Soulmates. (Harry Styles) -completed-

♥-chapter one-♥

I woke up from the old nightmare as the car drew to a halt and the engine fell silent. My head pressed against a cushion, sleep dragging on me like an anchor. It took me a while to remember where I was: not in that motorway service station, but in Colorado with my parents. Moving on. Moving in.

'What do you think?' Dean, as my dad preferred to be called, asked as he got out of the dodgy old Ford he'd bought in Denver. He threw his arms dramatically towards the house, waiting for our opinions. His long grey-streaked brown hair was getting loose from its tiein his enthusiasm to show off our new home. Pointy roof, clapboard walls, and grimy windows - it certainly did not look promising. I sat up and rubbed my eyes with a yawn, trying to drive off the gritty fear that remained after one of my dreams. 

'Oh, darling, it's wonderful,' Debbie, my mum, sighed with happiness. She refused to be daunted. Debbie had gotten out of the car and I followed, not sure if it was jetlag I was feeling, or if it was dreamlag.

While my parents focused on the house itself, I couldn't help my wondering eyes from finding the mountains behind - they were stunning, soaring impossibly high in the clear autumn sky, a dusting of white on their peaks. They rolled along the horizon like a tidal wave. These had to be the High Rockies I'd read about when my parents broke the news that we were moving from Richmond-on-Thames to Colorado. The reason we moved: they'd beeen offered a year as artists-in-residence in a new Arts Centre in a little town called Wrickenridge. 

When they presented me with the "good" news, I checked the town website was known for its three hundred incvhes of snow each year and not much else. While doing my research, I tried to understand more of how Americans lived: what school was like, what food they eat, and many more. School was what worried me the most. I'd seen many films about American schools - from Grease to High School Musical - and it made me feel more than a little insecure about my new place of education. Surely normal America teenagers got spots and wore crappy clothes sometimes? I'd never fit in if the movies turned out to be true - I'm just a typical teenager, nothing special. Nothing they'd like anyway.

'Okay,' said Dean, rubbing his hands on the thighs of his faded jeans, a habit that left every other item of clothing he owned smeared with oils. 'Let's go inside,' he suggested. 'Mr Reigns said he'd sent the decorators in for us. He promised they'd do the outside as soon as they could get to it.'

So that's why it looked like a dump.

Dean opened the front door. It sqeeked, but it didn't fall of its hinges, which I took as a little victory for us.  I quickly ran upstairs to have a nosy peak at the rooms, finding a turquoise one with a queen bed and a view of the peaks. Had to be mine. Maybe this wouldn't be so terrible after all.

I turned to my left to find a reflection of myself in the dusty mirror over the chest of drawers beside my bed. I approached, looking straight ahead with every step. I stopped, examining the pale solemn girl in front of me - is that truely what I looked like? She was staring at me with her dark blue eyes, looking ghostly in the half-light, her long brunette hair curling in unruly tendrils around her oval face. I could see how fragile she looked and could feel how alone she felt. 

I shivered. The dream was still haunting me, tugging me slowly back to the past. I had to stop thinking like this. People - teachers, friends, you name it - had told me I was prone to drifting off in melancholy daydreams. But they didn't understand that I felt ... I don't know ... somehow lacking. I was a mystery to myself - a bundle of fragmented memories and unexplored dark places. My head was full of secrets, but I'd lost the map showing me where to find them.

I dropped my hand from the cool glass and turned away from the mirror. I made my way downstairs to tell my parents which room I'd chosen. They were standing in the kitchen, wrapped up in each other as usual. They had that kind of relationship that was so complete, I often wondered how they made space for me.