Royal (A Selection Fan Fiction) (Book One in my Selection Series)

Chapter 58

A few days later, I was led my Alex up a few stairs to the floor where all of the royal family's rooms are.

I was weak, and had a hard time walking and making my arms do exactly what I wanted to. Mostly, because of the shaking in my wrists. Both of them.

Luckily, I hadn't had the pressure of cameras on me yet.

"Are you doing okay?" Alex asks me. "Do you need to sit down?"

"How far are we?"

"One more turn up ahead." He says to me. I nod, but my legs didn't want to move right. "I've got an idea."

Before I knew it, I was literally swept off my feet and in strong arms.

"Classic." I smile up at him. He laughs and I focus on the features of his face. Alex had gotten his hair cut and shaved neatly. He had zoned out somewhere far off, but his eyes had a sparkling happiness.

I twist my face into his shirt and close my eyes for a minute.

"You can't fall asleep we are just a few steps away." Alex laughs. I smile and open my eyes a little. "Okay, you ready?" He asks setting me down. I nod and he leads me into the room.

It was dark when we first walk in, but Alex turns on light that triggers a diamond chandelier.

There was a king size bed with a curtain sealed around it and a thick carpet. I walk into the room and curl my toes, bringing the carpet to my feet.

Alex was at my side in a second. I wrap my arms around his waist and put my head on his chest.

"Can you guess who's room is through that door right there?" He points to a door on the other side of the room. I look up at Alex, smirking.

"Hmm..." I say, acting as though I was deep in thought. "I'm not sure." Alex just rolls his eyes at me and smiles.

"Come on." He says and leads me by the hand through the door. The room was also dark until Alex flicked a switch from somewhere. This room, obviously belonged to someone, but it was neat. Books were stacked on a little coffee table and one mug wrests on top of them.

"You keep your room very neat." I note.

"I don't stay here much." He shrugs. "Especially recently. I'd just sleep in an empty hospital bed a lot of nights."

It takes me a minute to realize it was for me. He kept an eye on me when i couldn't even watch myself.

"Why?" I ask him when he starts taking me back into my new room.

"Why what?" He says and sits on my bed.

"Why would you pick me? Love me? Want me?" I ask him. "There were prettier girls from the beginning, and smarter too. I still can barely read and I was a Six. I didn't have any talents."

"First of all, I don't believe that for a second. And for everything else? I don't care what you can or can't do, it's just you. You're just– when I thought about who in the entire Elite I could imagine a future with, there were a few, but when I thought about who I could love and never without, one persons name came to mind." Alex tells me. "You can't help who you fall for, you've just gotta hope you don't fall too hard."

I fiddle with my thumbs. "Remember that first night. When I ran from you?"

A grin crawls onto his face. "How could I forget? You were just in your night clothes and pure as could be. You didn't have makeup on your face and your hair wasn't in a fancy updo and that was the most important part of the entire selection to me."

"How so?" I ask him.

"I realized every girl I was going to meet that morning was a person. Even under the masks of makeup and the jewels in which their dresses were decorated with, they had a story, they were people, and they had feelings. Every person here had memories and they had things that made them happy."

"I mostly just thought of panic." I say honestly. He laughs. "I guess the first few nights were just hard."

"I didn't really understand that. I thought that this was just something everyone wanted to be a part of and a dream world." Alex shrugs. "Then I met you. Officially and made a connection with you. I gained your trust and you told me things about life outside of the palace, something I'll never get the experience of. You made me realize more than I could've myself."

I sit there in silence for a moment. The idea that I haven't been there in so long, made me
confused again.

"You should sleep." He tells me. "The doctor said even if you're not in the hospital, you need to sleep a lot."

"I'm really confused." I whisper to him. "I keep remembering that it wasn't last week that Payton and Jason got married and it wasn't only a few months ago I came to the palace..."

I sort through what's real. The coma. I'm engaged. Payton and Jason have a baby. And everything else? It was made up by the part of me that wanted everything real to not be.

"Just lay down." He says, helping me to the top of my new bed. It was soft, probably memory foam. I'm already in the same clothes I always slept in during the Selection, since there were no cameras I didn't need to wear anything fancy.

Alex lays down beside of me and plays with the tips of my hair. He brings his arms around me and touches his lips to my head.

"I don't want to lose you again." He whispers to me. For the first time I actually feel as if I've missed out on something. I feel as if the year id slept through was just a year I was stuck alone with nobody to love or love me.

"You won't." I say to him, then he kisses me like he hasn't seen me in decades. With a longing that makes me shiver. I wanted to be with him. The rest of my life. Forever.