Everyone in my world is born with an empty necklace chain, until one day, the day, their chain is no longer empty and a key forms. The day your key appears on your chain is the most important day of your life, because this is the day you meet your perfect match. From the day I was born I had been preparing to meet mine. My mother would always talk about when she met my father, how perfect and beautiful it had been. Since I was young, my father would teach me how to attract my match and make him happy once I found him.
After my long days of relationship prep, I would sleep soundly dreaming of the same boy every night. The first time I dreamt of him was when I was about 16. In my dream, I had been running through the woods dressed in a pink gown and was suddenly joined by a boy, seemingly my age, dressed in shining armor. He was blonde with green eyes and short, about 5’5. We ran together until we tripped over a big log and landed next to each other on the ground. “Hello, who are you?”, I asked gasping for breath. “You will find out soon enough.”, he answered with a warm smile. I woke up to my chain burning after every dream. At first I thought it could be my key appearing, but every time my chain was still vacant. I had dreams like these every night continuously, except every time he had a different appearance and the scenario was different. Though, his name, Liam, and sense of security remained the same throughout the years. I decided to keep him a secret.
When my key appeared, I was doing homework for my college history class. I dropped everything and showed my parents, they became just as excited as I was. After my aunt rushed over, we hurried into my room to begin hair and makeup. I grabbed the outfit I had picked out since last year. When my look was finished, I hurried out the door and into my car. My key pointed to where I had to go, so I got to him with no problem. I got out of my car and walked to the water fountain and sat down. I waited, looking at everyone who passed by, trying to guess who it could be. Finally, a boy came up to me. He was tall and pale with pink cheeks with dirty blonde hair and he looked a few years older than me. I looked into his bright blue eyes and said “Hi!” He was so cute and intimidating, I couldn’t look at him in the eyes for too long.“Hey, I’m guessing you’re my soul mate? Can I get a name?”, he asked so confidently. “Oh yeah! My name’s Camille.” I answered shyly. I felt my face turn red as he stared at me. “My name is Emmett.”
By December, we were married. During the whole ceremony all I could think about was Liam. I was sure he would be my soul mate, but I settled for the fact he was just a recurring dream. A dream that still didn’t stop, even after meeting my soulmate. After the wedding, Emmett and I moved in together and I became the regular housewife. I dropped out of college to take care of the house and him. My day consisted of making Emmett’s breakfast, doing dishes, cleaning clothes, tidying up the house, and preparing dinner by the time he walked in the door. If any of those things are done wrong, he has resorted to being physical. One day, I hadn’t started dinner when he came home, because I was busy with the laundry. When he realized that there wasn’t any dinner for him he began screaming and stomping around the house. When he saw me folding laundry, he slapped the clothes out of my hand and pushed me to the ground. He started to kick me and yell at me telling me how terrible a wife I was. He left to get something to eat as I sat on the floor with tears streaming down my eyes. When I finally collected myself, I went to my room and forced myself to sleep, fighting back the tears.
For the first time since the very first night, Liam was dressed in shining armor, but he had light brown skin with soft brown eyes and hair, and he was approximately 5’11. I was dressed in the same pink dress, but this time it was tattered. I was running through the woods again, but Liam wasn’t running with me, he was trying to stop me from running. “I can’t stop! I need to keep fighting!”, I heard myself say. “No you don’t, it’s safe to fall.”, he assured me. I was woken up by the pain of my chain, but I haven’t worn it since my wedding night. I kept it in a jewelry box on my dresser. I looked at the box and saw a faint red glow coming out. I glanced at the alarm clock and it read “3:47”, Emmett still wasn’t home. I got up and walked over to the box, as I opened it the glow became brighter. Blindly, I reached into the box feeling the chain, I pulled it out. As it came out, I felt something swing into the side of my wrist. I gasped and dropped the necklace out of disbelief. I looked back down, hesitant, and through the, now, faint glow I saw a key.
“What should I do with it?”, I asked my aunt. I knew I couldn’t talked to my mom about this, because it would break her heart, my wedding day was probably the best day of her life. “I don’t know, what about Emmett?”, she replied. “Eh, he’s not what I was expecting my soulmate to be like”, I said pacing. This was the first time I clued to anyone that I was unhappy in my marriage. “I don’t know, I’ve never heard of ‘a second key’.”, she warned. After talking more with my aunt, I decided to go through with seeing where my key would lead me. I went back to my house and got dressed and fixed my hair and makeup, I tried to hurry while Emmett was out with friends. I followed the key with anxiety, what if this was somehow a prank, or worse Emmett saw me? The key brought me to the same spot I met Emmett, and that’s when I knew it was a prank and felt nauseous. I sat on the fountain sobbing, not sure how my life came to be this, everyone else that I knew was happy in their relationship, why was mine the oddball? I felt a tap on my shoulder and when I looked up, I immediately felt better. He was maybe 6’1, with soft brown hair and eyes to match. His skin was a warm tan shade and his touch warmed my body from the cool February weather. He felt like home, like I’d known him my whole life, but this is the first time I’d seen him. “Hi!”, his voice was identical to that of my dreams. “I guess we’re soulmates!”, he continued. I was speechless, it was him. “I guess we are.”, I laughed, going in for a hug. I was stopped by his hands grabbing my arms and he said “CAMILLE?”, he grabbed me and picked me up into an embrace. “Liam, I’m guessing?”, I asked in tears.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t get married right away, because I had to divorce Emmett. But, we finally did, in April, and it truly was the second best day of my life, behind the day I met Liam. I walked down the aisle in my mother’s wedding dress, keeping my eyes on him the whole time. When I reached my true soulmate, we pulled out our keys and put them together in a grasp, feeling them evaporate. “Here’s to our keys being gone, forever this time!”, the crowd laughed. “Do you promise to protect the keys to each other's hearts?”, the officiant asked. We ended with the perfect, sealing, “I do.”