Chosen: A Selection Fanfiction

Black & Red

I watch.

                  

I watch as Adrian seems to turn white. I watch as he drops to his knees in a shaking heap. His mouth opens as tears carve a path down his face, but no sound comes out. He is broken. Adrian takes a shuddering breath.

"Elodie?"
His voice is numb, shattered, hollow. I watch with despair, wishing I could do something to help him.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness." The guard says, and even I can hear the sorrow in his voice. "Your parents would like to see you downstairs." Then he is gone. I crouch down next to Adrian. His hazel eyes are wide and he's shivering like a gust of cold wind just blew through the open window.

"Adrian?" I say softly, lightly stroking his hair.

"She's gone." He responds, making eye contact – but I feel like he's not really seeing me. Like he's looking right through me.

"I'm so sorry."
"Why would she get sick?"
"I don't know."
"She never deserved this."
"I know."

"What do I do?"
"I don't know if there's anything you can do." I admit, taking my hand from his hair. After a few moments, he reaches slowly and shakily for my wrist. "Keep doing that, it felt good."
I move my hand from my lap to his honeyed hair and continue lightly running my fingers through it.

"I think your parents need you." I think out loud to the broken boy lying at my feet. That's what he was. Adrian's just a boy. He shouldn't need to deal with this – no one should.

"What do you mean?"
"I know you just lost your sister"- his eyes well with tears and grief, and I feel awful – "but your parents just lost a daughter. They probably need you right now. Go be with them, and Mady."
"I don't want to see Mady." Adrian chokes out. "She...she looks too much like her."
So we sit there for a while. I'm kneeling on the floor of the prettiest library in the world, with maybe the prettiest boy in the world lying in a crumpled mess on the floor. His head is in my lap and he shudders periodically as I brush my fingertips through his unruly locks.

I don't know what I would do if I lost Juliet or Beckham. I take a deep breath just thinking about it.

Adrian is a prince. He has all the money he could ever desire. He has power, delectable food, expensive clothing, and hundreds of people to do his bidding. Adrian is lucky – he has everything you could ever dream for.

But right now, I'm sorry for him. I'm so sorry for him.

oOo

My maids are all in tears when I enter my room that night. Grace, the same age as innocent Rowan, has tears dripping down her cheeks, her face buried in her hands. Alice has her arms wrapped around the young girl, her own eyes watery. Sarah is sitting alone in an armchair in the corner, her face turned away from the other maids, hiding behind a silky pillow.

I shut my door loudly, to alert them I was there. Grace jumps, startled, and begins weeping again as soon as she sees it's only me.

"I guess you've heard, then." I say quietly. Alice removes her arms from Grace's shoulders.

"Yes, Miss, we have. I know you're close to Adrian – are you alright?"
I had been so concerned about Adrian I've barely even let things sink in. Princess Elodie was dead. The eleven-year old sweetheart with blonde curls and blue eyes, the little angel who told me my hair was pretty and stood up for me against Adrian the day she met me, who went to every Selected girl's door with Mady and personally gave them a handwritten invitation to their birthday ball.

She was dead.

I strip off my dress and turn on the shower.
"Miss, we can do that for you"- Sarah tries to stop me, but I push her away.
"I can do it myself."
I take a long, hot shower, cleansing myself of the misery, water and tears mixing. My maids are gone when I finally get out – but at the moment, I prefer it that way.