It was when she was five that she realized she was different. While watching tv, the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. So she carried herself as fast as her little legs could carry her, to her parents' room, where her mother was folding laundry. "Momma, why don't the people on TV have the lines coming from their chests?"
Her mother turned, regarding the little girl with a raised eyebrow, her hands planted on her hips, the clothes she had been folding still grasped in her fists. "What in the world do you mean, Lanie bug?"
Lanie could feel her eyes rolling, her exasperated sigh making her shoulders heave. "The lines!" She emphasized by trying to grab her own, the wispy tread like a spider's web that shot from her chest, again failing as it seemed to slip through her fingers.
Her mother looked puzzled, the shirt abandoned on the bed as she knelt down to her daughter's level. "Sweetheart, I don't know what you're seeing."
"Never mind. It's nothing." Lanie abandoned her question with a wave of her hand, ignoring her mother's hands that wrapped around her wrist. "My cartoons are back." Her mother didn't chase her as she left the room, walking slower than earlier back to the TV. But as she watched her favorite characters, she could tell they were different. They didn't have those wispy lines coming from their chest and shooting straight up to the sky. Why didn't they have what was so plain for her to see?
When her brother Louis was born, he didn't have a line either. Everyone else had lines. Even Mrs. Coleman's baby down the hall had one shooting from his chest. So again, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, she asked. "Where is Louis' line?"
Her father wrapped her in his strong arms, his head resting on her chin. "What line, baby?"
"The lines!" It didn't matter if Mom didn't get it, Daddy always knew what she meant. "Yours is right here, see?" She pointed, tracing it straight up from his chest, high into the sky, pointing toward the hospital room door.
"Sure, sweetie. Does everyone have lines?" She nodded, excited someone got it. "Can you show me Mom's?" She reached over the bed carefully, tracing her mother's line in the same direction as her father's. Daddy tickled her belly. "Can you show me yours?"
Lanie giggled, but tried again to grab hers as she traced it, her line shooting straight up and toward the window. "It goes the other way."
"Maybe it's supposed to." Daddy spoke, his arms around her again to hold her close. "Maybe it's telling you to follow your own path. And that's okay. But you don't have to do that until you're good and ready." His head rested on her shoulder again. "Until then, I say ignore those pesky lines. They'll only stress you out."
And for a few years, she did just that. She didn't say anything when Louis sported one out of nowhere, the two year old content to play on the floor. She didn't say anything when she watched her mother's angle less toward the ceiling. She didn't even say anything when Jacob and Tina's lines led toward each other on the first day of school, because no one there would believe her like her Daddy did.
She was twelve when she began to question their meaning. Her grandparents had come to visit, and for the first time in a while, she allowed herself to pay attention to their lines. These ones were different. Her Grandparents' lines were gold and sparkled in the daylight, different from her wispy silver, and they led to each other. So she watched them, how her Grandma always caressed Grandpa's face, how they kept trying to beat the other person to the punchline, and the all around happiness they exuded. So maybe, the lines led to the people they were supposed to be with. But a glance over at her parents, whose lines didn't meet, told her it was probably something else. They loved each other too.
A year later, she met Mom's new work friend, Tom, and their lines matched. So she watched Tom and Mom interact. There was an ease around it, with some flirty jokes and platonic touching. But at the end of the day, Mom went home to Daddy, and kissed him on the lips, thanking him for dinner. And Lanie learned that sometimes, people settle for less than their soulmates, but that doesn't make their love any less important.
In high school, her best friend begged Lanie to be set up with a boy. Luckily, Tina's line led straight to Jacob Brislop, the leader of the drumcore. So Lanie joined the marching band, got to know Jacob better, and sent her two friends out on a date. They hit it off, and soon became the talk of their friends. When people asked how they met, they would send people Lanie's way. In a way, she liked her matchmaking status at school. It helped her get to know a lot of people, and she got to help the few people at their school who had lines that met. Everyone else she set up according to their interests, or sense of humor. No person was ever turned away.
One day, Tina showed up in homeroom with a change that was only obvious to Lanie. Her line had turned gold, like her grandparents, and glittered in the sunlight by the window. After the teacher had taken attendance, Lanie leaned toward Tina, her eyes knotted together in confusion. "Did something happen between you and Jacob?"
Tina turned in horror, her face turning a deep shade of red. "Is it that obvious?"
"No?" Lanie wasn't sure what was supposed to be obvious. No one else saw things the way she did.
"Well, how'd you know?"
"Know what?"
Tina looked over her shoulder before leaning closer to Lanie, her voice a whisper. "That we had sex?"
"You did what?" She fought to keep her voice as low as her friend's. "Like, in the last day?"
"Over the weekend. How could you tell?"
Lanie chuckled, leaning back in her seat. "I couldn't! God, I thought you guys did that ages ago, I didn't know this was a new thing!"
Her friend eyed her with suspicion. "Then why did you ask if something happened?"
Lanie shrugged. "You seemed quiet. I thought you were fighting."
"No fighting today. Just gross lovey-dovey shit." She grinned. "I think he's my soulmate, Lane."
Lanie kept the knowing grin to herself. "I think so too."
