Chapter Text
The first time Chiara experiences a glimpse, she doesn’t recognize it for what it is.
One moment, she’s 7 and perched on the edge of a lake like a dragonfly in the shade of a tree. The cork oak rustled high overhead in the early September breeze and in the distance, her sister’s voice carried with it.
“Mama~, mama! I picked this for you!” the younger girl exclaimed, dirty hands outsretched with a bunch of poorly-picked baby’s breaths. The older woman let out a pleased laugh, playfully kissing the younger girl’s forehead. Chiara’s mumbles something under her breath, eyebrows furled in conflicted emotion as she continued to play by herself.
“Thank you Felicia, do you want to go play on the playground together?” the older woman asked, motioning in the distance. The younger girl perked up, wide toothy grin painted across her face. She jumped up and down in glee before taking off.
Relaxing slightly, Chiara unfurled herself as she skipped more stones across the lake, watching as the ripples crested and stilled.
Mama has always doted on Felicia more than herself. Her sister held her likeness, light brown hair, pale skin, and bright chesnut eyes.
The elder sister splashed her bare feet in the water, frowning back at the yellow eyes that reflected back at her.
Perhaps if she was less bratty and more like Felicia, then Mama would dote on her the same. Maybe if she didn’t say bad words, Mama wouldn’t yell at her so much. Maybe if she had given birth to her instead...
Her pebble skimmed across the water once, twice, before sinking. She leaned forward, ready to toss another.
And then the world stopped.
The lake froze mid-ripple. The oak leaves above her hung suspended, their edges quivering on the edge of a breeze that no longer blew. Even the honeybee hovering near her knee hung motionless, wings blurred mid-beat, pollen suspended in the air like flecks of gold dust.
A strange pressure filled her ears, muffling the world. The air grew heavy, wrapping around her like a warm blanket. Her skin prickled, goosebumps rushing up her arms though the sun still glared hot overhead.
Chiara gasped, stomach swooping as though she’d stepped off a ledge. Her fingers trembled around the pebble in her palm.
Then the colors bled. The lake spilled into the sky, blues twisting with ivory streaks. The oak melted into green, teal washing over the branches like paint dragged too far by a brush. Shapes blurred, edges smudged, as though the whole world was watercolor dissolving in the rain.
It reminded her of finger-painting with Papa, of mixing too many colors until they became something new, strange, and yet beautiful.
She doesn’t remember closing her eyes. The next time they opened; however, she found herself somewhere else completely.
Still alone.
Disorientated.
And standing in a valley of late summer wheat.
“...What?” the young girl breathed, gathering her bearings with shock taut on her lips.
Golden stalks swelled and receded like the frothy waves of a hillside ocean. Chiara stuck her hand out as a warm breeze rushed between her fingers like running water. Her auburn dress swayed under its current, carrying the scent of hay and wildflowers. A lady bug flitted lazily around the young girl, landing with a plop on a nearby stalk.
“¡-armen, ven aquí!” a girl’s voice rung out suddenly, high and silky like a bell.
Another voice responded before giggles could be heard in the distance.
Confused hazel eyes searched the wheat field for the voices. To the right, acres of wheat swayed in the afternoon wind. However, to the left, towards the late day sun, two girls played in the sunbeams amongst the grasses.
A golden blonde and a brunette.
A warm breeze kissed up the back of her neck and Chiara pressed her arms into her sides, bunching the hem of her dress into her fists.
One moment, she’s alone at the water’s rim, skipping stones by herself. The next moment, she’s unsure of where she was, lost in a valley of wheat with two strangers.
“Hi…?” Chiara starts, hesitantly moving towards the duo. Her feet catch on a few rocks peeking from the sun-baked dirt and she stumbles, landing on her palms into the dirt.
The sound of her fall must have been far too silent to disturb the young girls. Chiara, picked herself up, shock and annoyance marring her dirt-smeared face.
