love is in the air | love-weaving ability one-shot

[Jameson Hera Blishwick]

It began shortly before Christmas Break, 2024. Jimmie had begun suffering from terrible cluster headaches, the kind that made it hard for her to read, to eat, to function. Like someone had stabbed her deeply in one eye. She wasn't immediately concerned, Jimmie tended to get headaches when she was over-worked or overthinking something terribly menial. She was a little fragile, especially with the current state of the world. She'd been obsessing over writing a meaningful article, something that would truly outshine anything she had done before. And then, the headaches had begun. A week in to that, she began seeing things from the corner of her eye. 

At first, it was just a flicker of the light, something like a wire trailing across the floor of her dorm room floor. When she would turn her head to investigate, it was gone and she'd brushed it off. A simple side-effect of her cluster headaches. She'd gotten an elixir from the nurse, and she'd slept it off. Then, it was no longer just 'something in her eye', but right in front of her. A wavering thread tied around a students wrist, leading all the way across the dining room. Jimmie had pointed it out, baffled by the sudden fashion trend and perhaps willing to poke fun, but when the girl had looked at her strangely, asking Jimmie 'what thread?', she'd gone cold all over and stormed off.

The Blishwick's were businessmen at their core. A dynasty of money that went back far beyond Jimmie's recognition. However, they were also well documented 'Love-Weavers'. Jimmie had always hated that turn of phrase, because they were nothing of the kind. It wasn't infallible, and it didn't guarantee a 'love' connections, so why call themselves that? And then, she'd seen that pesky grey thread tying two student by their clasped hands and she'd about fainted. Jimmie had always been a mistake. Female, for one. And, exempt from the pesky Love Weaving ability by gender alone. Until, she suddenly was not. Every time Jimmie followed a piece of thread, the next thread was darker, messier. Always a varying shade of pale grey and the deepest, blackest night. And, the more she was forced to acknowledge these pesky threads, the less frequently she was able to make them go away.

Jimmie told nobody about this sudden revelation, least of all her father. Instead, she vowed to simply ignore it until it went away. She had always been a little smug that she was not cursed the way her father was. Love was silly, it didn't exist. A person could be alone if they wanted to be, they were not bound. Except, suddenly they were. It infuriated Jimmie, and she spent much of Christmas and New Year terribly moody and lonesome. But, soon enough winter became spring, and the ability was not going away. She couldn't even stop it at school anymore, so many students and so many threads, she felt like she was choking on them sometimes. She found herself asking friends if they had ever noticed their particular threaded partner, before she would realise what she was doing and be filled with a defiant anger - she was match-making. The thought alone nearly made her gag.

Summer has arrived with a thread infested vengeance, and Jimmie is losing her will to ignore this newfound ability. But, the only person who could possibly understand is also the only person Jimmie had vowed never to tell - her father.