Ailee was sure that this life was full of color and wonder. She just never got to see it. In this world, people lived oblivious to all the shades of the world until they touched the person they were destined to spend the rest of their lives with. To still be blind at 27, Ailee sighed internally, feeling the rush of wind the subway train had caused as it stopped. Remaining in her cold steel seat, Ailee waited patiently for the next train to pull in. Statistically speaking, she was still in the normal age range for people who had yet to meet their soulmates. Still that never eased her worries. Many of her friends had met their significant others in their final years of high school and in early college years. At this rate, she was beginning to think that maybe she’d never find them.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to never meet their other halves, some people just never found them no matter how hard they tried to travel the world in their search. She had a college professor a few years back that never met his soulmate. He never seemed bothered by it but if you ever asked him, he immediately switched topics to something else. She didn’t want to be like that. Constantly plagued with questions about what it’s like to live without ever having met her other. Seeing the dull matte of colors that could mean so much more to her.
She wanted to know them so bad. She wanted nothing more than to have someone to wake up next to, to have someone that would love her no matter what idiotic mistakes she made. To have someone she could have a future with. Exhaling sharply, she bent her head down and rested her elbows on her knees, cradling her head in her palms. Her mother constantly worried for her, and she was starting to understand why. This was consuming her completely.
    She had once asked her mother about the moment she had met her father.
                        ~~~
“ Well Ai, I was about 17 and I suppose at the time, your father would have been about 18.” Ailee stared up at her mother with wonder, at age 7 soulmates were her whole world.
“It seems a bit cliche now I suppose, but we bumped into each other in high school. Your father was a senior and I was a junior. I was a bit of a trouble maker before my last year and I had just been sent out of the class to go to the principal's office. As I was walking in, he was walking out.” Her mother chuckled a bit before continuing.
    “You know how sometimes when you’re about to walk into someone, you move to your right and they also move to your right. Well that’s exactly what we did. Ran smack into each other. It was actually quite funny until I took a good look at the man in front of me and at the brightness of my clothes. I had just ran directly into my soulmate. It was complete chance that I had been sent to the office and he had transferred schools on the same day at the same time.”
                        ~~~
Ailee held onto that story for years. Cherishing its beauty in her mind. She asked her mother many times over her years to tell her the story again and again. It never failed to please her. She was pulled back into reality when her train pulled up at the station, the screeching pulling her out of her more pleasant thoughts. She inhaled calmly, walked into a middle car and grabbed onto one of the shining poles.
    Her thoughts creeped back into her mind, they teased her, reminded her of her fears. That she would never get the opportunity to meet her other half. She really needed to sit down right about now. She spotted an open seat half way down the car, strided over, and seated herself as comfortably as she could in the stiff, poorly patterned chair.
What if she never found her other half? She was almost 30! She didn’t have much time left before she would no longer have ample opportunity to search for them. Oh God, she thought, what would people think of me? My parents would constantly be worrying, my friends would just look at me with pity all the time! Should I take sometime off? Travel the world and try to find them? No. No I need to take a deep breath and calm down. This needs to happen all on it’s own Ai, you can’t force this, no matter how much you want it. If you never meet them, so be it, that’s just how it was meant to go.
Ailee stretched her arms out, hoping she wouldn’t smack the person in front of her. Taking a look at her reflection in the window, she adjusted her curly “brown” hair. Whatever brown looked like. From what she got in grayscale, it didn’t look particularly interesting.
Union Station, next stop Union Station.
Might as well walk a little to clear my head before going home, she decided. Standing up, she tugged her her suit jacket down into its proper position and strode to the doors. I wonder if it’s anyone around me. Maybe I’ve known them for a while and we’ve just never touched. Mentally listing off friends and acquaintances she knew she had never had physical contact with, she zoned out and went to leave the train. Too absorbed in her mind, she remained completely oblivious to the young woman she was about to walk into.
“Oof!” They both let out, slamming their shoulders together.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry I wasn’t watching where I was going!” Ailee rambled in her embarrassment. The girl she had slammed into just stared at her wide eyed, then suddenly pulled Ailee onto the station she was about to get off at. Ailee thought maybe she was madder than she was letting on and was going to call her out on it, but she just stared at her without breaking eye contact. That's when she noticed. The girl’s clothes, so vibrant and completely random. Ailee’s head shot up and she scanned the subway stop. The concrete proved to be grey, but the signs for the stops had little colored letters. I wonder what those are called, she thought absent mindedly.
    Then the stranger blushed this strange dark color that Ailee couldn’t put her finger on. The reality of the situation came crashing down on Ailee. She had just ran straight into her soulmate in a grimy subway stop in D.C. Oh God of all the odds.
    “Um wow okay. Sorry about that!” the girl’s voice was like silk. She was going to have a hard time ever saying no to her if that was her regular voice.
    “No, no! It’s just as much my fault! If not more!” Ailee explained rapidly
    “My name’s Alec, what’s yours?” Alec beamed at her
    “Name’s Ailee, my friends call me Ai. Feel free to call me which ever you like.”
    “Well my darling Ai,” Ailee blushed furiously at her words, “I think it’s about time we got to know each other. I know a good coffee shop a few blocks away. Well I actually work there, was just headin’ back when I ran into you. I don’t think they’ll mind if I come back for a little bit though.” Alec held out her hand to Ailee
    “What’dya say Ai?” Ailee tilted her head, smiled brightly, and grasped Alec’s hand.
    “Coffee sounds great.”