Even at this distance, she couldn’t make out too much of the both of their faces. It was clear that their features had been smeared in shades of beige and honey brown, as if purposely by an artist’s thumb.
Chiara moved closer. Within a few feet of the girls, she calls out again.
They still don’t notice her.
The young Italian watches as the pink tulle dresses they wore fluttered about as they played, makeshift butterfly wings flapping behind them. The dresses reminded her of a storybook her Papa had read to her about fairies in a forest.
Both girls were very pretty, like the forest fairies in that story book. However, the brunette stood out vividly to the Chiara.
Warm ringlets of honey brown framed a round blurred face. Through the streaks and smatterings of blurred skin tones, Chiara could make out the lightest shades of emerald where her eyes should be.
Chiara feels heat rise to her cheeks, confused at the butterflies in her tummy. Gripping her dress, she stood awkwardly before them, watching as they played about in the sunlight.
“H-hey!” she starts.
Suddenly, this reality melts from her very eyes. She finds herself seated back in at the lake’s edge, pebble in hand, and clearly zoned out. “Chi-a-ra!”
The girl jumps, just as Mama stalks up to her. “Did you not hear me? I said that it’s time to go.”
Chiara jumps up and follows distractedly, fidgeting quietly with the pebble in her hand. If her mother notices anything different, she doesn’t care.
◇
The following months proceed as if nothing happened. The sisters begin school. Felicia starts primary school and Chiara goes into her 3rd year at the same school. Felicia excels where Chiara fails— making friends, wooing teachers, and getting good grades. Chiara finds herself lucky if she can make more than a single friend in a given year.
Despite all of this, Chiara cannot forget about that day. Cannot forget about the warm sun on those grasses. The way the breeze carried on the wind. Those giggly fairies of the wheat field.
It was a rainy winter day that she sat sleepily during the train ride home from ballet with Nonno, absentmindedly fidgeting with a button on her sweater. Her feet kicked underneath her as a forecast overhead announces the weather; currently overcast in her town but rainshowers for the rest of the region. She is dozing off, watching the clouds roll in the distance.
She instinctively yawned, eyes half-mast, pawing at her temple with the heel of her hand. And then — the world shifted.
The drone of the train stalled mid-syllable. The steady hum beneath her legs disappeared. Nonno beside her dissolved into stillness, his humming cut clean in half.
The air grew heavy. Her ears popped, pressure filling them as if she’d been dropped underwater. The edges of the carriage blurred. Silver and charcoal melted into each other, the windowpane dripping into sky, the sky dripping into the seatback. Her skin prickled, a shiver running down her spine. Chiara blinked—except she couldn’t remember closing her eyes.
And when they opened again, she was no longer on the train. She was barefoot in wet sand, waves clawing at the shore in the teeth of a storm.
Thick fog pressed against the horizon. Rain peppered her sweater and clung heavy to her lashes. A little boy sat only a few feet away, dressed head-to-toe in black, soaked through, with feet buried in the sand. His unruly auburn hair whipped in the storm, blurred like paint smeared by water, yet so vivid she could almost reach for it.
Chiara’s stomach swooped. Her skin buzzed as if the glimpse itself had followed her here, the air too sharp, too alive. He clutched some kind of delicate fabric in his grip; it trailed around his little body, half buried in the wet sand.
Around him, the atmosphere weighed thick with something she didn’t have a word for. She may not have known grief, but she knew the shape of it — the sourness of it lodged sharp in her chest.
Unsure of what do to nor how to help, she stays with the boy for awhile.
Taking seat beside him on the sand and tucking in to her sweater more, she shivers in the freezing rain.
He was blurry as well.
She could barely make out the way droplets traveled down his cheeks, gathering dew at the crest of his jaw.
“Hey…” she begins to ask, worried fingers outstretched to meet his arm. It phases through his body and the sensation of sharp white noise numbs her already cold fingers. She jolts her fingers back.
Papa had told of her something like this before.
