Discolored

4: My Soulmate Is Suspiciously Interested in the Dirt

NPOV

I don't know why the healer was marching up to me, but I was much too annoyed at being made the center of attention to care. I'm standing to leave when someone knocks into him, and he falls directly into me.

"Oof—"  I fall backward and hit the ground with a thud! At first, I'm breathless because the air has literally been knocked out of my lungs. I groan and stare up at the black sky, painfully aware of a pounding headache starting to form.

And then I shift so I can stand up, and the first thing after the sky that I see is the healer—

And I'm breathless for an entirely different reason.

He is full of colors. I don't have time to appreciate all of it because he's staring at the dirt, and the butterflies in my stomach turn to moths—why isn't he looking at me? Oh gods. If he wanted this, he would be looking at me. Why would someone refuse to look at their soulmate unless...

He's straight.

This was not a scenario that I had considered—that I might get a beautiful male soulmate, and he might not be capable of attraction to me. I'm an idiot. I had only ever considered what happens if I wasn't attracted to my soulmate. I had never thought about the possibility that I would find someone and they wouldn't want me. This is so much worse.

Terrified, I get to my feet, and I get out of there. I push through hoards of campers around the fire—which is red and orange, by the way—and then take off at a sprint toward my cabin. In the distance, I can see the strawberry fields—green—and in the other direction, the sea—blue. This is overwhelming. The whole camp is colorful—the flowers around the Demeter cabin are pink and green and yellow and purple. The Hephaestus cabin is a combinations of browns and reds, and the Poseidon cabin is so many shades of blue and green, and the Apollo cabin is bathed in yellow, and—

I stop at my cabin and stare up at it.

It's still mostly black. I had hoped it would have color like all the others. I was wishing that if I ever found my soulmate that I'd be able to stop at my cabin and soak in the reds and purples and greens, but instead it's all black and white. I guess I just shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

Refusing to let myself linger on the dismal state of my cabin, I hurry inside and close the door behind me. I lock it and then collapse onto my red and black bed to spend the rest of the night regretting that I ever went to that bonfire.

I'm lamenting the tragedy that has been this last half-hour when someone knocks on the black wood of my door. I would like to shadow travel to Antarctica and freeze to death so that I don't have to open that door. It could be the healer here to break the news that he's not attracted to men, so we should go our separate ways. It could be someone from camp who just has a burning hatred for queer people who's here to make my life feel like Tartarus.

Piper shouts at me from the other side of the door: "Nico, please open up! I just need to talk to you."

It is just now dawning on me that the entire convince-Nico-to-go-to-the-bonfire thing was never about helping some other poor soul find their soulmate—this was all a scheme against me, and they didn't tell me because they knew I wouldn't come if I knew. Did they think that all would be forgiven when I met my soulmate? Well, news flash, my soulmate doesn't even want to look in my direction! Great going, Aphrodite—you screwed up a pair of soulmates big-time.

I want to tell Piper to go away. I stand up to meet her at the door, but just as my hand touches the doorknob, my gut tells me to look through the peephole. I lean closer to check who's there—

Piper conveniently had not mentioned that she brought along the forlorn healer with her. I jerk my hand off the doorknob, suddenly very certain that opening this door is a bad idea.

"Nico, I'm sorry for helping to plan this," comes Piper's voice through the door again. "You know I wouldn't have done this unless I knew this would be your last chance—the whole Aphrodite cabin felt the window of opportunity for you two to meet was drawing to a close. Would you have preferred us to let both of you live the rest of your lives believing you had no soulmate at all?"

"Yes!" I argue. Can't she see the look on his face? Gods, he must hate me—I mean, who wants to be stuck in a soulmate relationship with someone they don't even like? This is a nightmare, and I wish I could undo all of it.

Piper is shocked into silence for a tense moment—and then she tries again, more gently this time: "I'm sorry. I should've known you weren't ready. Is there something I can do to make it up to you?"

Make it up to me? Make it up to the healer! He looks heartbroken.

But I don't say any of that. Instead, I say, "I don't think so, Piper." And I bolt the door.

A/N:

Word Count: 897

As always, let me know what you think, and don't forget to vote :) It means more to authors than you probably realize!

Thanks for reading!

Yours,

Sunny