The Last Meeting

They'd taken me away from everyone else, all of us who'd been corralled up like fugitives for no explicable reason. Questions went unanswered. We were taken to some.. facility, fed, clothed, housed, as though we were students in a dorm. Sometimes one or two would be taken away, but we never knew what became of them. They didn't come back. On this day, it was my turn.

I was led away from the living areas, to a more office-type setting. I was left at a door and told that when it opened, I was to enter. No other details were given. No explanation. No questions asked or allowed. Taking a deep breath, I shook my shoulders, and trying to settle my nerves, and waited for the door to open. Nerves like those before a job interview were turning my stomach over and over, my heart was racing. Anticipation, and anxious sensations, were racing through my synapses, coursing through my veins. Balling my fists and then extending my fingers, trying to relax wasn't working as well as I'd hoped it would. Deep breaths helped a little until the door opened.

Walking into the room, it wasn't anything that looked threatening. A living room in an upper-middle-class house filled the room. A couch and loveseat that looked comfortable enough to sink into and stay the rest of the day, warm lighting, wood accents, a pleasant place. I took in the decor of the room, no magazines, no clocks, nothing that indicated the outside world that I'd been absent from at all. The sound of a door opening broke the quiet in the room, and he walked in, looking around, much as I had done. I felt the air leave the room.

It'd been years since we'd parted in our youth. My heart beat fast, as it always did when near him. We'd both aged, but it was the same man I'd loved at 25. The person who had been the bane of my existence and yet I couldn't breathe without him near. My soulmate. The one who understood me better than anyone, without having to say anything. It'd always been that way with us. Incandescent heights, hellish lows, back and forth. Ultimately, it was the reason we'd walked away from each other, spending the next 20 odd years apart. And here he was, reaching for me, one of his arms sliding around my waist, the other hand touching my cheek, then sliding through my hair. My eyes closed as his forehead met mine, and we stood in a long reverent moment, simply breathing the same air, letting the sensations that had always connected us equalize between us as we stood holding onto each other, my arms having slid around his waist. Whole, that feeling of being complete, undivided that neither of us had felt in years slid through my being, relaxing me in ways that had been tense for so long I no longer recognized the tension, it was simply something we both carried, the price of not walking the world together.

A card flitted to the table in front of the couch, and we turned to look at it. "You are a soul-matched pair, written in the stars and fated to walk your lives together. You did not. This is the last time you will see each other in this life. This space is given for the air to be cleared between you, unsaid words spoken. All you have is this time and space. Now."

He pulled me close to him, pressing my cheek into his chest, holding me tightly to him. I squeezed him to me, inhaling deeply, as though I could fill my lungs with his scent, and never need to exhale. Releasing me enough to sit in the corner of the couch, as he had when we'd been together in our youth, he opened his arms to me. Toeing my shoes off, as was my habit when getting on the couch, I sat next to him, resting my head on his chest, relaxing as he wrapped those arms around me, as though we did it every day. We talked, the words spilling out of us like rain, soaking into each other's being. Tears fell, for the times that had happened that we'd needed the other, to be understood, on the soul level, things that had been heavy on us that we'd needed the others' strength to get us through. Tears and laughter for the times we'd spent together. The love we shared that had never died, flared to light whenever near each other.

The years poured out of us, the words, the touches we'd missed, trying to memorize the other before the time was up and we'd once again be bereft of that other half of ourselves. Could we survive it? The pain of being apart had been acute, to the point of the physical manifestation, not to mention the mental strain of loss so deep that one can only ignore it after a time. I let myself soak into him, and let him in as none had ever known me before. And for that time, that precious space.. all was right in the universe, and nothing could be wrong, ever again. I held everything my soul had ever needed and wanted, and as I took a deep breath, I smiled, and exhaled.