At her age, he too had visions of another person. They were called glimpses; Peeks into the life of the lover you will spend your life with. You can never make out the features of their faces, nor will you catch their names in these visions. But you can use the information you discover from these glimpses to find them.
For most people, they had one soulmate.
And sometimes, for really special people, they had 2.
…Papa never got to spend his life with his soulmate.
She passed away shortly after she had given birth to Chiara.
Chiara never knew her real Mama, but she thinks back to the brown-haired fairy girl amongst the ocean of wheat. She thinks upon the boy in black to her left, one whose tears were currently mixing with rainwater and seaspray.
She doesn’t know what her Papa means by love.
But she likes the girl’s smile, and she likes the shape of the boy’s nose.
...
Tracing shapes in the wet sand, she tucked her legs into her sweatshirt.
He hasn’t moved. She followed the fabric pooling around him, a few yards of storm-battered Venetian lace. Sand peppered the finer details, but it was clear that it was old, a beloved memento that meant a lot to the young boy.
“—vino!” a husky voice calls out, low and hoarse, almost swallowed by the storm.
Chiara spun her head to towards the direction of the voice, unsure of what it yelled out.
Nothing but fog.
Turning back to the boy, she caught the first visible movement he’s made, a shudder.
And then, the world collapsed. The storm bled into static and she was back in her seat on the train.
The grey clouds still wandered by.
The speaker still droned on.
And her grandfather still hummed, thumbing through his newspaper.
Chiara stared down at her numb fingers, chest tight.
She blinked, unsure if she had dreamed the whole thing.
But the salt still lingered at the back of her throat.
◇
It was at the beginning of lower secondary school that Chiara promised herself she would score in the top five percent of her class.
With grades that high, she could apply for a boarding school in Rome. Admission there meant freedom — from Mama, her endless rules, and her even stupider expectations.
Which was why, for the first time in her life, Chiara was actually studying. A stack of pre-owned textbooks towered to her right. Her mp3 player hummed faintly in her ears, a reward from Papa for starting the year with effort.
She groaned. Studying spanish was always a pain.
But a requirement for admission.
Cracking her knuckles, fingers reached to flip to the next page. She doesn’t quite feel the smooth paper as she expected.
Rather, her hand met warm air. The buzz of her music stalled mid-note. The pressure of the world pressed down on her ears, muffled and heavy, until the room blurred into watercolor streaks of silver and ivory.
She blinked.
When her eyes opened, she was sitting on her ass on sun-warm cobblestones. It’s rays beating down from a sky so bright it hurt.
She blinks, confused at the situation, and stares at the boy who towers before her. A worn Madrid FC jersey clung to his shoulders, and paper bags strained in his arms. She couldn’t see his face — smeared, blurred as always — but she could see the definition of his growing arms, the quick, easy way he smiled as he thanked the vendor.
Chiara’s cheeks heated. She scowled at herself. Stupid. It’s just a boy. A blurry one at that.
Still, she found herself watching. The way he stacked peppers on top of tomatoes, completely oblivious that gravity existed. The way his voice carried, warm and bright, when he laughed.
He was in front of a vegetable stall, haggling for green peppers. Chiara could recognize the Spanish being spoke but was unsure of the dialect he used.
With a rosy-cheeked ‘tsk’, she turned away from him, choosing to take in her surroundings with an increduously look. A market sprawled around her in a riot of color: fresh peppers and herbs, sausages hanging from hooks, the rich sweetness of churros curling in the air. Bougainvillea spilled purple from a balcony above.
Picking herself up, it was clear to the girl that the focus of her attention was supposed to be on the boy. She returned her attention to him, rolling her eyes to the ‘Gracias’ he called out, right as he turned.
Straight into her.
The sensation hit like static flooding her skin, a television’s dead channel crawling over every nerve. She full body shutters, cursing audibly as the sensation dulls her awareness of her body. It takes a few full breaths before the feeling subsides. By the time she looked up again, he was already weaving through the market.
