Page 21 of The Soul Never Forgets

Dee Dee.

The list of people I can’t talk to is much longer than the ones I can talk to.

I don’t have anyone I can confide in tonight. Because my life is nuts. Even if I’m not schizophrenic. Welcome to Caroline Beaumont’s life, the 2.0 version.

Boy, this soul mate thing isn’t going according to plan. Not even a little. Why is this so difficult for me this time around? Well, not that it was so easy the last time around. Augustina did get murdered at one point in time.

Frank and Augustina didn’t have a perfect relationship. They quarreled from time to time like all couples do, but neither of them questioned or doubted what they were to each other. At least not the way Dr. Wes is doubting me. I don’t know how to handle this.

There was never another person in the equation with Frank and Augustina. I’m dealing with a third wheel. And not just any third wheel. She’s a fiancée that he’s been with for years. How can I compete with that when I’ve only spent a handful of hours with him?

He’s my soul mate, yet she’s the one who knows him inside and out. That guts me.

They’re intimate. I’m certain of it. They’ve been together for five years and are engaged to be married. How could he not share a bed with her? This isn’t 1939. Not that all people saved themselves for marriage in Frank and Augustina’s day but they certainly weren’t so brazen about it. Unless you count the guys at the boat shop. And I figure they were often lying.

Oh God. A new thought strikes me. What if Dr. Wes and his fiancée live together? What if he has gone home to her tonight and crawled into bed with her? The thought makes me sick. I don’t want to think about it. I can’t. It hurts too much.

I’m questioning everything about Dr. Wes and me.

Am I wrong and he isn’t my soul mate after all?

Or if he is, are we still star-crossed? Is there something else I must do to make things right between us? Because everything feels wrong right now. Very wrong.

Can some soul mates be broken forever and beyond repair? I have no idea, but in this moment it seems like a possibility. There’s only one certainty: Dr. Wes is no Frank.

Boy, it’s just like me to be the one who gets a dud soul mate. I got the dud birth mom. And the dud adoptive mom. And the dud brother. Now I get the dud soul mate to put the icing on the cake.

What did I do to deserve the short end of the stick?

The doorbell rings, and my heart takes off in a gallop, threatening to crack the interior of my chest cavity. There aren’t a lot of reasons someone would be at my front door this time of night on a Monday. I’m not real excited about any of the possibilities.

I turn on the exterior light and see Dr. Wes standing on my front porch. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I know it’s late.”

“Did you follow me home?”

“No. I got your address from your file at the office.”

Wow. He likes to go on and on about proper therapist-patient conduct, but I would think that showing up at my house would be a huge no-no especially this time of night after we’ve argued. “I’m pretty sure I gave my home address to your staff for billing purposes. Not so you could make a house call.”

“You know I’m not here for a house call.”

“Then why are you here?” I ask through the closed door.

“I don’t like the way we left things.”

My news wasn’t well received. How else should I have reacted? “I don’t know of any other way to leave things after being rejected by my soul mate.”

He flattens his hand against one of the glass panes on my door. “I didn’t reject you.”

“I don’t know what else you’d call it. You chose her.”

“I haven’t chosen her.”

“Well, you damn sure haven’t chosen me.” That’s for sure. “And you called me schizophrenic.”

“Will you please open the door and let me in? We can’t leave things as they are.”

The part of me that’s been hurt so many times before wants to make him stand out there all night long. But the part of me that wants him closer wins the duel and unlocks the door.

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