Cuts and Bruises

I had never been one of those girls who believed in soul mates, true love and all that soppy nonsense and I was never really bothered about marriage or finding ‘The One.’  That was until a couple of years ago when the most bizarre thing happened to me… I mean, you watch all of these romantic comedies and you read all of these romance novels and you just assume that you will find your perfect match through fate or when you least expect it however for me, I don’t believe it was fate and was I expecting this? Not in the slightest.

It all started in my last year of University, I was in a close-knit group of friends and the majority of them were in relationships, it never really bothered me despite the fact I wanted to vomit in their faces a lot of the time because they were so cringe worthy but if they were happy, I was happy I guess. They were always nagging at me, asking me why I wasn’t interested in finding a boyfriend and they never said it but you could tell they thought I was lonely and I honestly didn’t feel like I was so my reaction was always a grunt or my classic eye roll which made them well aware that I just wanted them to be quiet.

My hauntingly loud alarm was going off at such a painful hour in the morning but I had to be awake and I had to make myself go for a run otherwise I was going to look like a sack of potatoes during the summer. I woke up to rub my eyes and noticed a giant cut on my index finger which looked like it had been bleeding for quite some time. I touched it but it stung like crazy so I got up and ran it under cold water. My mind was boggled as I tried to work out how on Earth I could have managed to cut my finger so badly in my sleep. I had never been a sleepwalker so it was truly beyond me how this cut had appeared on my finger. I put a plaster over it and continued with my day, not really thinking anything of it. A couple of weeks passed and I was washing up in my flats kitchen when a sudden pain stabbed the back of my leg, I flinched and looked down to see blood coming through my white jeans. I panicked and shouted for help, realising my efforts were pointless as I was the only person around. I ran to my bathroom, pulled my jeans off to find a giant gash in the back of my leg, I didn’t even think about the mysterious cut on my finger at first because I was in so much shock. How could this possibly have happened when all I was doing was washing up my dishes?! I sat down to watch TV and tried not to think about what had just happened.

It was the summer holidays and the girls and I were on our way to the airport for a week in Spain. I was excited because it was the first time in months that we had been together without any of the boys and it was going to be great getting away for a while. I was sat in-between Carla and Isabel in the backseat and we were chatting about a new lipstick that Carla had bought that morning when suddenly, my head jerked back and they both screamed. My head began to ache. Everything went fuzzy and I couldn’t hear a thing. I came back around quite quickly and once I did, all the girls were asking me if I was ok. I had no idea what had just happened but all I knew was that I had a giant bruise all around my right eye and I looked like I had just been beaten up by Mike Tyson. None of the girls understood and we were all so confused so I decided to tell them about the other mysterious injuries that had been happening over the past few months. They all told me I should see a doctor and I knew I had to talk to someone because it was as if someone had a voodoo doll of me and every time I did something or said something they didn’t agree with, I got a hit!

“It can wait until after Spain” I said. And they made sure I was alright and told me they would keep an eye on me. In all honesty I was just pissed off that I had an ugly black eye for the duration of my holiday. I wished that I had a bag of frozen peas to hold to my eye but I had to deal with the throbbing, be a grown up and get on the plane.

We arrived at the hotel quite early the next day and I just wanted to lay down in the dark for a while whilst the others went in the pool, I dragged my luggage through the lobby and bumped into quite a tall man who was looking extremely rough. His skin was pale, his lips looked like they needed a whole tub of Vaseline on them and strangest of all, he had an ugly black eye… An ugly right black eye. I apologised for bumping into him and he just nodded at me. I continued to walk past him, pulling my suitcase across the floor but as I walked away, I turned around to look at him again. He was wearing a white t-shirt with some bright orange swimming trunks. I looked down to see what shoes he was sporting but something grabbed my attention on his leg. He had a fairly big cut there and it looked identical to the mysterious one on mine which appeared when I was washing up. “I’m just tired” I laughed to myself and walked up to my hotel room.

***

I had been in Spain for 2 days and I had already managed to get myself punched in the eye for trying to protect my friend in a bar. It wasn’t going well and I wasn’t going to meet a pretty girl with a black eye which was swollen to the size of my face but there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was early morning on my 3rd day in this beautiful country and I decided to go for a swim in the sun to cool myself down. I dived in and began swimming lengths, as I almost reached my 10th length I noticed drops of blooding coming from me. I panicked and swam quickly to the edge to get out of the pool. Little cuts were appearing all over my legs and feet and tiny amounts of blood were coming out of them. I was baffled and went to the showers to try and stop the bleeding. I thought I may have cut myself on something in the pool but I couldn’t think of anything it could have been.

***

One of my favourite things about hotels had always been the complimentary shampoo, conditioner, soap and razor and I almost always used them. As I arrived at my room I decided to take a shower to freshen myself up. I grabbed the razor and stupidly started shaving my legs thinking it would just be like my Venus razor at home but no, not even slightly, it was a little piece of plastic with a couple of metal blades at the end and my legs were covered in drops of blood. Using that razor was a bad idea and it also made me reluctant to use the shampoo.

I had a power nap and made my way downstairs to grab some lunch with the girls. I was wearing my favourite Levi shorts with a bright floral top from Hollister and I felt so fresh and summery despite the fact I had little plasters all over my legs from where I had embarrassingly cut myself shaving. I came to the lift and waited for about 30 seconds and once it reached my floor I was surprised to see the man from the lobby in there too. We awkwardly stood there for 13 floors as the instrumental traditional lift music played in the background. I tried to catch another glimpse of the cut on his leg and as I did so, I noticed he had several plasters on his legs in the EXACT same places as mine. I stared at his legs with an expression of pure shock and confusion on my face and he looked at me like I was crazy.

