Out by the front of the house, Dig spoke to her husband, her Soulmate.
His mother’s Soulmate wouldn’t allow Dig Graves inside of the house, because even though it was his mother’s home, it was not Dig Graves’s home.
Dig Graves asked as if he could speak to her.
His mother’s Soulmate said, “No. She can’t speak to you. You look a lot like him.”
“Who?”
“Him. You’ve got the same eyes.”
Dig Graves touched his eyes, the same ones his father had.
“Please.” His mother’s Soulmate had stepped away. “Don’t ever come near her again.”
He looked to his mother, to where she was in her pretty home, through her pretty window, waiting for just one smile.
She remained inside, upon the couch, cradling her two children who did not have the eyes of the Soulless man who had raped her, but the eyes of her Soulmate whom she had married.
Dig Graves was twenty years old when he realised he was Soulless.
Two years had sailed by and not once did his heart thump and pound against the cage of his chest, eager and thirsty to find its matching Soulmate.
His person.
Hislove.
He listened to the silence in his chest just like the silence that came after his father was killed and the silence that came after his mother had turned her back.
Silence.
Silence.
There was nothing but silence in his chest.
He tried shocking himself by grabbing the line on an electric fence. He considered using a knife in a toaster, digging his finger into a wall socket. Anything. Something. He just wanted his heart to leap. He just wanted to find them.
Is that not what they had all been promised?
Undiluted and unconditional love.
Where was it? Where were they?
He found his half-sister.
“Glorious Pain,” he spoke her name.
She turned around on the sidewalk, clutching her takeaway coffee and re-fixed her sunglasses so that her eyes could not be seen. Panic coasted across her face. “I go by ‘Glory.’”
“I’m Dig.” He touched his chest. “He named me Dig Graves.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, savouring their family tie until she cut it with a knife. “Don’t ever come near me again.”
She left too.
When he found his half-brother, his half-brother had laughed like a wild animal behind the security glass.
Older than him, the two of them were near identical.