Over the years, she and Tina grew apart, but Tina and Jacob remained together, the power couple of the school. When she heard they got married, it didn't surprise anyone. She continued her matchmaking skills in college, letting it bring her joy that the long days of studying couldn't. She got invited to more weddings than she ever had the time to attend, most of them matches that she had set up.
Kate was a challenge. She was picky, and stubborn, and hated every man that was sent her way. Sometimes, Lanie thought she did it out of spite, just because she didn't want to be set up by the master matchmaker. Eventually, Lanie stopped trying, letting her choose for herself when she wanted to get serious about her love life. They spent their free evenings in bars, people watching, and telling stories, and occasionally bickering over Lanie's meddlesome ways when she sent a random woman over to talk to different guys they might hit it off with. "This is why I won't let you set me up." Kate would always start, running her hands through her short hair. "You always set me up with childish, and impulsive men."
"Kate, that's what you need," she would explain. "You need someone who will help you live your life to the fullest, and ignore all the rules. Someone who will make you laugh just by acting ridiculous."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
But when Richard Castle fell into their lives, all her rules about pushing Kate went right out the window. Especially once she realized how their lines matched up. Lanie started dropping not so subtle hints about her asking him out, or just taking him to bed. When she read the scene he wrote about them in her book, she double checked to make sure their line hadn't turned gold. She listened to more phone calls from her best friend either complaining or just talking about Castle, that she almost wanted to lock them both in her office and let them work things out for herself. But they couldn't get out of their own way to make anything happen. Between reopening the the case that haunted Kate for her entire adult life, her diving back in and getting shot, and her lies about hearing his declarations of love (which she only told Lanie while drunk one night, after making the woman swear she wouldn't tell), she didn't think they would ever make their relationship work. She thought for sure it was done when Kate quit, after getting in trouble for chasing her shooter.
Lanie didn't even get the word that Kate was coming back until two weeks before it happened. Four weeks her friend had gone without calling her. Four weeks and all they'd shared was a few texts and cancelled plans on both ends. And never once had her friend mentioned that she was coming back. As soon as the younger detective gave her the news, she sent a message to confirm. Ryan tells me you're coming back soon?
Yeah, soon! I miss it. And you. We have a lot of catching up to do. I'll buy you a drink after my first case back?
Make it two and I'll be there.
Deal. With that, Lanie did a little happy dance. It would be nice to have her friend back.
Kate made her grand entrance that first day with her shadow close behind her. And a gold line. And even though it made Lanie want to jump for joy, and congratulate her friend, she had to play it cool. "What are you, doing something different?" Lanie asked her, watching her face carefully, using her arms to indicate her friend's outfit.
"No. Why?"
"I don't know. Something's changed."
She continued probing at the morgue, praying her friends would cave. "I figured out what's different. You're having sex."
The looks on her friend's faces did nothing to deny it, Kate addressing the accusation first. "Excuse me?"
It wasn't convincing."Oh, don't try to deny it. There's a glow, I know that glow." The glow from their gold line, which shimmered less in the flourescent lighting of the morgue. "So, who's the guy?"
But her new man came to her rescue before Lanie could heckle her more, thinking quick on his feet. "Yeah, Beckett, who's the guy?"
Kate rolled her eyes, a smirk dancing on the corner of her lips. "Nobody that you would know, okay?"
He shot back, just as quick. "Are you sure? I know a lot of guys."
"I'm sure. Anything else?" She drew the attention back to their case, shutting down the conversation, so Lanie let her have that. She would do more digging when they went out for drinks.
Once the killer was arrested, and she had all her paperwork in order, she called her friend, who answered on the second ring. "I have no files and no dead bodies, and I'm not on call tonight. Where are we going?"
"That was tonight?" Her friend groaned, making Lanie's shoulders drop. "I'm not in a celebratory mood. I'm sorry, Lanie."
"What happened?"
"Castle had this stupid date with Kristina Coterra…"
"The one who always wears the bikini?"
"That's the one. He was rubbing it in all the guys faces, and was super eager to get home for his date, and it just rubbed me the wrong way."
Lanie fumed, silently vowing to hurt the man if he toyed with her best friend before answering. "Aren't feelings awful once you catch them?"
"Lanie. I don't have…"
"I know, I know. You don't like him that way." But she did. Everyone could see it, and they acted on it at least once, but if Kate wasn't ready to go public, Lanie wasn't going to push. "How about we go out tomorrow when you've cheered up, and you can vent about him all night long."
"I'd like that. But only for a quarter of the night. The other quarter you get to vent, and then we need to catch up. I won't flake this time, I promise."
"Deal. I have something else I want to do tonight anyway."
"Okay. Have fun, Lanie."
She hung up, sticking her phone in her purse and walking to her car. But instead of heading toward her house, she turned left, and made her way to the coast.
There she drove north, following the coastline to see if she could find the easternmost point, the general direction of where her line pointed. But it seemed futile. Hers always seemed to point well across the ocean, further than she could ever travel by car. The whole time she drove, she wondered. Did he have an accent? Did he ever visit the states? What did he look like? Was he taller than her? Was he happy without her? Had he settled yet? And after reaching as far north as she wanted to go, she turned around to drive home, to rest up for yet another day of work, excited to watch her best friend fall in love.
I've had this idea in my head for about three weeks, literally wrote it in about two hours. Gotta love wedding weekends! All mistakes are my own!