You know all the usual stuff, don't read if it's illegal or you don't like sex or if bisexual sex offends you. All characters are purely fictional, and any likeness is coincidence. Joshua Glynn reserves all rights to this story, the characters, and the world they live in.
This story is about an 18-year-old boy struggling with the gifts that he possesses and trying to find out where he fits in a new school.
Soulmates: Gifted Book One
Prologue:
Moving
Joshua
It is said that we only use ten percent of our brain, and if we could ever tap into the other ninety percent, we could do wondrous things... My family, at least on my father's side, does not have this limitation. I am gifted. You see, since before I was born, I have been able to feel my parents around me. I felt their love, their longing for me to arrive, but I also received a faint sense of fear from my father.
Among other things, my gift endows me with an eidetic memory unlike any other, so when I say I remember it, I mean that I remember it! I didn't really understand all the things happening around me when I was really young. My early memories were colored with the confusion of my child mind trying to figure out the world around me, but still, I remember the events as they happened.
I would later learn that the fear I had been sensing from my father had been his hope that this gift would have passed me by, it had skipped a generation before. It can be overwhelming at times, as you will see. But our family line has been gifted for as far back as we know, at least as far back as the dark ages. Shortly after I was born, my father became resigned that his son would be like him, gifted, and that I would be different from the other kids around me.
Because of my awareness, I didn't cry much, usually only if I got hurt or the like. For example, I didn't cry if I merely wanted something. When I was hungry, I projected the thought of the food I wanted into my parents' minds. Mom really freaked out the first time I did that, but my Dad knew it was coming. I couldn't speak to them per se, but I could send images and feelings. However, I was talking in full sentences by ten months. I would pick up the meanings of the words they were using and eventually figured out how the words fit together to full ideas and phrases. Oh, they were simple, and it may have been hard to understand my baby slurred speech, but it was still impressive.
The real spearhead of my early development was my father. He knew exactly where I was coming from, because he has gone through the same thing growing up. He helped me to close my mind when I wanted to be alone with my own thoughts and taught me the importance and the value of down time. When I was really young, I never wanted to shut my mind off. I wanted to connect to everything and everyone. But he showed me how this could be both embarrassing and invasive. He taught me how to block other people out, mainly by using his mind to try breaking into my mind, and how to keep my thoughts to myself. Let's face it, what would you do if every stray thought you had, could be "heard" by your father... embarrassing right?
I started school a year later than most kids. My birthday is in early August, and like a lot of parents, mine decided to hold off a year before letting me start first grade. It was trendy at the time, parents thought that extra year would let their kids start school with the advantage of being a bit bigger, and more mature. Mine thought the extra year would allow me more time to get my gift under control. My parents were very careful with me.
I could have easily jumped ahead in school, but my parents wanted me to have as normal a childhood as possible. I did make straight A's, though. I could see the complex formulas and rules, as well as the why and how things work' directly from my teachers' minds, as the teachers themselves understood them. It was a breeze. And did I mention I remember everything?
On the other hand, I had to deal with the hundreds of other students at school. It wasn't too bad in the later grades, but first through fifth was another story. Most of the time, unless I actively try (and Father drilled into me that I should never do that, as it is an invasion of privacy) I only would get snippets of other kids' thoughts. You see, the only time most people broadcast their thoughts are when those thoughts are tied to strong emotions. And young kids are driven by strong emotions. That means that being in school, in those early years was like sitting in the middle of a crowded cafeteria... everyone almost constantly babbling about the most off the wall things. Some of them shouting, some whispering, but just a constant stream of noise. Most days I would just have to shut down my mind, just to concentrate, only opening up a bit in class to get what I needed from my teachers.
My name is Joshua Kingston and I just turned eighteen. I'm a bit taller than some at a shade under six foot tall. I'm lean and tight, though I just started working out last year. I'm not interested in bulking up, my goal was to be nice and tone. I view the world through ice-blue eyes like my Mother's and the past few years I have worn my light brown hair down to just above my shoulders. Most of the girls I pass in the halls think I'm pretty hot, and who am I to argue?
I have two younger sisters. At fifteen, Adria is two years behind me in school. She has a touch of the gift, which she doesn't acknowledge. But every now and then, she will tap into it and send out a message. It is not common for the females in our family to receive any of the gift, but it happens occasionally. Krystal is eight, and the sweetest sister a brother could want. Finally, there is Danny at thirteen months. The gift completely passed Danny and boy did it pass... he was the loudest, fussiest kid I think I have ever met. Mom would get upset at me and dad, as we could calm him down in a few moments, reading him to see what he wanted.
We had just recently moved to a new town, several states away. I had a major girl problem, that escalated to the point where my father decided to move the family to another state for everyone's safety. My father was a lawyer and as you can imagine, a good one, considering his unfair advantage. He knows just how far to push his powers as to not give away his secret. He's good enough to have not lost a case in seventeen years. His boss had a good friend that ran a law firm in Charleston, South Carolina. After a call and an interview, Father got the job and off we were headed to a little town outside of Charleston called Goose Creek. Funny name, right?
