Summoned

Chapter 4

"Elisa Carams, a two from Hundson!"

I sat with my head in my hands, and my family was squealing around me. I couldn't quite process what had just happened. I blinked my eyes, hoping that I would wake up. Nothing changed except for Penelope and Harry stopped arguing.

The only person who didn't share quite the amount of joy as the rest of my family was Uncle Darry. He looked at me with stern blue eyes, like my mother's. Are you ok? He mouthed.

I shook my head and held back all emotion. Ladies do not cry in front of other people, they stay strong, I reminded myself. I rose from my seat to go to the gardens, and Uncle Darry followed closely behind me. My breath quickened and I stopped abruptly in the gardens.

He grabbed my hands and wrapped me in his arms. We sat on the cold, stone bench as I cried into Uncle Darry's dress shirt Mother had gotten him for Christmas last year. My tears saturated the silky fabric, and I'm sure my mascara had left small black crescents.

"Shh, it's ok, Elly," he said soothingly as he rubbed my back. The same hands that had comforted me in the past circled in the same motion he always did to keep me calm again. The same hands that helped clean up my skinned knee without telling Mother because we both knew she would've scolded me for running. I looked up at him and sniveled.

Darry knew me. He was my best friend, and he knew exactly what I aspired to be. He knew I wanted to go medical, not as a nurse like Mother would settle for, but a doctor. A surgeon, even. He supported it, my other dreams, and me, which although I never chose to believe it, he said reminded him of my mother when she was young.

He knew how badly I wanted- no, needed- to escape from this. It only took a few seconds of screen time to bring it crashing down. "She promised me admission to college if I entered the selection," I said with a quivering lip.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Elly," he said before pulling me back into a hug. I told Uncle Darry everything because my siblings weren't old enough to talk to about these things, Father was always working, and Mother doesn't understand how I feel.

"Uncle Darry, I'll never be normal again," I said. I had stopped crying by now, and he had let me continue to rest my head against his shoulder while we hid out in the garden. I'd like to say that we sat in silence for a few seconds, listening to the bugs and frogs in the new spring air, but Mother had employed someone to remove all of that from the garden because Fran was allergic to bees.

"Elly, you were never normal," he responded, almost jokingly.  I looked up at him with a cynical scowl that Mother could have found at least four things to criticize or complain about. I didn't mean to sound like a brat, even though I knew I was extremely privileged as one of the only twos left in the caste system. "You don't have to stay at the palace for long. You could just come back, know need to take a suitcase."

I chuckled halfheartedly. "Even when I come back, I'll always be known as the girl from the selection. Even if I go to an out of state college. They'll all see me the same way," I said in realization. "Besides, it'll be too late for admission for the college I want to go to and Mother will have suitors lined up around the estate and filling every guest room to marry me off when I turn 18."

He held me for a few minutes longer before I went inside and he went home. We pulled the usual stunt and discussed the details, and he told me that he would be there to greet me before I had to leave. He distracted Mother while I hurried upstairs to my bedroom and shut the door quietly. I slipped into my pajama dress and laid back on the bed.

Nothing will ever be the same, I thought as I laid my head back on my pillow. I scolded myself mentally. Thousands of girls would kill to be in my position, and I'm complaining like a little brat. If I didn't want to go to the palace, then I should have stood my ground and told Mother no, but I've never told her no. I can't disappoint her.