Archive of Our Own

Veronica’s colour had always been red.

Ever since she was a kid and would grab at any red clothes that her parents were wearing because she couldn’t get the words out. She was drawn to stop signs, red lights, big buses that scared her but she didn’t want to stop looking at the way they stood out against the dull grey world.

Her parents see all colours.

They’re in love.

They told her about soulmates and how the colours worked when she was five, she didn’t quite understand, but she was excited nonetheless. They told her how you can only see colours when you’re in love and they love you back, unrequited and friends do not count. They told her how the colour that she sees is the one that most associate with her soulmate.

She loved the idea of soulmates, the romanticism associated with it, one person to spend the rest of your life with, her parents were soulmates after all.

That made kiddy Veronica happy.

Teenager Veronica, not so much.

When she was little she would gravitate toward the colour, it was a beacon of her future happiness. She would paint her nails or wear different reds all over, as if her colour would be the exact same as her soulmate’s – she didn’t think these things through see,  she was a kid. She loved the idea of meeting someone and falling in love and kissing and suddenly seeing the whole world with different eyes.

When you’re a child where soulmates exist, soulmates are all you can talk about.

But then she grew up.

Red was everywhere. Figuring it out was one of the many things that made Veronica start to hate the colour.

If red takes up half the world? Then how will she narrow down her soulmate? How will she find the love her parents have? Marriages between those who aren’t soulmates are practically unheard of and the divorce rate among those skyrocket.

She began to hate the way red looked against her skin, not that she knew what her skin looked like. Apart from the one time she got so sunburnt when her parents went to Greece that she could see her blank skin suddenly turn an odd shade of red that she hadn’t seen before.

She hated the way that her first period stood out against the toilet paper, that she saw the splash of blood against the gravel in the playground when Ram and Kurt beat up an innocent year 8 for no other reason than because she could.

Red is a violent colour, blood and bruises and burns are all red.

She hated the way that it was such a contrast to the rest of the world. She envied people like Betty, whose colour was pink, and Martha’s whose colour was purple. There wasn’t pink and purple everywhere, they were only in soft toys, kids clothes and sometimes along the spines of books – Martha always loved to tell Veronica where her she could see purple, as it barely showed up anywhere. Veronica would do the same, buses and Dr. Seuss books, red sunsets (‘Shepherd delight’ Martha would always chip in) that woman’s lipstick two seats down from Veronica when they were on the Central line – which is also red. The rarer the colour, the easier to pinpoint your soulmate.

She hates the way that it’s all that people can talk about.

There’s more to life than seeing colour, she knows, her Uncle has never found his soulmate and he’s as happy as can be. Just live your goddamn life without hanging onto the belief that they’ll just walk into your life. Courtney talks about how she wants to meet her soulmate, how she imagines he looks, Kurt and Ram talk at length about how they reckon sex is better with your soulmate.

Everyone is obsessed with it and she just wants it all to stop, fuck the colours and fuck soulmates.

Everyone tries to describe what each colour looks like to each other, it’s the worst week in English. She remembers vividly telling her teacher that her colour was red and she lit up. ‘Oh Veronica, it’s such a striking colour. Red is passionate and loving but also anger and hate…’ Veronica quickly tuned out what the woman was saying and day dreamed out the window instead.

Martha and Betty fell in love in year 13 and saw the colours of the fireworks on bonfire night and Veronica smiled for them, but she couldn’t help the jealousy bubbling at her core. She only saw red explode that night, it was the perfect contrast to the dark sky. Fireworks must’ve been invented for lovers, she remembers thinking wryly.

They were to kind to her about it though, they helped her chose clothes that went well against her skin, she learnt that she has brown eyes and black hair and that blue was the best colour for her.

Martha told her that blue is the colour of the sky, that made teenage Veronica feel better.

By the time Veronica grew up her animosity toward red died down, the rage she felt when she was younger was replaced by apathy. She’s not sure she needs a soulmate, she’s had a few relationships that lasted fine without the ideas of soulmates clouding her judgement. Part of that is getting out of London for University, red is everywhere is London, mainly because buses make up a majority of the city. Between buses and traffic lights and tube lines and people dressed crazily in Camden – if she felt overwhelmed with one colour she couldn’t imagine how Betty and Martha felt, thankfully they never told her after the time she blew up angry drunk at one of their hangouts, they don’t talk about it.

But in Cardiff?

Red comes from the University banner which, admittedly threw her off at first, but she grew to like it, she felt happy that when she crossed the stage three years later that she understood the colours that she was wearing. Cardiff City’s uniform is blue, the only red comes from Christmas decorations, but she’s back home by then so she doesn’t mind that much.

Also University is the time where people learn to grow the hell up and have a shitty time, so she does that, she tried to keep her rants about the soulmate system and how she hated her colour to herself and she learnt that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Because a girl’s boyfriend died halfway through Veronica’s second year, she could hear her screams from across the campus from when the girl’s world suddenly turned from colours to grey and a new colour, the one not related to her lost love. Veronica learnt that the Universe can be cruel and that soulmates can be replaced, but only the hard way, so she changed her tune, turned it to apathy.

A soulmate’s not the be all and end all, it just makes getting dressed a bit easier.

She graduates, moves back home and becomes an intern at a newspaper she hates, but at least she has a job so she counts herself lucky, slightly. She gets weekly calls from Martha and Betty in Norfolk with their dogs barking in the background – they own an antique shop in a small town and Veronica visits them whenever she’s allowed to take the car for a weekend. She moves in with a guy from Uni who she became friends with, JD.

