The Burning Light with Shadows (A SOTAM Fan Fiction)

Unmatchable (Tam's PoV)

"Biana. Please. Do. Not. Make. Us. Get. Matchmaking. Packets. After. Everything," Sophie begged. I completely agreed. It had been about a month since I'd woken up from my "coma", and for a little while, I've felt a bit... different.

I don't know what it is, but I just feel slightly more... ansty? Angry? I accidentally snapped at Linh about getting another pet yesterday. Of course I apologized afterwards, but...

"Sophie! We're doing it!!!" Biana yelled, flinging a slightly ripped pillow at Sophie's head. Sophie shrieked, ducking under the fluffy monstrosity of a pillow. It landed with a thump! and a bunch of fluff and feathers flowed out of the tear in it. I widened my eyes.

"PILLOW FIGHT!!!" Keefe announced, grabbing another pillow and chucking it at Biana. His hair sparkled silver. She screamed, and ran behind a sofa. The pillow ended up in Fitz's face. "Oh, you're on!" he shouted, throwing another pillow back at Keefe.

Keefe grabbed a green velvet pillow and threw it at me. It pummeled me in the chest, and I was knocked back a step. "Got you, Bangs Boy!" Keefe taunted. I smirked. I picked up a cotton dark gray pillow and was about to throw it back at him when Della came into the room.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. I dropped the pillow that was in my hands. "Uh..." Keefe turned red. "Pillow fight," Marella volunteered. The tips of Dex's lips twitched. Both of them and Linh hadn't bothered to join the fight.

Della raised an eyebrow, shook her head lightly, and walked away. I was guessing she was thinking something along the lines of, these kids are crazy.

"Anyways!" Biana exclaimed. "Let's all register for the match today!" Everyone groaned except for Marella, who actually looked excited.

And so, an hour later, we were all in front of the matchmaking building. We were all given a place to sit, and I was successfully registered.

But when we got out of the building, I saw Biana comforting a tearful Sophie. "What's wrong?" I asked, walking up to them. Linh was whispering something in Biana's ear. "I- I a- am un-unmatchable!" Sophie cried out. Fitz, Keefe, Dex, Marella, and I gasped. Biana wrapped her up in a hug. "I'm sorry Sophie. I shouldn't have made you register," she said softly and pityingly, a regretful look latched on her face.

We all glumly used the whirlpool geyser thing to get out of Atlantis and leaped back to Everglen. "Do you want to go back to Havenfield?" Fitz asked. "If you want to, that's fine. The rest of us will just be here for the rest of the week."

A/N The last sleepover at Everglen ended, this is a new one.

"N- no, I... don't really want to face Grady right now," Sophie mumbled, eyes locked on her boots. Her eyes looked slightly misty, filled with tears.

No one was able to cheer Sophie up for the rest of the night. Not even mallowmelt could boost her spirits. In the end, everyone else went to sleep except me and Sophie. We sat on the same sofa that we had sat on before the Neverseen encounter.

The room was filled with awkward silence. I checked a nearby clock and saw it was nearly midnight. I looked back to Sophie, feeling a stab of sadness when I saw a tear slip down her cheek.

I instinctively wiped it away with my finger. Her blank eyes flickered to me with surprise. I felt my cheeks grow warm. "I- sorry. I shouldn't have done that," I said quickly, tugging my bangs over my eyes. But her expression wasn't horrified. She actually looked... grateful?

"It- it's fine," she responded. Another tear slipped down her cheek. And before I knew it, she was all over me, crying, hugging me, and wailing softly, not loud enough for the others to hear upstairs. I lightly hugged her back. "Why... why does love hurt? Why am I the lonely one?" she wondered aloud. I entangled my fingers in her soft blond hair. "You're not the only one who's lonely," I muttered quietly, and she must have heard me, because she hugged me even tighter.

She released me, and her cheeks were tearstained, eyes red. "I mean, all of our friends are so obsessed with the match and everything and their romance and... it's like they forgot about us. And... it's so unfair!" She sighed. "I feel so childish," she groaned, leaning back onto the cushion of the sofa.

"It's not childish," I argued. "It's just... reality isn't fair." I pulled my bangs even lower over my eyes. I stared into her sparkling golden-flecked brown eyes. She looked back into mine. "You had a memory. You saw the moment when Keefe asked Biana out?" she asked. I turned bright red, looking away. "I... yeah. You saw when you healed me?" I guessed. She nodded.

"I didn't mean to stumble across that memory. It was an accident," she apologized. I shook my head. "It's fine," I insisted. "I did like Biana. But... now I'm not really sure. After a while, I didn't really care for some reason." I shrugged.

There was a moment of silence. I, surprisingly, admired her peculiar yet stunning brown eyes. Her hair was slightly messy, but glinted in the light. She coughed. "I... if we're being forward with our feelings, I- I suppose I had a crush on Fitz," she admitted, blushing. I grinned. "Yeah, I had a feeling. We all knew," I said. She looked up at me quickly. "Really? I was that obvious?" she asked. I nodded. "Yeah. I didn't think he'd end up with my sister though." I wasn't quite sure if I was okay with Fitz dating Linh yet.

I looked back upstairs to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Sophie leaned against my shoulder, and I wrapped my arm around her. "Thanks, Tam," she said, a hint of a smile on her lips. "You're a really, really good friend."

"Anytime," I said, repeating what she had said to me in the Healing Center, and we both drifted off to sleep.