Chiara scrambled after him, dodging between bodies and stalls. He was quick, darting down alleys and across crowded roads. The way he moved — fast, like his body was already used to pivoting, dodging, sprinting. She wondered with half-heartedly annoyance if he played soccer.
On a particularly quiet street, far from the crowds, Chiara marveled up at the lines of suspended fresh laundry drying overhead between the buildings. A cool breeze rustled the linen overhead, making the hair that framed her face tickle her nose. A soccer ball sat in a nearby planter. The boy man manuevers up the steps of a worn apartment and steps inside, greeted weakly by an older woman’s voice.
She almosts follows him inside. She took one step toward the stairs—
The cobblestones bled into paper. The air melted into the ink and margins of her textbook. She blinked, and the pen was back in her hand, drool dotting the corner of her notes.
Her heart hammered in her chest. She wiped the saliva from her mouth with a scowl.
…
She returned to her studies with a clenched jaw. She told herself she was going to focus, that she’d finish the chapter and push her way into the top five percent.
But her mind kept wandering. Back to the warmth of that sun, the noise of the market, the way the boy’s laugh had carried through the air.
She scowled at the thought, dragging her hand down her face. “Stupid,” she muttered under her breath, scribbling a line of notes with more force than necessary. “He’s probably the type to wink at girls and kick soccer balls at windows.”
Her chest gave an unhelpful flutter at the memory of his voice.
Chiara groaned, collapsing forward until her forehead pressed against the paper. “Ugh. Get out of my head.”
But no matter how many times she flipped back to her conjugations, the echo of his “¡Hola!” lingered, warm and insistent, like the sun that had followed her back from the vision.
◇
In upper secondary school, Chiara does not get long glimpses into her soulmates’ lives often. She is instead met with brief visions and sights.
The spanish boy is a busy body. He spends his time either at school, on the field, or working as either a tour guide or at the local convenience store.
It’s almost admirable how he could have so much time in the day to balance schoolwork, part-time jobs, AND play soccer.
Maniac.
The girl spends a lot of her time at school, participating in various clubs and within the student council. A student’s blazer replaced the airy chiffon costumes of her childhood. She’s cut her hair into a bob since her childhood. It typically was gathered back into a short blunt ponytail in the back. Chiara catches her sometimes doodling fairies in her notebooks during class.
The other boy reminds her of herself..
He spends a lot of time studying in his room, a quiet simple home he shared with his grandma nestled into the cliffside. He’s grown long and lanky and she catches him a few times in the back of a less-frequented library in the winters, contorted over a textbook with bleary-eyed determination.
It was during her first year at boarding school that Chiara met Francine, a chatty blonde from France with too much energy and too little filter.
At first, Chiara thought she was weird. The kind of weird that was cheeky, a little snobby, and insufferable for no reason. Not that Chiara was any better. Which was probably why, of course, they became fast friends.
In rare, quieter moments, Francine would talk about home—her parents, her schoolgirl crushes, and especially her cousin, a Spanish girl named Carmen. Every time the name slipped into conversation, Chiara’s stomach did a strange little twist. Her heart fluttered and she had no idea why.
Perhaps she’d been killed by a Carmen in a past life.
Or maybe she’d had an affair with one.
Either way, she ignored it.
Boarding school made her reckless in ways she hadn’t been before. Years of living under an overbearing mother cracked open all at once, and Chiara filled the gaps with trouble: A skateboard shoved under her bed. The body of another teenager sometimes in her sheets.
Curfews ignored, rules bent.
On the worst nights, when the voices in her head wouldn’t stop circling, she slipped wordlessly out into the dark. Just her hoodie, her board, and the grind of asphalt beneath her wheels. Nobody but Francine knew.
She had seen the other boy skate once during these years. Wobbly as a newborn faun on wheels, knees knocking as he pushed himself shakily down the street. The sight made something warm and inexplicable bloom in her chest.
