Soulmate AU where you're colorblind until you look into your soulmate's eyes.
***
Taylor wasn't that nervous. It was only a small pep rally for the entire school. And she was put front and center for the first part of their performance. Yay
She took a few deep breaths, calming herself down. You'll do fine, she told herself. Just relax and focus on the routine.
"Alright girls, it's almost time!" Maddi said, giving the cheerleading squad a pep talk. Taylor nodded along, her nerves slowly diminishing.
The music in the gym stopped, followed by a round of applause from the audience in the bleachers.
The cheerleaders got in line and entered the loud gym. Taylor was too nervous to make eye contact with anyone watching.
They got into their positions and the music started playing. Taylor immediately started performing, knowing the routine by heart through hours of practice. She was starting to relax and have fun. She looked up into the bleachers, presenting a huge smile for the audience. Her eyes roamed the bleachers, the deafening sound of everyone cheering filling her senses. She took it all in, using the energy from the crowd to gain more confidence in their performance and herself. She was too immersed in it all that she almost missed it.
Slowly, but surely, everything changed.
No longer did she see black, white, and gray. They were replaced with something more vibrant and exciting. Colors. She could see colors.
She gasped and looked around, as if looking at the gym for the first time. In her mind, she was. Everything looked so much brighter and better in color.
She froze, taking in the new experience. It was wonderful. And then someone nudged her from the back and she realized that she was just standing in front of the crowd, having missed the cue to start the second part of the performance. She hastily improvised a quick backhand spring to get into position, her smile brighter than ever.
She could finally see.
-=-
The cheerleaders screamed in excitement as they left the gym and entered the girls locker rooms.
"That was so much better than last year!"
"It was so much fun!"
Taylor smiled, still in shock from her newfound perspective of life. Everyone else was still talking about their performance, expressing their favorite parts. Taylor hummed to herself as she opened her locker. She smiled as she picked up various objects, identifying their colors for the first time. Her brush was a light blue, with purple polka dots. The small perfume bottle that she used after gym class was a beautiful pink. Her old shirt that she used during practice was an alarmingly bright orange. Huh, no wonder why her mom didn't like it.
"Hey, Tay. What're you doing?" Taylor looked up at Katie. She smiled.
"Our uniforms are purple."
The noise of everyone else's conversations ceased. She looked around the locker room, her smile widening at their confused expressions.
"The lockers," she gestured to hers, "are the ugliest shade of yellow I've ever seen."
Realization flickered onto her teammates faces as she continued naming the colors of the various objects in the room.
"You can see colors." Maddi smiled. Sometimes she forgot that everyone else saw black and white, since she met her soulmate in grade school.
Taylor nodded and the girls crowded around her in excitement, questioning her on what it was like.
"That's exciting!" Katie hugged her. "That's why you missed your cue." Taylor affirmed the thought and Katie squealed in excitement. Everyone started congratulating her, asking questions about the new experience.
"Oh my gosh! What's it like?"
"I heard that your eye color changes when it happens. Did the color of her eyes change?"
"I don't know, I can't see colors yet!"
"What color is my bow?"
"Do you feel more colorful?"
"I think everyone is missing the real question." All heads turned to Jess, their senior captain. She smirked. "Who is it?"
Taylor's smile faded and she blinked. She replayed the moment in her head, realizing that she could not place whose eyes connected with hers when it happened. She was just looking at the crowd of people. "I-I don't know." She started to panic. "I don't know!"
At everyone's questioning glances, she elaborated as she tried to think. "I-I was performing and I looked into the crowd. It could have been anyone." She slapped herself on the forehead repeatedly. "Think, Taylor, think."
Katie grabbed her arm. "Hey, stop that. Calm down, we can figure this out." She waited until Taylor's breathing evened out before continuing. "Okay, which section were you looking at?"
She hesitated for a second before answering. "The Sophomores."
"Good, at least we know he's in our grade. That only narrows down, like, seventy-five percent of the school." She rolled her eyes and laughed.
"We'll figure this out." Katie encouraged her best friend.
Taylor nodded. "Yeah, okay."
-=-
Taylor huffed as she packed her things. Three weeks. It has been three weeks since the pep rally and she still has no clue who her soulmate is. At first, Katie and her had depended on her soulmate going up to her and telling her. He has to have realized that she was his soulmate, right? He wasn't the one looking at a crowd of people when his whole world changed.
After the first week, Katie still had hope that he would show up. 'Maybe he's just shy!' But after the second week, they started to lose hope in that idea. By the third week, they were brainstorming ideas on how to find him herself. Taylor did not want to use her powers, she always thought that she was just invading the person's privacy, but she was getting desperate. She's started touching some of her guy friends unnecessarily for a quick glimpse in their mind, making sure not to delve too deep. Quick hugs, ruffling hair, and shoulder bumps only told her that no one on the basketball team is her soulmate. She figured as much, she's already looked all of them in the eyes before the pep rally, but it was worth a shot.
She closed her locker and left the gym, saying goodbye to coach as she went. She had stayed after cheer practice had ended, needing to do something to distract her from the whole soulmate problem.
Opening the front doors, she shivered and pulled her thin jacket tighter. The temperature had gradually decreased recently, indicating the start of the holidays season. She mentally berated herself for not grabbing a thicker coat, especially considering that she was walking home. She took a deep breath before starting her long walk home, wanting nothing more than to escape the cold.
Turns out she didn't have to wait long.
There was a guy walking by, looking to be a student. Upon closer inspection, she recognized the backpack. He was in her biology class. He must have exited through the back entrance.
She caught his eye, and he hesitated before walking towards her. He blinked a lot as he approached her, worry and nervousness clear on his face.
"A-Are you okay?"
Taylor smiled. "I'm fine."
"Oh, y-you just looked cold. Do you want my coat?" He took off his backpack and started unbuttoning his coat.
"No! I'm not cold, you don't have to-"
"I'm fine." He gave a small smile, repeating her words.
"Really-" Taylor's protests were cut off again.
"Your face is red and you're shivering, take it."
Taylor was silent as he took off his coat and held it out. He gulped. She reluctantly took it from his hands, quickly reading his mind to make sure that he was actually fine with it, and finding his name, feeling guilty for not remembering it after he did such a nice thing for her. She knew that he was nervous, but finding out the reason was because he was talking to her caused her face to turn redder from blushing. She quickly left his mind, still feeling guilty for entering it in the first place.
She smiled as she put it on. "Thank you, Michael."
He put his hands in his pockets and smiled back. "You're welcome." He hesitated before walking away, trying his best not to shiver as not worry her. When he got home that day, his mom yelled at him for not wearing a coat in that sort of weather. When asked why, he said he forgot it at school.
Taylor watched him walk away, waiting until he turned the corner before she started walking home. She made sure to stuff the coat in her bag before entering her house, however, to avoid questioning from her parents. Putting it in the washer, she reminded herself to give it back to Michael as soon as possible. And to not let her dad see a guy's coat, that did not belong to him or her brothers, in the laundry.
It didn't occur to her until she was in bed that night, that Michael knew that her face was red.
|A/N|
I love soulmate AUs
Sidenote- Who convinced me to take freaking AP Classes??? :(
That is all of now <3