She realises the way people looks at soulmates changes as they grow up. As a kid, you’re full of wonder, always thinking that your childhood boyfriend is secretly your soulmate but by the third hidden kiss behind the bike sheds you realise that it can’t be. Everyone talks about them, something she hated, but as an adult you don’t start conversations talking about the colours. You don’t ask people about it until you know each other. It’s just social etiquette, one that she doesn’t half mind, but is irritating when you complain about your colour at work and people side-eye you for no reason.

So she doesn’t focus on childhood superstitions, she focuses on her life.

Until a woman moves in down the hall.

--

The first time Veronica sees the woman, she notices that she’s wearing red.

A lot of it.

It makes her slightly light headed.

Red shoes, a red shirt, dark blazer and trousers, red shoes. Her lipstick is somehow the same colour as her shirt, she’s either able to see it all or knows someone who does. Red stopped getting her attention years ago but something about this woman is drawing her in, she wants to know her, know about her.

She wants to know how she takes her coffee, if she has one or two pillow on her bed, if she can cook, what does she drink? All of those stupid things that make a person a person.

All of these wants fly through Veronica’s head so quickly that she’s pretty sure that it’s only been two seconds.

The woman notices Veronica staring slightly and she smiles with red painted lips.

“I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself.” The woman says, holding out a hand, her voice is authoritarian but not so much that Veronica feels the need to fight back. She’s from London too, or at least somewhere South, her voice is clear and with the long ‘a’s that Veronica normally finds a bit too posh but she quite like the way it sounds from Heather’s mouth. Veronica shakes her hand.

“Heather Chandler, I moved in last week.”

“Veronica Sawyer, I moved in two years ago.” Heather raises a perfectly sculpted brow at that and smiles slightly. That was such a pillowcase thing to say Sawyer, get a grip.

“Well, as nice as this has been, I must be off.” With that then she turns and is wearing a red scrunchie holding up curls of grey hair that Veronica wants to run her hands through.

When Veronica gets into her flat, she takes a second, leaning against the door, taking a second to breathe. She wipes the woman from her mind, that’s a lie, but small ones like those don’t hurt anyone, and starts working on editing some text that her boss wants in the next day. Something about the economy and Government spending and things that she probably should find more interesting given that she’s an adult who should care about these things but this particular evening, it is the most boring and least interesting thing she’s ever read through in her life.

 JD works on the night shift for some security company and comes stumbling in an hour later, still half asleep, when Veronica starts cooking pasta, with lots of Oregano, for herself while he gets some cereal.

“Morning, Sawyer.” He says through a yawn as she drains the water from her spaghetti.

“Evening JD, how d’ya sleep?”

“Very mediocre, bub, very mediocre.” She nods to that. “Smith still a jerk?”

“Smith’s always a jerk but he’s a jerk that pays me so I can’t complain too much. Thank God it’s Friday though.”

“Hey, some of us work on Friday evenings.”

“Sounds like a you problem for working nights.” JD rolls his eyes and takes a bite of his cereal, he puts a whole load of milk in so his cereal all wet and gross. Veronica will defend that dry cereal beats soggy cereal every day.

“Wanna watch Gavin and Stacey?”

God yes, one of the few series that Veronica will happily re-watch around a billion times. Plus JD always likes to point out how he grew up a few miles away from Barry and starts to reminisce slightly, which always leads to a fun evening. They end up sitting in front of the Christmas episode where they all get completely wasted while being, unfortunately, sober and eating from their respective bowls.

“What do you know about our new neighbour? The one who wears red?”

“You know the whole soulmate thing where we can only see one colour?” She rolls her eyes and gives JD a small shove, to which he makes a dramatic gasp.

“Okay, smartass. Heather, the one two doors down.”

“Yeah, I see her now and again, she seems uptight.”

“Dude!” Veronica says, her voice raising slightly.

“What? Who buttons their blazer the entire way down?” JD defends himself, shrugging as he focuses on the TV.

“Okay, you make a fair point, but it’s an unfair statement.”

“Whatever, why you invested?”

“I don’t know, I was drawn to her I guess?”

“That’s gay.”

“That’s homophobic.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Incorrect, I am your best friend.”

“You can be annoying and my best friend.”

“You make a good point.”

“But seriously, you know how most people feel about dating outside of the whole soulmates business.”

“I never said I wanted to date her, I just said that I was drawn to her.”

“Yeah, that’s the kinda shit that people say when they want to date someone.”

“I don’t wanna-“

“Sure. Just talk to her next time you pass her in the hall.”

“I would, except I just tried and it was like my head was full of sand.”

“Just focus on one thing, and keep staring, like her eyes.” He says this like he’s had an epiphany, his eyes widening slightly and his mouth moving into one of those shark-like grins that he normally wear. “Eyes can’t be red right? Just stare there and say what you wanna say.”

“I guess I’ll give it a try.”

“There ya go.” He claps her on the shoulder and they go back to watching and eating until JD, who does this almost every day, forgets what time it is and has to rush having a shower and run out the flat with a yelled goodbye to Veronica who, at this point is in her Halloween boxers/big t-shirt combo of pyjamas.

Veronica would like to say that Heather isn’t in her head, but that would be a straight up lie. Get a grip, she thinks to herself, she only talked to the other woman for all of two minutes and she made a fool of herself – it’s not like Heather’s gonna want to talk to her, she seems like the kinda person who has their life together. She rolls around in her bed, trying to stop the woman in red from entering her thoughts every two seconds but it’s hard when her voice was slightly in hot in the way that she kinda made fun of Veronica and her eyes looked lovely even though she couldn’t tell what colour they were.

She needs to stop this nonsense and get to sleep.

And so she sleeps.

(But she thinks of Heather a bit longer.)

--

Veronica wakes up to a persistent knocking on the door.

Figuring it’s just JD forgetting his keys, she gets out of her bed grumbling and rubbing her eyes. She knocks her toe against her doorframe when a second wave of knocks hits her door. She’s going to kill that man.