She almost laughed. Almost called out. Instead, she kept her hands shoved in her pockets, skating past under the sodium-orange glow of the streetlamps.
◇
The holidays at the boarding school were quiet, halls emptied of most students. That winter of their junior year, Chiara and Francine stuck it out together, trading family obligations for freedom.
Francine’s room glowed with fairy lights, polaroids of their friends tacked across the walls. A shitty romance movie murmured in the background, its canned dialogue punctuated by the pop of candy and popcorn between their teeth. The two girls lounged cross-legged on the bed in their sweats, a half-finished bottle of cheap red wine between them.
Francine propped her chin on her hands, eyes glittering, alight with a story she just can’t wait to tell. “Okay, so—you know soulmates?”
Chiara groaned, defensive already. “I mean, yes…?” She sat up straighter, glass in hand. “Fran, I swear to God, if this is another one of your—”
“I met mine today!” Francine blurted, lilac eyes going wide with delight.
Chiara nearly choked.
Francine launched into it — the English girl in the laundry room, the sudden burst of roses, the world of color blooming. Chiara listened, cursing under her breath at how disgustingly romantic it all sounded.
“...A laundry room? Really?” she teased, smirking.
“Shut up!” Francine laughed, collapsing back dramatically into the pillows.
“It was perfect.”
They traded jabs until Francine, eyes sly, rolled back upright. “Alright, your turn. Tell me about yours.”
“Fuck no.”
“Chi~,” Francine whined, flopping onto Chiara’s lap this time. “I told you mine. Spill.”
Chiara leaned back, glass tipping against her lips. “No can do.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
Francine narrowed her eyes. “That’s not an answer.”
Chiara sighed, dramatic, rolling her eyes. “Girl, I don’t even know where to fucking begin with all of them.”
The words slipped out easy, loosened by wine and comfort.
Her stomach dropped the second they left her mouth. Chiara had always kept her glimpses and knowledge of her soulmates a secret. For a very important reason.
Most people had one soulmate.
Apparently, it was very uncommon to have two. These are the people of gossip and you’ll often find these types of people featured as the plot of movies, and on shitty reality television.
In terms of three soulmates, you really only hear about that in old legends and myths. It turns out, nobody, other than the princesses and fairytales she read in the story books as a child, had three.
Like her.
Francine froze. “Wait. Them?”
Chiara stiffened, grip tightening around her glass.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She hadn’t meant to—
Francine sat up, hair wild, face lit with the kind of greedy curiosity that wouldn’t be sated. “What do you mean them?”
Chiara tried to backpedal. “I didn’t say that.”
“Oh no, no, no,” Francine said, eyes wide. “You did. You absolutely did. Tell me.”
Chiara hugged her knees to her chest, muttering, “Fuck. Fuck.”
She wanted to resist. She really did. But it was Francine, her best friend, already practically vibrating with glee, and with the wine warming her veins, the fight bled out of her.
So she told her.
About the girl.
About the boy on the beach.
About the market and the laugh that stuck in her chest.
She told her everything.
When she was done, Francine just stared, eyes wide, mouth parted like she’d forgotten how to breathe.
Then: “Chi. Chiara. You have three soulmates.”
“I fucking know. Don’t tell a fucking soul,” Chiara warned, pointing her empty glass at her.
Francine threw her arms around her with a squeal. “This is insane! This is incredible! You’re living a legend!”
Chiara groaned, muffled against her shoulder. “Fran, I swear to God, I will bury you under this dorm if you tell anyone.”
Francine only giggled, already drowning in questions. “Who do you think you’ll meet first? What do you think their abilities are? Oh my God—”
“Bah!” Chiara cut her off, burying her face in her knees. “Shut up! I don’t fucking know.”
But for the first time, saying it aloud didn’t feel like a curse. It felt lighter. Like she wasn’t carrying it all alone anymore.
◇
Graduation passed in the blink of an eye.
