I'm not sure I believe in soulmates. Mostly because I've had too many of them. My first soulmate was Vanessa. Met her in middle school, sat next to her in algebra because our last names both started with the same letter. We didn't talk much. She was shy, I was more shy. In fact I only pretended she was shy because I didn't know how to talk to girls, let alone a SOULMATE. She was new that year and it was her first day, and algebra was our first class. I helped her with one problem and that was the only time I said anything to her. I could have been Vanessa's first friend. Instead I ignored her. She made other friends.

Monica was my second soulmate. I knew it at once because my fantasies confirmed it. I'd known her for years but we only paid attention to one another when high school graduation loomed like the terrible exciting end that it was. Everyone grew close during those last few weeks. Drug addiction was shredding Monica's family and she found solace and strength in my unwavering stance against drugs. She and I suddenly saw a world in each other's eyes, unwritten futures and endless dreams. I told her about my wish to be a composer and she wanted to be a biologist. I took her to a bookstore and we made fun of the religion section like the enlightened intellectuals we imagined we were. I bought her my favorite book: Flatland by Edwin Abbott, a charming romantic parable about perspective and compassion. The next day we had a picnic at a nearby state park. She wore a yellow sundress and we made love in the grass. It was fun but awkward and uncomfortable. We didn't really know what we were doing, two kids trying on adulthood. A few weeks later we went to different colleges to pursue our dreams and she developed a mental illness. I never heard what happened to her but everytime I see a pretty girl in a sundress I think about Monica.

In college I met Allison, my third soulmate, a clarinetist who was offered a full scholarship to the Juilliard School but turned it down because she wanted to be a teacher. At first I didn't understand why she chose not to take that opportunity but later learned her parents threatened to cut her out if she didn't get a teaching degree at our small state university. I wrote piano + clarinet duets and we played them together on Friday nights. It was bad music but something about the way her eyes narrowed and how she tried her hardest to perform these terrible amateur compositions made my heart beat like a war drum. I never confessed to Allison how I felt about her and so one night we were drinking with friends at her apartment and one guy, some guy, just some guy who was a regular guy with thin hair and weak genes, pulled her out into the hallway. I'm a slave to curiosity and a few minutes later I shuffled to the door and peeked through the peephole to glimpse them embracing with their foreheads touching. He was crying. They were swaying back and forth. We graduated and they got married and I moved out of state to Chicago. They invited me to their wedding but instead I wrote a short piano + clarinet piece and mailed it to her. I never heard from Allison again.

Miranda was a cashier at a coffee and tea shop called Hi-Tea, in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. When I ordered my first mint tea from her I had a feeling she would be my next soulmate and it turned out I was correct. She had smooth brown bangs and soft beguiling eyes. I learned how to enjoy tea properly just so I could go back and see her. She knew what I was up to and after the fourth or fifth time she wrote her phone number on the cup. I pretended not to see it because I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I panicked. What do you do? If you're me, you panic. If you're not me, you do something cool. Unfortunately I'm me so I just said thanks and left. I stopped going to Hi-Tea for awhile even though Miranda was on my mind everyday. One day I took the El train home from work, the red line, and got on at the Harrison stop. The train was nearly empty at this hour. I sat down and there was Miranda, a few seats away, reading a book. It was Flatland by Edwin Abbott. My breath vanished and I tried to set my brain in order. She caught my eye and gave me a playful shy grin. I never went to Hi-Tea again.

I met Catherine online. After one date my suspicions were confirmed: yep, my fifth soulmate. She had red hair, dyed I think but I didn't mind so much anymore, and laughed at everything I said, every horrendous joke that found its way out of my spinning head. We were even wearing the same shoes! She was intoxicating and I was glad she was my next soulmate because if not I would have been heartbroken. Our first date lasted 8 hours. Our second date was even longer. We got ice cream and walked around Grant Park until it got too cold. Chicago's autumn nights can be ferocious when you're not prepared for them. Fortunately we kept one another warm. Catherine's thick red hair tangled in my face and her scent lit up my chest like hot cider. She was blushing. I imagined feverishly what thoughts could be racing in her mind as she held my face. She told me she didn't want the night to end. Hearing those words spoken by a woman is sorcery, but hearing them from your soulmate is a religious conversion. She muttered more quiet words that I couldn't make out into my ear. She stayed the night in my apartment. A few days later Catherine was admitted to the hospital and needed emergency surgery. I never learned why. I sent her a message saying I was thinking about her; no response. I didn't know any of her friends, where she lived, or how to contact her family so all I could do was periodically call her phone. Eventually somebody answered but it was a man, enraged and screaming that Catherine would call the police if I tried to contact her again and he would come find me with a baseball bat if I didn't delete her number.

My next soulmate was a Heartbreaker. CAPITAL H! She almost killed me. Once we met it felt like I was free from everything, all the stresses and anxieties of the outside world disappeared and instead what remained was the inside world, sweet pleasure. Finally somebody who understood. This was how it should be. She promised she would always be there for me and I believed her for a long time. We saw each other daily. But everytime I came to visit it seemed like the road to her house got a little longer and she had to send me home a little earlier. Eventually I started to think she no longer really cared about me but I pushed these doubts away because she was my soulmate. It was dark and cold outside and I knew there was love and warmth in her palace, I'd seen it before. Eventually I didn't even get to see her anymore, this goddess with the answers, but I wanted to stay in her house anyway to get out of the frigid air for a bit, before trudging back outside. The world was becoming a menace and she used to offer such refuge, but now she was gone. Even her house got cold. Turns out heroin is a heartbreaker AND a liar.

So I'm not sure if I believe in soulmates. But I do believe in algebra problems, yellow sundresses, clarinet music, mint tea, and earnest innocent nonsense whispered in my ear in a cold city park.