“JD, I swear to God-“ All of her words die on her tongue when she sees it’s Heather on the other side of the door. Veronica can’t help the small amount of disappointment when she sees that the woman’s lips aren’t painted red today and the only red comes in the form of her nails on her hands that are wringing together slightly.

“Uh, hey?” Veronica says, staring at Heather’s eyes, the way that JD told her too last night, no mush brain today. But then Heather bites her lip and Veronica is far too interested in the movement.

“Can you bake?” She doesn’t even say hi, she just asks. Despite some sort of nervousness being apparent through her hands, her eyes and steely and cold through their grey nature.

“Uh, vaguely?” She remembers baking with her Mum for various birthdays for Aunts and Uncles and Dad, it’s not that hard surely.

“Can you help me?” She asks, Veronica is starting to hate JD’s advice of staring at Heather’s eyes because they’re goddamn dangerous. They’re making Veronica want to tell her everything she knows, they’re pulling her in.

“Sure.” Is what she gets out, she’s not too sure she can handle much else in the other woman’s presence. She starts to turn but notices Veronica still standing in her doorway.

“Are you coming?”

“Let me get some trousers on first.”

She looks down and it must be the first time she realises Veronica’s attire and her cheeks fill with a bit of red.

“Come in, I’ll be two secs.” Veronica says, all but running back to her room, shit. She puts on a pair of sweatpants and some socks and grabs some mouthwash before heading back out. Heather’s standing slightly uncomfortably in the small hallway by the door, arms crossed. That’s when Veronica sees what she’s wearing, jeans, tight jeans and a baggy t-shirt that’s tucked into them, it’s stupidly cute.

They make eye contact, Veronica makes an awkward hand gesture toward the door, Heather’s lips curl up slightly and they leave the flat. Heather’s flat is just what she anticipated it would be like, tidy, neat, long planes of one shade of grey. There’s art on the wall, it’s red and Veronica can’t help but squint at the brightness of it. Heather shows her the kitchen, it’s the opposite of the rest of the flat. It’s messy, there’s a black lump of something in a cake tin, even though she can’t see colours, she knows the difference between chocolate and vanilla and she hopes that Heather didn’t make a vanilla sponge that dark.

“Oh dear.” Is what slips out of Veronica’s mouth, her eyes widen and she immediately regrets saying it when she sees Heather’s face falling.

“It’s my best friends birthday and I’m awful at presents so I wanted to bake but I can’t bake and now it’s a mess.”

She’s staring at the floor with her eyebrows furrowed and she looks so crestfallen that Veronica tries to remember all the times she helped her Mum bake. She has to help, to make her smile, to make the best friends birthday wonderful. She puts up her hair into a messy bun, Heather’s eyes follow her movements and it makes her stomach jump.

“What’s the recipe?” Heather shows her the classic Mary Berry recipe, the one that all mothers have in a notebook somewhere. “Let’s make a cake.” She smiles reassuringly at the other woman and she attempts a small smile back.

That’s what they do, Veronica measures the dry ingredients while Heather greases the tin, the silence isn’t awful, but it isn’t exactly comforting, especially in the way that Heather’s back looks like she’s gotten a plank of wood surgically put there for perfect posture.

“So, uh, how do you match your lipstick to your shirts?” Is what she eventually comes up with, she’s beating the butter, sugar and flour together while saying this, focusing on what’s in the bowl rather than Heather’s reaction.

“You know that soulmate stuff is meant to be talked about around a year into a friendship.” Her voice is wry and slightly teasing and Veronica feels her stomach drop.

“Oh fuck, I didn’t mean-“

“It’s alright, it’s refreshing. Everyone walks on eggshells around the topic nowadays.” The way Heather says it makes Veronica smile, finally someone else who doesn’t understand the pedestal soulmates get put on. The blasé nature in which Heather talks about it makes Veronica’s heart skip a beat.

“Yeah, as kids it was all anyone could talk about, everyone would tell each other what their colours were, it was nauseating.”

“And now no one talks about it, it’s become taboo.”

Veronica nods in agreement, cracking the eggs into the bowl. They’re getting along! Thank God, Veronica’s not the best at speaking on good days, let alone with people she finds attractive.

“But I haven’t met my soulmate if that’s what you’re asking. How did you know?” She speaks brusquely, watching Veronica beat it all together.

“Uh, red’s my colour.”

Heather hums at that, watching as Veronica brushes her hands on a tea towel she threw over her shoulder. Veronica can always feel her eyes on her, it’s like a sixth sense or something. She turns and makes eye contact with her, without saying anything. Veronica’s glad that Heather can’t see red because she’s pretty sure her cheeks are glowing with the colour. She finally breaks eye contact and clears her throat, willing her heart to stop beating so goddamn fast.

“Do you have a, uh, mixer? One of the electric ones?”

“Am I supposed to use one of them?”

“Uh, yeah? It says here to mix until it’s smooth.”

“I thought they were just guidelines?”

“A recipe?”

“Well, I don’t do it with cooking.”

“Cooking and baking are completely different.”

“Are they really?”

“Totally, you’ve gotta be precise, this is science goin on in that cake tin, you’re not boiling water and sticking pasta in it.” She can’t deny that her voice starts to raise a little bit and she gets into the fact that baking is important. Veronica looks at Heather after focusing on the bowl of cake-mix to see her stifling a smile, her shoulders shaking from repressed laughter. It makes Veronica smile which makes Heather break and she starts laughing, lovely, loud chuckles and a smile that makes her entire face scrunch up and it’s so adorable compared to the ‘step on me’ vibes she was giving off the previous evening.

“I’ve never seen anyone get so heated about baking.”

“What, you’ve never seen bake-off?”

“It seems boring.”

“Once we’re done with this we’re watching it.”

