long story short (chaennie)

the rest of the world was black & white (but we were in screaming color)

1

Rosie had always believed in soulmates.

Her father would reprimand her every time she'd ask about them, saying that wasn't the Lord's plan. He'd say that it was some type of witchcraft and that she could see all the colours the Lord intended. She'd watch as her mother's eyes would somehow become greyer every time Rosie accidentally sent her father off on a tangent.

Her parents weren't soulmates, but that never stopped her belief.

The one person who would always listen to little her rambles about soulmates and her insistence that hers was out there somewhere, waiting for them to experience the world in screaming colour together, was her grandmother.

Her grandmother was the only person in her life who believed in soulmates because she'd found her very own when she was young.

She can remember being a little girl, sitting on her grandmother's lap and listening to her describe all the colours she could see. She'd learn that her eyes were the same green as the jade pendant around her mother's neck; the colour of her favorite flowers, daffodils, were yellow; and the anger on her father's face was a deep red.

She'd learn that her mother saw colour, once. She'd learn about a boy with beautiful green eyes and rosy red cheeks every time he'd come to pick her mother up for a date. Her grandmother would describe the lilac of her prom dress, similar to her very first pageant dress, and the pink of the flowers on her corsage. She heard no stories after that, only that her mother's world had faded back to grey, tinged with that beautiful green.

When things were hard at home, when her father was red in the face from why can't you just do as God says and her mother couldn't look her in the eyes because your eyes are too green, Rosie, she'd visit her grandmother and she'd listen for hours about stories of when she'd realised her and her grandfather were soulmates. She would listen with wonderment in her eyes, that her grandmother would later tell her was more gold than green. Maybe if she was happier more often, her mother wouldn't look at her with such sadness behind her eyes.

Her favourite story was the one where her grandmother would describe the moment she realised the color she was seeing in her grandfather's eyes wasn't a light grey, but a pale blue. That pale blue was Rosie's favourite colour. As she grows older, her grandmother passes and her world grows greyer, so she clings onto that story, hoping she'll one day be able to live as happy a life as her grandmother did; hoping she's found her soulmate and just needs that time for her world to explode in color.

Because every time she looks into Vanessa's eyes she swears she can see that same pale blue her grandmother fell in love with, shining with a light that Rosie swears the Lord put there himself. Her father's preaching be damned.

Except Lisa's eyes were nothing but the same grey as the storm clouds rolling in, and when that light in them is extinguished, Rosie's world fades to black.

Rosie had always believed in soulmates. Except she thinks she's lost hers before she even got the chance to love them. She'd spent so much time worrying she would become her father, that she became her mother.

2

Rosie moves to college out west exactly one year after Vanessa died and took all of Rosie's hope with her.

Her father hasn't spoken to her in as much time, but is still willing to pay her tuition so long as it keeps her away from his family. The thought of Rosie staying at home because she couldn't afford college literally made him shudder.

She's not as torn up about it as she thought she would be. Her father had never loved her, not really; keeping her away from her younger siblings and dictating her life. Rosie's not convinced he ever learned to love. She feels sorry for him, and for whoever his soulmate is because they have to suffer in grey over his own stubbornness.