Prompt from Anonymous on tumblr: Teen Rizzles soulmate AU

For 18 years, 3 months, and 21 days, Jane Rizzoli had waited to meet her soulmate. She was part of the first generation required to wear the device that had become known as 'the bracelet' and, now that Jane's generation was coming of age, the previous generation was eager to see the result of the soulmate experiment unfold before their very eyes. An experiment is what they called it; a way to lower the unbelievably high divorce rate, but for the young men and women of Jane's generation, it was a source of dread and disappointment. The soulmate bracelet didn't prevent them from developing feelings for people who weren't their soulmates, but they were always made to feel as if every other relationship was destined to fail. Parents often discouraged their teens from dating and they could no longer dream of the romantic chance encounters that previous generations spoke of. 'It's for your own good. You'll be grateful for the bracelet when you find your soulmate,' they were often told.

It was Halloween when the countdown on Jane's bracelet reached zero and it was revealed to her that her soulmate was an eighteen-year-old female. She wasn't given a name or details about what she would look like, but she was due to meet her sometime within a twenty-four hour timeframe, so Jane decided to put her usual Halloween plans of watching horror movies with her friends on hold to attend a party.

"You're meeting your soulmate at eighteen," Angela said worriedly although she had known the exact date since the day Jane was born. "I still think that's too young. You're the first kid in our neighborhood whose countdown stopped."

"Whose fault is that?" Jane snapped at her. "I didn't want this stupid bracelet to begin with. It was forced on my entire generation. By the way, my soulmate is a girl. I'm into girls. The bracelet told me so."

Jane had been aware of her attraction to girls since before she hit puberty, but she never felt a need to tell her parents because, regardless of who she was attracted to, the attraction would mean nothing on the off chance that her bracelet revealed her soulmate was a guy.

She begrudgingly put on a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie over a t-shirt instead of wearing a costume to the Halloween party that some frat at a local college was hosting. If she's my soulmate, what the hell does she care that I'm not wearing a costume?

The people at the party were just as obnoxious as she had expected and Jane began to doubt she'd find her soulmate amongst the crowd of scantily clad girls and drunk frat boys. The music was too loud to strike up a conversation so Jane would check for a green, blinking light on their bracelet and then move on when she saw none. There were no blinking lights on the bracelets of any girls at the party and, after only forty-five minutes of searching, Jane had no desire to wait on the off-chance that her soulmate would eventually show up.

Why she assumed her soulmate would be at a frat party was beyond her, but with only two hours left until midnight, Jane began to brainstorm locations where she could meet an eighteen-year-old female. There were coffee shops, restaurants, and movie theaters, but Jane was immediately drawn to a girl walking to her car with a guy following at a short distance behind her. When she noticed the guy increase his speed as the girl fumbled with her keys, Jane knew she had to intervene.

"Gorgeous!" Jane called out as she ran to the girl's car. "I've been looking all over for you!"

Jane had never met either of them before, but knowing that someone else was in the area was enough to get the guy to turn around and head back to campus.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," Jane apologized when she was certain he was no longer around. "He looked like he was following you."

"He was," the girl averted her eyes. "I know him. I was actually involved with him until he became controlling and he doesn't understand that I don't want to talk anymore."

"Do you have an off-campus apartment?" Jane asked. "I could make sure you get home safely."

"No," she shook her head. "I live in the dorms and I was headed out because of my bracelet."

"Your bracelet?" Jane asked in disbelief. She cuffed the sleeve of her hoodie to reveal her own bracelet. "Like this one?"

"You're blinking!" she said excitedly. Jane watched in anticipation while she pushed up the sleeve of her blazer to show off her own, blinking bracelet. "Are you eighteen?"

"Yes," Jane laughed.

Despite what she had experienced just moments earlier, her mood shifted after seeing Jane's bracelet. "I was beginning to think mine was defective."

"Same," Jane responded. "Since we're soulmates, we should probably exchange names. I'm Jane."

"Maura."

Jane nervously bit her lip. "This is awkward."

"This is very awkward."

"Do you want to do something?" Jane asked. "We could wait if you want. It's just that it's Halloween and I met my soulmate and that's pretty cool, I guess."

"I don't want to attend a party," Maura smiled. "But there's a coffee shop on campus that's open until midnight. We could go there if you'd like."

"I'd like," Jane said while resisting the urge to smack herself upside the head. "I mean, yeah, let's go."

While talking to Maura at the coffee shop, Jane noticed the awkwardness fade away and she felt as if she was sitting across the table from a girl whom she had known all her life and, what she didn't learn about Maura from that night, she was eager to find out on future dates.

The lights on their bracelets stopped blinking when the clock struck midnight and Jane bid farewell to hers by placing it in a shoebox under her bed where she had kept some of her most treasured belongings since she was a child. For the first time in her life, her left wrist was bare. Goodbye, bracelet. If you got me someone as cute as Maura, I guess you're not all that bad.