The Open Door - Sean and Kaycee

1. Open Soul: Kaycee Rice

Kaycee

When a door closes, a window always opens.

I've seen a lot of closed doors in my life. They seem to follow me around, actually. At every turn, another closed door. Another head turned away. It's like I've been cursed to being perpetually locked out of my own life, but I've lost the keys to get back in. And perhaps it is my own fault, to some degree.

I left a comfortable home and an easy life in New York about a year ago. There were a lot of reasons for my leaving, but necessity was not one of them. I could have stayed, and I would have been fine. Unfulfilled, but still fine. But I didn't. Naively, I thought that the world was full of possibilities, that it was open and welcoming, at least more open and welcoming than my home was.

Unfortunately, the world has proved me wrong -- it's nothing more than one, gigantic locked door. There was another reason for leaving, or rather a catalyst for my leaving, something that was even more far-fetched and stupid, but I'm not going to dwell on it presently. It doesn't matter anymore.

What matters is that after I left home to pursue my "dreams", there was an inexplicable shift in the cosmos. Suddenly, the whole world had turned against me. A week after I left home, I wasn't welcome back there anymore. I vividly remember that last phone call with my mom, the screams that should have shattered the glass on my phone, but didn't somehow. Don't come back. We don't want you back here, you ungrateful little brat. Just like that, my home had become the first closed door in a long succession of botched opportunities.

Promptly after that call, I remember running to the nearest bank with the air of reckless abandon that only runaways can possess, withdrawing every penny that I've ever saved up, and deleting my account, as if that part of my life had never existed. The next day, I headed to the airport and bought a one-way ticket to LA.

As a dancer, you get used to being turned away, don't get me wrong. Opportunities are hard to come by. It's like scouring the streets for a twenty dollar bill -- you're not going to find it, even if you spend all day probing the gutter and looking through every nook and cranny.

When, by serendipitous chance, the rare opportunity comes by, you have to seize it. Yes, I'm used to that aspect of the trade. In fact, maybe I'm so used to failure that hopeless perseverance has become my greatest flaw. No matter how many doors get slammed in my face, I always manage to convince myself that another one will open up in due time.

But lately, it hasn't just been opportunities that are closed off to me. It's like the whole world is, all 7.4 billion of them. You can see it in their faces. An odd sort of glaze that comes over their features and shuts you out. It's been a long time since I've met someone willing to let me in. And believe me, I am so desperate for someone to welcome me into their hearts, instead of just leaving me out on the doormat in the cold.

Have I introduced myself? I'm Kaycee. A hopeless romantic, a total weirdo, a relentless optimist, and a wandering soul, looking for an open door to walk through.

**Hello world! I never thought that I would write a story, mostly because they've just never been my thing. Writing a story takes a certain willingness to depart from reality -- the ability to see the world not as it really is, but as you see it in your mind's eye. I can write essays about any non-fiction topic, but I've always been averse to making up worlds of my own.

But then I started to read Seaycee fanfics, and they really just blew me away. I realized that all of the inspiration that I needed was already there: in the beautiful relationship between these two amazing dancers.

Here are just a few disclaimers about my story/my writing style:

1) It isn't going to be chock-full of drama. I know that a lot of you guys (and admittedly me too) really enjoy drama, but I'm honestly incapable of writing believable and interesting drama. But I promise that there will be conflicts!

2) It's not going to be very long, at least chapter-wise. I'm always so impressed by people who can keep a story going for over 20 chapters, but personally, I'm pretty sure that I can't stay focused for that long, so it's probably going to read a lot more like a novella than a bonafide novel.

3) Lastly, I know that my style of writing is not very similar to a lot of other fanfictions, and I'm sorry about that. But I am totally open to suggestions, so please comment some feedback!

That's all for now. Thanks for letting me share this story with you :)