Soulmates

Synopsis

Shay has found her soulmates in the Tripathi twins, Aarav and Ryan. They are the three amigos, joined to the hips from the day they met as toddlers. A life without them is life without not just one but two parts of your soul. 

Shay is in love with one of the Tripathi twins, Aarav. He is her first true love. She is sure of that. Things are as dreamy and beautiful as they can be, full of lovely moments, young and promising. 

Ryan doesn’t know when the two of the closest parts of his life started building their world. He feels distant from both his twin brother and Shay. Still, he is trying to get used to the idea that when people grow, they grow apart.

Then one fateful night, everything changes. Aarav dies in a tragic car wreck leaving behind two broken souls on its trail to suffering a lifetime of pain. 

After Aarav’s death, Shay is broken and distraught, trying hard to adjust to the loss. She struggles to bury the past and move ahead. Only that moving ahead with Ryan constantly reminding her of her dead lover doesn’t help. They eventually fall apart in the wake of their dead soulmate and move on with life.

Seven years later, they meet again in New York City, and both realize that neither of them has gotten over Aarav’s death and seem to be harboring a deep pain, something akin to guilt. Ryan knows Shay is far from moving on, just like he is still struggling to survive as a twinless twin. He knows he shouldn’t seek her out, not when she is too unapproachable and forbidden even, but he can’t help himself. Togetherness doesn’t come easy for either of them. They are two broken souls who are still trying to live without their soulmates. Love doesn’t come easily for either of them, especially for Ryan. As they finally realize that maybe to get through their shared loss, the only way is to heal together, to save and be saved. 

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01 | The Beginning

Shay wasn't always this scarred from the inside out. She wasn't always this lonely either. Five years back, Shay had Aarav and Ryan, the identical twins. And her best friends. Until one day she fell in love with one of them.

Everything made sense back then, including Shay's admiration towards the Tripathi twins. Both the twins and Shay shared the same neighborhood. With their parents being friends, they were born in the same hospital. They were the three amigos, soulmates in the true sense, tied to hips from the day they started their playschool. The boys shared similar looks having close-cropped raven hair and midnight black irises. They had the same smiles with notorious habits.

Everyone confused them for one another most of the time except Shay. Shay would identify them uniquely, any hour of the day. Call it the growing up together thing - Shay would know who they were with a mere look in their eyes. How couldn't she? After all, she had always found depths in Aarav's eye, which she didn't bother to look into Ryan's.

Aarav was her one true love. He was her first crush, her first love, and every first from then on.

She wasn't falling in the depth of Aarav's eyes when they were kids. The three of them played in the same park as children. They learned to ride bikes together and studied together in her house or sometimes their house. They built sandcastles at the beach and busted firecrackers in the class during lunchtime. Well, it was always Aarav's idea, but Shay and Ryan loved it anyway.

Back then, she had never assumed she would ever fall for one but not the other when both of them looked alike. Only they were not the same when it came to their feelings.

Aarav was the sensitive one and often had issues with his father. When it came to their grades, Aarav and Shay always struggled to secure a decent number while Ryan topped the class. And he was the one who never had a single clue about his future, any plans after school, and any dream college in mind. He believed in carpe diem, and maybe that's why Shay admired him back then. A free soul to fall for.

After their mother's death, Aarav was the broken one. He was devastated, always on edge and falling off the hook most of the time. He needed Shay more than Ryan. That's how it started. He needed Shay, and she was there. They were best friends, after all. But then everyone, including Ryan, started fading around them. They were it when they were together.

When Shay looked at the mirror after school, all she could see was a seventeen-year-old girl who now used cherry lip tint whenever she went hanging out with the twins, made sure her skin remained blemish-free, and her hair was always in place. She wanted to look beautiful for the guy who would always hold her hand when they crossed streets or who would always sit beside her on the school bus. She wanted to be perfect for Aarav. Almost perfect. Shay had her flaws, from a skinny frame to super cranky mood swings, and no one could ignore her obsession with K dramas.

Shay wasn't aware of these subtle changes in their friendship until their twelfth grade. They were still friends, like Shay and Ryan. Always there for each other but just as friends. Shay didn't associate with any other guy in the school, and being the daughter of the town's attorney wasn't favorable in case of guys asking her out headfirst.

It wasn't until the last few months of the school when Ivan Acharya approached her in the library. At first, he wanted to make sure she wasn't dating Ryan, which was weird because if anyone, she would be with Aarav. When Ivan convinced Shay wasn't dating either of the Tripathi twins, he asked her out.

Now Ivan wasn't all that bad an option when it came to the possible competition to the twins. Ivan had brownish hair compared to the raven-haired twins and built on lean muscles with a smile that reached his eyes. But then Ivan didn't have the charming personality both the Tripathi twins had from childhood. He wasn't all that smart and funny either.

She wasn't going to slip away her only chance to have a high school affair for the two brothers who were way too perfect to set your comparison bar. And then he was the second most desirable dating prospect after the twins.

A couple of eyes followed them when they walked out of the library together, hand in hand. Shay had only ever held hands with Aarav and Ryan, so it did feel a little off at first, but the jealous eyeballs were so worth it.

That evening she picked up her best dress out of the dresser, a navy blue, form-fitting dress, and matching boots. Her makeup was light, but it highlighted her natural beauty and made her dark brown eyes look mesmerizing. She did turn into a decent-looking human after a few strokes of rich cosmetics.

There she waited on the front porch of her house for half an hour, then another, bouncing on her heels and feeling a silent rage bubbling inside her. If Ivan were to stand her up today, she would paint ugly scratches on his new Chevrolet. She had made her mind to that. But deep down, Shay started feeling dreadful about the whole situation. She had sent a single text an hour ago to Ivan and never received a response. That might have been a good reason to stop waiting.

Just when she cursed the guy internally, a white Chevrolet pulled over her driveway, and not a minute after, a black-eyed Ivan stepped out of the car. He looked in the direction of Tripathi Villa once before finally letting his gaze land on her red, angry face.

"Ivan-"

"Sorry, Shay," he cut her off almost impatiently while wincing. She noticed a deep cut across his lower lip. "I can't go out with you, now, ever."

"You certainly don't have time to go on a date when you're so busy getting into some angsty teenage fight." Shay gritted her teeth, huffing out a haughty laugh. "At least have some balls to say that before making a girl wait for your sorry ass."

He shook his head, almost like he was trying hard not to explode in front of her. She could see the hesitance in his stride as he took a step closer then stepped back again.

"Shay, listen," he ran his bloodied knuckles through his messy hair and released a groan. "Just know that I didn't want to embarrass you, but you should have told me about the Tripathi situation."

Ivan's words almost hit her like a truck. "What Tripathi situation are you talking about?"

"Why don't you ask your best friends about it?" He scoffed, tucking his hands inside his pocket and walking back to his car.

Shay snapped her head towards the house across the street and then to Ivan's retreating figure. "Ivan, wait!"

He didn't.

The moment Ivan's car pulled out of her driveway, she pulled her hair and released a shaky breath. Maybe, she needed to have a little chat with the twins about this Tripathi situation.