“Are we?” She’s teasing Veronica slightly, but she doesn’t mind, watching a wholesome TV show with someone who is not only crazy beautiful, but nice and you get along well? Sounds like a great Saturday.

“Yes, we are.”

--

They’re halfway through their third episode, and seventh cup of tea, when Heather speaks. The cake is cooling and Heather gave a very uncharacteristic squeal at the fact that it wasn’t burnt to a crisp and looked like it may taste vaguely like a cake.

“My colour’s blue.” Veronica barely hears her over the sound of Mel and Sue laughing at each other, but she does and she answers just as quietly, not wanting to ruin the moment that’s been created.

“What is blue?”

“The sky, the sea, it’s a common colour, lot’s of people wear it. I can see my eyes though, that’s nice.”

Veronica wishes she could see her eyes.

“What’re they like?”

“They’re light blue.”

Veronica hums then laughs at herself slightly.

“I don’t know why I’m acting like I know what blue looks like.”

That makes Heather laugh slightly too, quieter than before, instead of a full cackle, it’s a small, almost giggle-like laugh that makes Veronica’s heart soar.

“What time is it?”

She eventually has to face an area that isn’t Heather’s sofa and get some work done for the following week.

“Almost twelve.” Heather says, checking a battered phone with a small frown on her face. That frown is what compels Veronica to stay for one more episode.

“Eh, I’ve got time. If you don’t mind.”

“That’d be nice. It’s not gonna be the same without your riveting comments.” Heather says sarcasm filling her tone as she takes a sip of her, disgusting, plain black tea. She even left the tea bag in for about 5 minutes longer than Veronica. She expressed her disgust at the drink to which Heather raised her eyebrows and nodded toward her milk, two sugar tea; they had a small argument about the best teas shortly after that. She still can’t believe that Heather adores Earl Grey, ‘and I thought we could be friends’ Veronica had melodramatically said while Heather rolled her eyes and dragged Veronica to her sofa.

“Hey! You laugh at my riveting comments.”

She rolls her eyes and they focus on the technical challenge taking place on the screen. Veronica wants to say something but she doesn’t know what. Her tongue feels heavy and she quickly shoots down any ideas of conversation because they sound stupid or boring and she’s pretty sure Heather would wrinkle her nose and look confused at half the attempts that Veronica is hatching.

“You okay? I can almost hear you thinking.”

“Yeah I’m good, just having a think about all of the work I’ve got lined up next week.” She lies, Heather doesn’t seem to completely buy it but her eyes slide back to the screen.

“Work is gross.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“What do you do?” Heather says, finishing her tea.

“I’m, uh, an intern at the Telegraph.” Heather makes a face. “Before you say anything, I do not agree with the papers’ political views, I needed a job and they payed the best.”

“Can’t fault you for that.”

“What about you?”

“I work for a bank, it’s boring. Trust me, you do not want me to get into it.”

“I was always bad at maths.”

That makes Heather do that small giggle again.

“I was always bad at English.” She offers in return and Veronica can’t help the smile that comes on her face. The next episode ends far too quickly and Veronica’s leg starts bouncing as they reach the end, she really doesn’t want to go. She likes the talking now and again and the tea drinking and Heather offering small chunks of her life to her and she just wants to know everything about her, okay that sounded creepy, but it didn’t mean to be.

“I best be off.” Heather sighs.

“Fair enough, I gotta decorate that cake.”

Ahh, the cake that brought Veronica into Heather’s wonderful world. She walks over to the door, Heather following.

“Thanks for helping me.”

“No problemo.” She awkwardly finger guns at Heather and Veronica wishes that the ground would swallow her up but Heather looks at her with a smile on her face and she finds that the ground that she’s on is actually working fine. She leaves and starts walking down the hallway before turning back, Heather’s still leaning in the doorway, watching Veronica get home.

“Hey, uh, would you like to get dinner at some point? It could be reparations for the cake.”

Heather smiles.

“I’d like that.”

--

Dinner becomes a weekly thing.

Every Thursday Veronica goes over to Heather’s flat with wine, or beer, or tequila once, whatever Heather texts her to buy on the way home from work. The first time was a bit stilted, like when they were watching bake-off, but it quickly changed into something new and exciting and it was nice to have another good friend. It also doesn’t hurt that, although Heather is complete trash at baking, she is one hell of a cook and she gets kick out of surprising Veronica every week. She’s a fiend with spicy food, she can handle it most weeks, but now and again she’ll make it too spicy and laughs when Veronica starts chugging milk.

One evening she opens Heather’s door, because she never locks it and it gives Veronica a nervous breakdown and she tells her to lock her goddamn door every time she leaves and Heather always rolls her eyes and promises too – but she’s never sure that she does. Anyway, one evening she opens Heather’s door with a pricey ten quid bottle of red wine, because Heather had found out about her affinity for spaghetti with oregano, to find Heather shouting down the phone, so bloody angry that Veronica is almost sure that she’s going to pop a blood vessel.

“Look through them again, I’m not the accountant for that account Jerry! I don’t care, if you fuck up, I’m the one that will get in trouble.” She’s pacing around her living room, in a red blouse that’s tied tightly around her forearms and Veronica can’t help but stare slightly at the way her muscles ripple a bit in the low light of the flat. There’s a passion in her anger that Veronica doesn’t quite understand but it does something to her heart. Then she runs her hand through some stray bits of hair that have fallen out of her ponytail and Veronica thought that the butterflies in her stomach couldn’t get worse but it’s like they’ve procreated and made it even worse for her.

“Do it Jerry, or your body will be found in the Thames and there will be no way that they can trace it back to me.”

