Bound- Red Threads of Fate Jaya AU

No one can rewrite the stars

Note: We've got a fair bit of drama here... maybe too much to be honest. But I don't have time to change it, since I spent the day writing chapter eight, so you get this. 

Jay hadn't been sleeping very well. All he could think about was her. His parents wouldn't let him leave on his own since the storm, and he was dying to know how she was. Why couldn't he get her out of his thoughts? She was only a friend–she had saved him from the storm, yes, but he had felt this way about her long before that. He just needed to talk to her. Maybe he could figure out his feelings then.

His parents made him send a little basket and a note with the mailman to thank her–he was hardly allowed out of their sight these days. He imagined her reading it. Would she be offended that he hadn't brought it himself? What if she hated him?

Of course she won't hate me, he told himself. Why was he so worried about her disapproval? He often did silly things around his friends, and never worried about that. But with her, it was so different. He cared so much about what she thought of him. He almost thought she was too good for him. She was so pretty after all, and of course she was the thread-mage. What did she even want with him? Maybe it was good that he had stopped being able to see her. Maybe she was glad.

It was only in the dead of night, when he was alone and unoccupied, he sometimes let the most scandalous thought of all slip into his mind. That maybe he was in love with the thread-mage after all. That couldn't be, of course, but he didn't see what else could be wrong with him. The way he felt about her . . . the closest thing he could compare that feeling to was peoples' description of how they felt upon meeting their soulmates.

Their soulmates. He sighed, wondering if he even had one at all. All that time he'd spent with her, and she'd never been able to tell him his soulmate, or even if his thread was broken at all. He knew she felt sorry–whenever she told him again what she had before, she had a strange look on her face. Sad, yes, pitying, but also deeply guilty, as if it was somehow her fault that she couldn't tell him.

It wasn't her fault, though. It wasn't as if she was lying to him. What was there to lie about? He was just a very strange, rare case like she said.

But, what if–

Suddenly, the strangest, craziest idea came into his mind. What if she had been lying to him the entire time? What if she was his soulmate?

She had certainly looked panicked the first time she read his thread. She was used to giving people bad news–what reason would she have to be so alarmed? He had always thought she just felt sorry for him, but now he realized it had been different than that. It went way beyond the regret of telling him he'd have to wait a few years to have his string read. It was more than that. She had realized he was her soulmate, and hadn't known what to do. And who could blame her? Everyone knew the thread-mage must remain withdrawn from society.

He knew he had to talk to her. He had to see if he was right. But his parents wouldn't let him go. Not when they were awake. His only choice was to go now, and be back before they were up.

It was a little past midnight. He dressed quickly and tiptoed through the house, going out the back way so as not to go past his parents' room. He wove through the small trees and piles of junk and lumber in the backyard, making his way out to the dirt road.

He followed the familiar path across town, more quickly than usual. Everything looked different at night, and it was much colder than he had expected. He could see his breath in the air. But that didn't stop him.

When he arrived, he realized the flaw in his plan. He had no idea what to do now. She was probably asleep, and who knew where she was in the enormous house. How would he wake her?