nothing left. The broken bond... it didn't kill her right away. It killed her slowly. Drained her bit by bit until she was just a shadow of who she used to be."
"Keira." Jeni's eyes are bright with unshed tears. "I had no idea. You never—why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want to think about it." I pull my hand back, wrap both around my coffee cup like a shield. "Because as long as I didn't talk about it, I could pretend it didn't affect me. Pretend I wasn't terrified that the same thing would happen to me someday."
"But you have five soulmates," Jeni says slowly, working through the logic. "That's not the same as breaking a bond. That's?—"
"It's five potential chains," I cut in, and the words come out sharper than I intended. "Five people who could consume me, drown me, pull me under until I can't tell where I end and they begin. That's what my mother said bonds felt like. That's what she was trying to escape when she broke hers."
"But she broke it because she didn't want her soulmate," Jeni argues. "That's different from completing a bond with someone you actually?—"
"Is it?" I meet her eyes, and I know she can see the fear in mine. "What if completing the bonds is just as consuming? What if I lose myself to five people instead of one? What if the only difference is the speed of the drowning?"
Jeni is quiet for a long moment, her expression thoughtful. The café bustles around us, oblivious to the weight of the conversation happening in the corner. A couple laughs ata nearby table. The espresso machine hisses. Life goes on, unconcerned with the existential crisis unfolding in the worn velvet armchairs.
"Okay," she says finally. "I hear you. I understand why you're scared. But Keira—your mother broke her bond because she didn't want it. Because she loved someone else more. That's not the same situation you're in."
"How do you know? I haven't even met them yet." I sighed, trying not to even think about it.
"Exactly." Jeni leans forward, her voice gentle but insistent. "You haven't met them. You don't know who they are or what it would feel like to actually bond with them. You're making decisions based on your mother's experience with a bond she was trying to escape, not a bond she was trying to complete."