That’s when Veronica’s year 10 English teacher’s voice drifts into her mind for a second: ‘red is passionate and loving but also anger and hate’. The fact that that came into her head is enough for her to almost drop the bottle of wine and run back to her flat and hide under her covers, but she shakes that feeling because she really likes having Heather as a friend, even if the idea of staying just friends lodges into her heart like a bit of glass that’s stuck there. If Heather is her soulmate, she doesn’t want to think about it, can’t think about it, soulmates are not her thing.

Although she’s kind of started to like the colour a bit.

It looks good on Heather.

She hates that’s she’s started to like it again, some part of her loves the idea of dismissing soulmates as a whole,  but she’s fighting with the part that’s falling halfway in love with the other woman.

Heather hangs up the phone letting out a grunt of irritation and then turns to see Veronica, who waves awkwardly at the other woman. She smiles like seeing Veronica just made her day and fuck Veronica thought that her butterflies were bad before but they’re worse and that bit of glass digs into her heart just a bit more.

“Ronnie.” She breathes, oh, and that’s a new thing. Heather calls her Ronnie and every time she calls her it, Veronica feels like she can’t breathe because she’s always hated being called that but when Heather says it, it feels like it just makes sense. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had, I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“So have I.” Veronica smiles, it’s true, she has, every Thursday, she finds herself counting down until she can go to Heather’s flat for dinner. That makes Heather’s relaxed smile fall more into a bashful one and Veronica can see the red rising in her cheeks. She dramatically fake clicks her knuckles while walking toward her kitchen.

“Spaghetti with oregano coming up.” She says with a cheeky smile, hip bumping Veronica and taking the bottle of wine while she walks past. Veronica rolls her eyes at her antics and starts sitting in the two or three bar stools that lie next to the kitchen.

Veronica loves watching Heather cook, she loves watching the precise and content way that she chops onions and garlic and how she drifts around the kitchen so easily. She loves the way that she can see the tomato sauce and the way it bubbles with bits of oregano in it.

No surprise, but it’s delicious, they’ve almost finished the bottle of wine and they’re laughing so easily and it feels so easy that Veronica desperately doesn’t want anything to change, while also wanting everything to change. Heather’s cheeks are slightly red from the wine and Veronica’s pretty sure hers are too. Just like every week, Veronica offers to wash up and Heather refuses and they end up piling the plates in the sink and sitting on Heather’s sofa, with another bottle of wine open.

“What’s the worst part of seeing blue?” Veronica ends up asking after they’ve calmed down from a story of JD, somehow, dunking on Betty when they snuck into the basketball courts by the Primary school down the road but then they got caught and Veronica remembers the way that Betty’s blood stood out from the pavement when she scraped her knee but, for once, it never bothered her.

“Most days, I can’t see the sky, plus it’s a colour that pops up everywhere, I don’t know how I’m supposed to find my soulmate.”

Fuck Veronica wishes she could see her eyes.

“That’s the reason I started to hate red.” Heather’s eyes bore into Veronica’s after she admits that, there’s a small amount of betrayal in her statement, she can tell from Heather’s eyes. They can’t break eye contact, it’s like a string pulling them together, until Heather breaks the moment, taking a sip of wine.

“What’s the worst thing about red?”

“It’s everywhere, like you said, but also, it pops out. It’s blood, you know, my first period was a shock, whenever people get hurt I can only see their blood and, I don’t like it.” She stares at the wine sloshing around in her glass and Heather’s hand holds hers and gives it a squeeze, Veronica nods.

“Anyways,” Veronica shakes her head, plastering a smile onto her face. “tell me more about Uni Heather Chandler.” Heather looks slightly confused at the quick change in topic but she doesn’t say anything as she slips her hand from Veronica’s and suddenly she’s really damn cold and missing the feel of her soft hand on hers.

“I was just out the closet, just kicked out of my house-“

“Oh shit I’m sorry, we can talk about something else if you want-“

Veronica had expected a cute story about her and Mac and Duke getting wasted and doing stupid shit then going to 9ams completely hungover from the night before. She didn’t mean to open any doors that she wanted closed or to pry where Heather didn’t want anything. God, she hopes that she didn’t ruin her friendship with her being an idiot-

“Ronnie,” her voice is reassuring at Veronica’s mini-freak out. “I trust you, besides my therapist says I should be able to open up about it.” Veronica nods and places her glass on Heather’s fancy glass coffee table.

“Yeah so, I was living wherever Mac – the friend we made the cake for – lived. She’s always had such a big heart.” She says with a small fond smile on her face, it makes the corner of Veronica’s mouth twitch slightly. “Yeah, so I was at Mac’s trying to keep my head afloat over all of my assignments and social life and still reeling from how my parents, well Dad, treated me. But, I got through it, and I was able to live a life without him in my life and I’m happy now, so happy. If I hadn’t told him who I am then I would still be miserable, sure it hurt, it really fucking hurt but in the long run I’m so much happier.”

“I’m proud of you.” Is all Veronica says, she’s not sure it’s the right thing to say but Heather gives her a hug so she’s sure that it was pretty okay. Her arms wrap around Veronica’s waist and she smells like her shampoo and her arms are so strong and Veronica could just lose herself in Heather.

They talk for hours, until Veronica yawns five times in two minutes and Heather practically tells her to go to bed. It feels like their relationship has shifted even more than it already has. They hug goodbye and they end up being really close, like close enough that Veronica is pretty sure that if she was able to see colours that she could see all of the different blues in Heather’s eyes.

Then she jerks away and waves at Heather and reminds her to lock her door and then she walks back to her flat.

She dreams of Heather as she sleeps.

--

Veronica and JD are coming back from a trip to see the back-to-back Terminator extravaganza, full of beers from the closest pub and smiling from seeing Linda Carter completely re-affirm their sexualities when they see Heather going into her flat.