By then, Francine was the only person in the world who knew the truth about Chiara’s three soulmates — and she guarded it like treasure. If anyone else brought up the subject, Francine would swoop in with a diversion, while Chiara sat tight-lipped and defensive, muttering curses into her wine. It was the unshakable rhythm of their friendship: Chiara carried the secret, and Francine carried her.
Now, in their second year of university, the two of them lived together in a small apartment just off campus. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was theirs.
Chiara woke early — too early. For the thousandth time, she cursed herself for signing up to be a TA for an 8 a.m. class. Hair mussed from sleep, she shoved her comforter aside and dragged herself up, the hem of her oversized T-shirt slipping around her thighs.
A hot yawn split her face, scattering the motes of dust that danced in the morning light. She scratched her side, grunting, and padded barefoot to the bathroom.
Warm yellow light meets the young woman as she toes out of her pajamas and into a warm shower. Water pooled at her feet as she woke up under the warm pattering.
The warm spray of the shower was supposed to wake her up, but instead it lulled her into zoning out. Hand hovering over the shampoo pump, the air pressed heavy in her ears. The white tiles blurred, edges smearing into ivory and beige.
She blinked—
And found herself standing in another bathroom.
A man faced the mirror, razor in hand. His features blurred into strokes of silt and sand, but the cut of his jaw was clear as day. The curve of his shoulders too, strong under the plain white undershirt he wore. The young boy by the sea had turned into a man before she blinked.
Chiara leaned against the counter beside him, arms folded, water dripping down her bare skin. She watched the easy way he moved, steady and practiced — until the blade slipped.
“Fuck, ouch!” he muttered, dabbing at the nick.
Chiara sighed, lips curling into a reluctant smile. “Dumbass,” she murmured.
And then she was back — shower pounding against her shoulders, steam curling thick around her. She shook her head— quickly finishing before getting dressed. Hair fell in waves down her back as she gathered it all and began to braid it back into a neat fishtail. She caps the end with a rubberband and begins to fixes her bangs for a quick moment. The reflection that frowned back at her was her own. All gold eyes and warm skin. A smattering of freckles sat lightly across the bridge of her button nose. Her gaze is unfocused, as she yawns once again. “Goddamn, I’m so cute..”
A mug clinked on the coffee table and Chiara peeked her head out to wish her roommate good morning.
The only reply was a mumble. She snorted.
“Damn, Fran. You were so excited to wake up early with me yesterday.”
…Silence.
Chiara padded into the living room to find her best friend curled cross-legged on the couch, sipping coffee with the mechanical precision of the barely alive. The glow of her phone screen painted her face as she scrolled lazily through social media.
Chiara grinned, dropping onto the couch beside her. “Getting your daily dose of brain rot, I see. Where’s the Francine who wanted to walk to class with me?”
“Not here,” Francine said flatly.
“Well I’ve got places to be, miss. If we’re late, I’ll never hear the end of it. TA life, remember?”
Francine groaned, throwing her head back, blonde hair tumbling like spun gold. She stared at the ceiling like it might offer mercy.
Chiara smirked. “Did you also forget you have a lunch date with Alice?”
Francine’s head snapped forward, eyes wide. In one swift movement she set her coffee aside and scrambled off the couch. “I’m getting dressed.”
“That’s my girl.” Chiara stretched her legs across the cushions, smug.
It’s 30 minutes later. Francine is halfway down the hallway before she pauses.“Oh — I’ve been meaning to ask. My cousin’s starting classes here next semester. She asked if she could move in with us.”
Chiara pursed her lips with a hum. “...Depends. Which cousin?”
“Carmen.”
The name hit Chiara like a stone dropped into her stomach. Or maybe like wings, fluttering until they knotted tight in her belly. Her pulse skipped, heat creeping up her neck. Maybe she really did get fucked by a Carmen in a past life or something.
She brushes off the feeling.
“As long as she pays rent and doesn’t make the place smell like paella, I don’t care.”