“Can I help you love?” He said. His voice was so deep and husky and I didn’t even know it was possible to find a voice attractive but it was. It really was. I stared at him, in silence. His eyes, oh his eyes. They were bright blue and I could feel myself staring into them like a complete idiot. I was really making a fool out of myself here, I had to say something.

“Ok. What the hell?” I shouted at him. Oh good one, shout at a stranger after staring at him for about a minute and a half. Smooth. He stopped the elevator and looked at me with his arms crossed. I panicked. I showed him the scar on my leg and the plasters on my legs and explained the weird cut on my finger and asked him whether he thought it was strange that we had the exact same black eye. His response? – “Ok. What the hell?!”

Before I know it, we’re both sat down on the floor of the lift discussing our cuts and bruises and everything else. I knew the girls would be wondering where I had got to but this man intrigued me. He told me that he was a sous chef and that he had cut his finger a few weeks ago on a knife and it had bled a lot. He then explained that he played football on the weekends and a player on the opposite team had kicked him in the back of the leg with his blade boots on. I asked him how he got his black eye and it turns out he got punched for trying to break up a fight in a bar.

“So if my injuries have appeared on you, are your injuries appearing on me? What did you do to your legs this morning?”  He asked me with a curious yet handsome look in his eyes.

I blushed and felt my face turning a lovely shade of red. I stuttered and told him that I had used a cheap hotel razor. Despite this situation being undoubtedly unusual, he smiled and laughed at me. I didn’t know what to do, what to say or what to think. We spoke for what felt like hours, we had so much in common and the more we spoke, the more attracted to him I was. His name was Mitchell Jones and he was a sous chef in a fancy restaurant in London.

***

This situation was so mind blowing and I think it could only take a genius to work out what on earth was going on. But this girl was so beautiful even with a black and blue eye. Her name was Charlotte Carter and she was a History student at Bath University.  I decided that if my cuts were her cuts, the only way we could find out is if we saw each-other get injured. I didn’t want any serious pain because I didn’t want to hurt her so I told her to watch her forearm. I pursed my lips around my forearm and sucked, as if I was giving myself a hickey. Weird but I knew it left a bruise, it didn’t hurt and it was the only way we could find out after all.

***

I watched him give himself a love bite, kind of wishing his arm was my lips. He shot me a glare which I knew straight away meant he wanted me to keep watching my fore arm. And to my shock and horror, a red patch was gradually appearing in the exact spot of my arm that Mitchell was sucking on his. He stopped and stared at my arm, then stared at me, then stared at his arm.

“They’re exactly the f***king same.” He whispered.

This was so strange and I’d never seen anything like it, it wasn’t in any films I’d watched nor in any books I had read. We arranged to meet for dinner that evening after exchanging digits and hotel room numbers. I walked away from the lift, I couldn’t help but smile. Even though this was all very odd, I had butterflies in my stomach and I had never felt like this before. I had heard my friends speak of ‘butterflies’ but I never cared about experiencing them. But they were lovely and they made me feel all warm inside. I met with the girls and understandably, they were angry at me for being so late but once I had explained what had happened they all seemed so excited. I found it funny how they were more intrigued that I had met a boy I quite liked rather than our cuts and bruises appearing at the same time. Typical girls for you, we’re all hopeless romantics deep down.

Isabel helped me get ready for my date in my room and she helped calm my nerves. I had never been on a date before and especially in a situation like this, it was quite a big moment for me.

“You look great” She shouted out of the door as I was halfway down the hallway. I giggled and waited by the lift. The door pinged open and Mitchell was stood there with a beautiful bouquet of flowers which had blatantly been purchased in the hotel shop but it’s the thought that counts! We sat down for dinner and chatted all night long about everything, trying not to mention the cuts and bruises until towards the end of our date.  Mitchell announced that he had been to speak to someone about our situation but wouldn’t tell me who because he was ‘embarrassed.’ He went silent for a couple of seconds before telling me that they had basically said there was no other explanation than fate. I almost choked on my wine.

“Why are you laughing Charlotte?”
“I laugh in the face of fate! It doesn’t exist!” I said rather loudly. I could see him blushing and felt guilty for shouting that out in the middle of a restaurant. I apologised and we continued talking about what this mystery person had told Mitchell.

We got along like a house on fire and the more the night progressed, the more I was falling for him and believing that maybe fate does exist. Mitchell was looking at my eyes and I felt insecure mainly because of my black eye but I remembered he had one too so I decided that two could play at this game and began looking into his eyes. My heart was beating so fast and I really wanted to kiss this man right now. I couldn’t read the signs so I continued looking at him, smiling as I felt my heart beat almost too fast for my body. He leaned over the table, placed his warm hand on my face, pulled me closer and began to kiss me. I felt sparks fly, I felt the butterflies in my stomach crash into each-other and I felt fireworks coming out of my head. It felt so right and this was the moment when I realised fate does exist and there is a soul mate out there for everyone whether you believe it or not. One kiss can change your mind about anything. I wanted this man to be mine.

Months passed and Mitchell and I were so close, I had graduated from University and was living with him in London. We honestly were made for each other and I never thought I’d be saying that I was pleased to have cuts and bruises all over my body because it led me to the most amazing husband in the world and I wouldn’t want matching cuts with anyone else in the world.