“Hey Heather.” Veronica waves at the other woman while JD gives her a salute.

“Ronnie! JD! Hey, I’ve been meaning to text you, I’m having a birthday party next Saturday, I’d love it if you’d come. It’s from 8 until midnight at my flat.” She gives Veronica one of those smiles that makes that piece of glass in her heart lodge further into it.

“We’d love to.” She smiles back, and Heather opens her flat, with a key, she must’ve remembered to lock the door for once. JD manages to open the door and then stumble in, the beer must’ve gone to their head more than they anticipated. They both giggle at the fact that they almost fell over each other and go to the kitchen for snack foods.

“I’ve started to like red again, I don’t like it.” Veronica feels tears spring to her eyes, this is gross and disgusting, she doesn’t want to feel like this. She doesn’t want that desire to find her soulmate, she hates that she’s started liking red again. “It’s all Heather’s fault.”

“Don’t go blaming it on Heather, it’s nice to have a friend that isn’t me or the stereotypical lesbians dear.”

“But that’s the thing! I don’t wanna be friends, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Heather.”

“I know darling, I could tell from when you asked about the woman in red a few doors down.” He says, a mouth full of Doritos. She hits him in shoulder with the hand that’s not holding a packet of cheddar cheese. She’s sitting on the countertops and JD is leaning against the fridge.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He says dramatically back.

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do?” Her head hits the cabinets above her, ouch, that’s going to bruise.

“You can either continue in great amounts of pain, tell her the truth, or repress that shit.”

“I am very good at repressing feelings.”

“It’s not healthy though.”

“Being healthy is overrated.” She says, before shoving cheese in her mouth, JD looks at her with a fearful expression on his face. She right though, she is good at avoiding feelings, if she were in the Olympics for the sport of repression she would get a gold medal. There’s a part of her that knows she’s wrong though, she should at least acknowledge her feelings in a proper capacity.

“You scare me.” She’d love to say that he’s afraid of how much cheese she’s consuming, but she knows that it’s from her statement before.

“I’m right though.”

“Yeah, for now, but in a few weeks, a few months, you might regret that choice.”

She hates how JD is kinda right.

No, she despises how she is completely correct.

--

Veronica may or may not be freaking out a bit about the party.

She doesn’t know why, she’s been to Heather’s flat countless times, she’s spent a lot of time there, she’s gained a valuable friend – ouch. She chalks it down to finally meeting the famous Mac and Duke and lots of alcohol and the objective is getting drunk rather than getting casually tipsy and spilling your deepest darkest secrets because it’s gay trauma sharing hours.

JD’s wearing full black, not that Veronica can really tell but the lack of shades makes it kinda obvious, she’s wearing something that she knows she looks good in, dress pants and a plain t-shirt. She doesn’t know what colour the shirt is but it contrasts enough in terms of grey that she guesses that it’s not the worst. Also the t-shirt is tight around her biceps and it makes her feel slightly more confident.

They’re late, but not crazy late, late enough to be cool but not to be rude.

They knock with a bottle of the vodka with the red label that Veronica knows that Heather likes, even though it tastes nothing like Strawberries, as the label claims. Heather’s real present is pressing against Veronica’s pocket, but she wants to give it to her privately, away from the prying eyes of the party.

Heather opens the door with a surprisingly open smile, the soundtrack of the party spilling into the hall for a second, she smiles even wider at seeing them and pulls them in, giving them separate hugs and laughing slightly at the vodka.

“You hate this shit.” She laughs.

“Yeah, well you like it.” Veronica scratches the back of her neck, Heather’s eyes follow the movement.

“Come mingle.” She grabs Veronica’s hand, who grabs JD’s and they get brought further into the flat.

“Is this the famous ‘Ronnie’?” A woman with a smirk on her face asks Heather, who blushes and whacks her on the arm. She’s reclining on the sofa, with a comforting arm around another woman, who’s practically brimming with excitement, a wide smile on her face.

“Be nice Duke.” Ah, so this is Duke. From Heather’s stories this makes sense, a woman with a wicked tongue and sarcastic, mean sense of humour that you can’t help but guffaw at.

“Hey! I’m Mac, thanks for the cake.” The woman next to Duke says.

“Uh, no problemo.” Duke snorts into her drink at that, Mac (not so subtly) elbows her.

“Hey, I made that cake too.”

“You decorated it, Veronica made it, you set fire to cookies in Uni, don’t act like you could actually make a cake.” Duke offers and Mac smiles at her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. All the previous bravado and cockiness seems to shatter at the sign of affection and Veronica can see red in her cheeks.

“I, uh, thanks.” Is all she says, grabbing on of the many cans of cider on the table and opening it.

Very quickly one cider turns into four and Veronica is tipsy and getting along really well with Duke and JD and Mac are dancing and Heather is laughing from across the room and every time she does Veronica feels herself smile.

“Do you know how me and Mac found out we were in love?”

“Uh, no?”

“Well, I knew I loved her, but she’s so goddamn nice to everyone I thought that I was just another friend to her. And then we were hanging out at Heather’s and we ended up talking, a lot, Heather had gone to sleep but we just talked. And that’s when I knew, because she wasn’t putting on a smile, she wasn’t talking at a million miles an hour, we were talking. And she tilts her head,” she points over to where JD and her have started talking for a second, Mac’s head tilted to the right and nodding at something JD is saying, it looks like a story from the way his arms are flailing. “just like that and I knew, she loves me and you know, once love is requited you start to see. Imagine Heather waking up and finding us all cuddling up, she rolled her eyes, said finally and cooked breakfast.”

“Sounds like her.”

“What I’m saying is that Heather doesn’t ask for help.”

“The morning after you first talked, she asked you for help.”

“And you’re telling me this why?”

