My soul is not something to be bound to another, my future is not something for some unknown force to dictate to me.

I've got plans. I've got ambitions. You don't get to pair me up and ship me out just because some stupid name shows up on my arm.

Yet here we are, despite my essays and protests, against my every instinct to run. Soulmate assignment class, April 2022. I stand in line alongside everyone else with birthdays in the past month, marching toward the end of myself and the beginning of being only half of someone else's whole.

Maybe I'll get someone pliable and dull, who won't mind being tucked away in a corner and forgotten while I pursue my own life. It's a pointless fantasy. People with similarly strong wills tend to be paired together, for whatever reason. Maybe fate has something against one partner completely dominating the other?

Whatever. I don't need anyone. This is all a stupid waste of time.

The line inches closer to the stage, where purple light tinged with impossible rainbows floods the measuring space. A girl in a fluffy sweater sits there now, one sleeve bunched up around her shoulder, staring down at her arm as the name begins to appear beneath the influence of the rainbow light. Cameras focused on it display the whole thing to the waiting crowd, raising my ire all over again.

Bad enough to have your whole life decided for you by some unknown fate, but to make it a public spectacle is just idiotic. Are we not allowed any semblance of privacy?

It's all part of the system to keep us in line and have us do what we're told. If the whole neighborhood knows your soulmate, it'll be hard to pretend otherwise. Social pressure is powerful, and if it were secret it would be too easy to lie.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Blah blah blah.

A scrawny boy with freckles stares at his arm with a look of relief. He's being paired up with someone else in the room, who hunches deeper in her chair with a look of disgruntlement. Mismatches aren't unheard of, but two-way reciprocated matches are the most common.

At least I haven't seen my name on anyone's arm yet. In the past five years, my parents have been keeping close track, just in case. Bleh. Sometimes you get forewarning like that, locals ending up together. More likely, they'll need to do a database search and ship one or the other of us off to a different district to meet.

And then, suddenly, it's my turn. I step into the rainbow light flooding the stage with a scowl set on my face. I wore short sleeves for the occasion, and sit with my arms crossed making no concessions to the event, as if I just happened to find a nice place to sit in the spotlight on a stage in the middle of a crowd of eager parents.

The loudspeakers announce my name. I see my mother waving and resist the urge to roll my eyes at her. I don't respond.

Then I feel something and my attention is drawn down to my arm. Words begin to appear, unclear at first, blobs of ink that slowly coalesce into sharper, angled symbols. I glare at them, still indistinct, wanting them to disappear with every fiber of my soul.

Instead of coalescing, the angles draw together, the blobs becoming points, then vanishing entirely, leaving me unmarked.

The room is silent, the whole thing caught on camera and projected to all the families. Everyone turns to stare at me.

I wait another heartbeat, trying to hold in the smile twitching at the edges of my mouth, to swallow the triumph that wants to scream from my throat, just in case it's a delayed reaction and I'm still going to be someone's bonded partner forever.

The lingering moment passes and as it becomes increasingly clear nothing's going to happen, I get to my feet.

Then, everyone staring, I raise my head and let my triumphant grin unfold across my face as I finally break the stunned silence.

"I always told you. I don't need anyone."

Stepping down from the stage, I don't care about the hubbub that rises in my wake. Right now, I can't feel anything but pure vindication.

My soul is not something to be given away. My destiny is no one else's to shape. I've said it a thousand times.

Now everyone can see it's true.

----------------------------------------