Light of My Life: A Newsies Soulmate College AU

Chapter 1

Maddie's POV

"Maddie DaSilva... Here we are, 1302. Enjoy your stay!" The secretary smiled at me and handed me my dorm room key.

"Thanks!" I grinned, setting down my suitcases so I could take it. The secretary walked back down the stairs, probably to go grab another newsie's room key and take them to their dorm.

I was finally attending college along with the rest of the newsies. Medda, the legal guardian for most Manhattan newsies, had a reputation for getting all of us into the same college, and today she'd brought all of the incoming college freshmen to get settled in. Not that there was much settling in to be done. We'd all been coming here for as long as we could remember since Medda taught the theater classes here. Everyone knew the campus like the back of their hand.

I turned to the door, where there was a sticky note with the names of the inhabitants of the room on it accompanied by their majors. Corona Higgins... An unfamiliar name. I was hoping that I'd be rooming with Couri or Princess, but meeting new people had never been a challenge for me, so I'd be fine. Besides, she was a biology major like me, so at least we had some common ground.

I slowly opened the door to see a girl with medium length curly blonde hair lying on her stomach on top of her bed on the left side of the room, scrolling on a laptop. Her vivid blue eyes darted away from her screen and met mine as her mouth formed a smile. "Are you Maddie?"

"Yeah," I responded, closing the door behind me. "You're Corona, right?"

"Mhm!" She answered. "But most people call me Roni. I hope you don't mind having the right side of the room, but I haven't unpacked yet, so if you want to switch, we can make it work."

"Nah, I'm fine with this side. I'm gonna start unpacking if you don't mind." I prompted, motioning to my suitcases.

"That's probably a good idea. If we don't start now, it might never get done!" She mused, opening the door to the closet. "Let's assess our space first..." She trailed off as we gathered around the door to the closet. The closet was insanely small, and there was no way we were going to be able to fit all of our clothes in there without some organization. "Looks like we're gonna need some closet organizers and some hangers. Wanna go to Walmart?"

We took Roni's car, and as we were driving, Roni asked, "So, have you found your soulmate yet?"

When someone meets their soulmate for the first time, a soft, aura-like, golden glow surrounds their body. It starts at their feet, working its way up, and, from what I'd heard, you get all warm and fuzzy inside, like the feeling you get when you drink hot cocoa or when the sun shines on your face. After that, whenever the two soulmates are in the same room or in close proximity, that glow and the feeling return, but it all comes on at once. After a minute or so, the glow and the feeling fade a bit, so they're just more subtle, but still there. The question Roni had just asked me was a pretty common icebreaker for teens and young adults. The truth was that I indeed hadn't "had my glow" yet, but most of us hadn't. Nobody really worried about it. You met your soulmate when fate thought it was right.

"Yeah, no I haven't. Have you found yours yet?" I inquired.

"Nope! I'm hoping I'll find them here though. Most people find theirs at college, right?" Roni responded.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, most people do just because there's so many more people here."

Roni put on the turning signal so we could turn into the Walmart parking lot. "Do you have any siblings?" She asked, moving on to another icebreaker.

"I have an identical twin brother. His name is Albert, and he's a history major here. He's my only biological sibling, but all of us newsies are practically family anyway."

"That's crazy! I have an identical twin brother too! His name's Antonio, but everyone calls him Race. He's a chemistry major, so I bet we'll have class with him. Believe me, if we do, you'll be in for a treat. He's a character."

~ Time Skip ~

I kicked my now empty suitcase under my bed and flopped down on top of the blankets. "Done." I declared, not even lifting my head from the bedding. My phone began to ring, signaling that I was being paged by none other than Specs. "Hey, Specs! What's up?" I greeted.

"Jack's getting all of us pizza! We're gonna eat it in Medda's lecture hall if ya wanna come! He said your roommate can come too if she wanted." Specs reported.

"Count me in! Lemme check with her quick. We actually haven't had dinner yet." I answered. "Hey Roni! Want some free pizza and good company?"