“Because she’s stupid, she not only doesn’t know that she likes you, but she also think that you think about her romantically.”

“I don’t-“

“Please, the woman’s obsessed with red, your colour is red. Also the way you look at her is quite frankly gross.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What colour is this t-shirt.” Duke smirks then makes eye contact with her and Veronica feels like she knows the answer before she even says it.

“Blue.”

Veronica takes a gulp from her drink and moves towards Heather.

“Hey, uh, can I give you your present.”

“You mean the vodka?”

“No.”

She takes Veronica’s hand and guides her to her bedroom, the music is quiet but not silent but Veronica can’t really tell because her heart is beating louder than anything she’s ever heard. She sit on the edge of Veronica’s bed, Heather’s smile is quiet and reassuring as Veronica puts together the words in her head. Her hands are sweating and she’s terrified about saying the wrong thing.

“You know my feelings toward red.” Heather nods. “Well, uh, you’ve changed that, and I’ve started liking it more and because of that, you more and I, uh.” She clears her throat. “You’ve changed my mind about red and soulmates and all that jazz and, uh, here you go.” She all but shoves the small box toward the other woman.

It’s a necklace, the woman at the counter says it’s a gold chain and Veronica really hopes it is because all she can see is the small red stone that falls in the middle of it. Heather holds the box like it means the world to her and looks at Veronica with eyes that are shining and she’s not quite sure what to say so she just goes with her gut.

“Happy birthday Heather.”

She opens the clasp and turn her back to Veronica so she can do it up. Veronica’s hands are shaking and her hands are cold compared to Heather’s skin but she does is anyway and she turns back around.

“Thank you Ronnie.” She’s looking at her with these eyes, the eyes that make Veronica want to lean in and kiss her.

So she does.

She chalks up her confidence to any alcohol she’s consumed recently.

Heather freezes for a second, an awful second that makes Veronica fear that she’s made a really bad mistake, a second that makes her want to run and hide from Heather, maybe even move somewhere, she wonders if Ohio is nice this time of year. But then Heather is melting into the kiss. And her lips are soft as they move against Veronica’s, the smell of Heather’s shampoo is everywhere and she can kiss so well. The kiss changes speed when Heather’s hands reach Veronica’s hair and they tug slightly on the roots at the base of her neck and she makes this strangles noise from the back of her throat. Then Veronica bites Heather’s lip and tugs slightly and she moans and it’s all so much and it feels so good and-

Veronica loves her.

She’s most definitely in love with Heather Chandler.

She can’t believe that she hasn’t noticed it yet.

She loves her. Loves her smile, her sense of humour, the way that she bites her lips when she’s thinking, the way she runs her hands through her hair when she’s stressed. Veronica loves her.

Then she gets the most piercing headache she’s ever had.

Heather jerks back, fear in her eyes.

“Heather?”

Veronica can barely see or speak through the pain but she sees Heather almost run out of her room before she blacks out.

--

She wakes up in her bed, thinking that she drank too much.

But this isn’t a hangover headache, this is another beast entirely, fuck is hurts. Then she remembers last night, Heather moving away from their kiss, that wonderful, lovely kiss and fuck she hates it all. She throws her head into her pillow and screams, great, now she’s got two types of pain, the awful heart-wrenching kind and the feeling of someone putting a red-hot poker through her temple.

Then she sits up and blinks a few times.

Something is different, something is very different.

Colour. Everywhere.

It just makes her head hurt even more. She closes her eyes and it becomes a bit of a dull thud instead of a sharp pain.

Why didn’t Duke bring up any of this shit? Or Betty or Martha, or right, because she was the literal worst at liking the soulmates thing and bit their head off whenever they tried to talk about it.

Fuck, shit, balls, and she cannot stress this enough, fuck.

The colours are beautiful, but painful.

She opens her eyes slightly to see all of the contrasts around her room, they should clash but all of the books fit nicely against each other, even though they’re vastly different. JD, left the curtains open last night and Heather was right, the sky is beautiful. All the different shades of blue, the lightness by the sun, the darker parts opposite the sky, the clouds; it fucking hurts to see but it’s nice to look at.

“JD! JD, are you home?” she ends up yelling, covering her eyes with her hand. She opens them and stares at him and he stumbles in, baseball bat in hand, looking around.

“Where are they?”

“It’s not an intruder, god, that happened once.”

“Still.”

“I can see colours.”

“Wait, don’t lie.”

“Why would I lie about that, you know how I feel about it.”

“You’re wearing an orange t-shirt and blue trousers and your eyes are basically black and your hair is brown.”

“I, holy shit, you, you can see colour. Holy fuck is it Heather?” His raised voice doesn’t do anything for her headache.

“Well considering I kissed her then passed out because of a headache and can now see colours then that would make sense.”  She snaps back.

“You kissed her? Well done!” He drops the bat and jumps into her bed, giving her a hug.

“Yeah but then she ran off and I passed out so she doesn’t want me.”

“You can only see colours when feelings are reciprocated.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean she want  to be with me.”

“Girls are confusing, I am so glad I’m gay.”

“Not. Helpful. Dude.”

“Well, I don’t know what to do, I haven’t had a relationship in a year.”

“You make a good point.”

“Also I’ve got this headache, and before you say anything it’s not a hangover headache, I didn’t drink that much last night, it really fucking hurts man.”

They look at each other.

“Martha?”

“Martha.”

--

“What the hell have you guys gotten up to this time?” Is the first thing Martha says when she picks up the face time, Veronica has taken to wearing sunglasses and shot-gunning Ibuprofen to dull the pain in her head. Martha’s wearing this bright pink jumper and her house is so colourful and her hair is brown and there’s green in the garden behind her and it’s so much.

“V can see colour.”

“Oh my God, that’s great!” Her face lights up and she looks like she’s about to congratulate or interrogate Veronica on her soulmate before she interrupts.

