Board Thread:Short Stories and Fanfictions/@comment-75.25.52.26-20190727210155/@comment-75.25.52.26-20190728134407

Chapter 1

Sophie could hear the voices calling to her, she just chose to ignore them. She could feel the hands gripping hers in the hopes of waking her up, but she stayed in the nook of warmth, settled among darkness that swallowed her up like a comfy blanket. She didn’t want to be treated like a fragile doll. This was hard enough as it was. And when the actual blanket slid over her, when the lights snapped off, she thought it was safe to stop pretending. She opened her eyes to find another pair of eyes, glassy and teal, staring back at her. She could tell they were on the verge of crying. The chocolate brown hair moved as a hand rustled it, and she suddenly knew who it was.

“Fitz,” she breathed as he whispered, “Sophie.” He sat down next to her, grabbing her hand.

He transmitted, ''Sophie, are you okay? It’s 9:30 at night. Technically I’m not supposed to be here, but I made a deal with Sandor that I would try to wake you up if he let me in.''

Sophie transmitted back, ''Fitz, I don’t really wanna talk about it right now. Please just—''

''Sophie, something’s WRONG. I know you. I don’t know what happened, or why you’ve spent all day ignoring my transmissions, but something is definitely wrong.''

''Fitz, please. Just leave me alone.''

''Sophie, I’m your Cognate. And you don’t have any big secret you’re holding back from me anymore. You can’t let this ruin what we have.''

Of all the ways to make her talk, playing both the Cognate card was the lowest and most effective. But Sophie wasn’t giving in that easily.

Fitz, I’m serious, I don’t want to talk about this.

''Listen, if you tell me this, I’ll tell you what I have to transmit to get past your blocking. I know you’ve wanted to know for a while.''

Letting her in on that small piece of information was something she’d wanted for a while. Fitz had some skills when it came to making her talk. Sophie reached up to tug out an eyelash. Fitz grabbed her other hand before she could, rubbing small, reassuring circles into the back of it, almost making her wonder why she was hiding anything from him. She shook her head to focus again, trying and failing to keep away the thoughts of doubt and worry that came with the memories of the Matchmaking disaster. Although the conversation wasn’t very helpful, it had picked her back up again. She was going to find out why she couldn’t be matched, and she was going to fix it.

Fitz’s face paled as Sophie realized that he could still hear her.

He transmitted, You—you can’t be matched?

Then Sophie braved herself for the worst possible reactions. She squeezed her eyes shut as she transmitted ‘yes.’

Fitz, as usual, was unpredictable. ''This has to be some game. Is that just a ruse for what’s actually happening? That’s not possible, so it has to be. Sophie, what actually happened?''

''I can’t be matched, Fitz. That’s what I was trying to say.'' Sophie’s mental voice got smaller and smaller with each word, the last one little more than a thought.

Fitz’s face saddened as one of the tears in his eyes threatened to spill over. I—I don’t think I can handle that.

Sophie counted the seconds as they passed, reaching five hundred one before she could trust herself to open her eyes again. And when she did, Fitz was gone. He’d disappeared. Just vanished, as if this one thing made him stop caring about her. And maybe that was how it was. Maybe she was too freaky for him. Too different. Too strange. He probably didn’t like her anymore, not even enough to be friends. She’d seen this coming. Of course it was too good to be true. That was always how it would be. Sophie yanked off her teal heart necklace, throwing it to the floor, and snuck back to the nook. She curled up in a miserable ball of pity as the darkness swallowed her whole.