“No it isn’t, you didn’t get this splintering headache did you Martha?” She closes her eyes for a second before giving out a sigh of pain.

“Oh, no. Betty!” Veronica opens her eyes to see Martha’s face has dropped and that she’s beckoning Betty over.

“Yes darling?”

“V’s found her soulmate but she’s got a headache.”

Betty comes running into frame, her eyes are blue and she has purple in her hair and-

Veronica clutches her head and chugs some water.

“It’s okay bub.”

“We didn’t realise a headache was a thing.”

“Yeah, we called because we need relationship advice.”

“Relationship advice? You’re soulmates?” Betty asks, a confused expression on her face.

“Yeah, well after they kissed-“

“Veronica made the first move?”

“- the soulmate, Heather, ran off then Veronica passed out.”

“Ooh, I don’t like her.”

“She really is lovely Martha, but emotionally a bit stupid, at least that’s what I’ve heard.” JD offers and Betty shrugs.

“If you guys know about the headache, can you please tell me how to stop it?”

“Well, uh, it comes from a sort of lag.”

“Real life lag?”

“Yeah, you know your emotions, and they are requited but the other person is having some issues digesting them, if you will.”

“It doesn’t mean they don’t want you, it just means that their emotionally stubborn. You may need to nudge them a bit.”

“I already kissed her!”

“I know dear.”

“There’s not much else to combat the headache apart from ibuprofen, water and sleep I’m afraid.” Betty says, her face scrunching in empathy for her friend. Veronica groans, for god’s sake Heather, get your head out of your ass. She loves her but god she’s pissed and hurt by her right now.

“red is passionate and loving but also anger and hate”

Oh piss off Ms Fleming, leave her alone. Let her be.

“I’m going to try and get to sleep.”

If she starts crying she tells no one.

She’s sure that JD can tell because he rubs her back soothingly but he doesn’t tell the others.

--

They don’t speak for days, Veronica’s gotten used to the constant dull thudding of her head now. She has to call in sick for Monday because her head is throbbing but she’s able to take the tube to work without feeling like she’s going to faint the rest of the week and everything is so beautiful and colourful and red doesn’t stand out against greens and blues and purples as much as it did against greys and blacks and whites and she’s okay with that, it makes her feel better.

The first few days Veronica texts Heather, a lot, checking if she’s okay, checking if she has the headache too, but every message left unanswered shoves that bit of glass further into her heart.

She sees Heather entering her flat when Veronica gets out a lift once and they stare at each other.

Heather way beautiful in black and white but she’s gorgeous in colour.

Her hair is blonde and she’s pale and the red contrasts so violently and her eyes, her eyes, they make Veronica almost step back into the lift. The break eye contact and Heather shuffle into the flat, Veronica moves faster than she has in days, coming to her door just as she closes it.

“We’re gonna have to talk about this at some point Heather.” She yells through the door before entering her flat.

She cries into her dinner and JD, when he wakes up, gently gives her a hug and makes her watch a few episodes of Gavin and Stacey and life feels alright for around twenty minutes until he leaves for work, offering to call in sick and stay, but he loves his job and she doesn’t have the heart to do that to him.

That fucking piece of glass in her heart is getting closer and closer to her aorta and it’s hurting more and more while her headache dulls and calms down.

She then decides that Heather has to do something, if she makes Veronica’s head hurt so much and confuses her heart so much then it’s just straight up not worth it.

She stops crying a week into the ‘great silence’ as JD has dubbed in.

She manages to enjoy the colours soon after that, she spends hours staring out of her window, watching the people go by, the world looks so different in colour. A part of her wishes that she could see it properly with Heather.

Two weeks later she wakes up to the sound of someone banging on her front door.

She stubs her toe on the doorframe as she runs to the door, anything to get the noise to stop.

It’s Heather.

They make eye contact.

Her eyes are, so many shades of blue and she has freckles dotted across her nose and her hair is blonde and beautiful and Veronica doesn’t have a headache anymore. It takes a second for her to notice because she has gotten used to her head always throbbing but it’s stopped.

“Hey.” She says, slightly breathlessly, her hands wringing with nerves and Veronica starts to feel a moment of déjà vu.

“Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

Veronica wordlessly opens the door because she’s not sure what to say to her.

“I’m, uh, sorry.”

Veronica’s never seen the other woman so unsure in the time that she’s known her. She ends up standing in the middle of Veronica’s living room, Veronica closes the door by leaning on it, taking in Heather’s appearance. The red scrunchie is there but it isn’t a spot of colour in a sea of grey anymore, instead it contrasts against her pink t-shirt that’s too big for her and her blue jeans that are rolled up at the ends and her eyes that Veronica can’t help but stare at. Heather’s wearing the necklace that she got her for her birthday and she was right, it fits perfectly and goes with her as a person perfectly. She motions for Heather to continue and she steels herself, taking a breath before speaking.

“My English teacher said that blue is clean and stable, but like the ocean its powerful and destructive, and I thought that was romantic but stupid, no one is as mighty as the sea. But, uh, you’re kinda different. You tore down my walls when we talked for all of two seconds in my disaster of a kitchen. That was terrifying, and then we were meant to have dinner once but you’re so nice and awkward and cute and funny and you made me feel something I’ve never felt and I ran. Sorry.”

“That’s one hell of an apology, comparing me to the ocean.”

“Yeah, well, you’re better. And I love you.”

That piece of glass evaporates at those words being said.

“Can I kiss you?” She asks.

“Only if you don’t run this time.”

“You’re stuck with me forever now.”

That makes Veronica smile and they kiss and, god, she thought that their first kiss was good, but this is great.

Red was always Veronica’s colour.

And she’s finally started to like it again.