just fall | ✓

22.

The Report that night meant more interviews, and Alexander and Mason seemed quite intent on cutting it down to the Elite after my birthday. I didn't blame them.

I was dressed much less funereally this time, my dress nearly identical to the one I had worn to Alexander's birthday party, but it was a pale, spring green rather than black. It was nice to wear something so bright and light after all of the heavy, somber gowns. 

Clara had done a great job at cover the nasty black eye on Alexander's face with an array of foundations and powders, and the swelling and the worst of the bruising had gone down with an ointment or two that she'd applied to his face. He didn't like all the coddling, as he called it, but he didn't protest when Clara and I did anything and did exactly what we told him to do. I considered it a small victory, although I did have to smack Salvatore and Liev upside the head a few times to get them to stop laughing, which they took with all the grace of men that didn't want to piss off a woman that could've taken them down without a problem.

They and their families, as well as Haydn's, were tucked into a little room filled with couches so that they could watch the Report if they wanted. I wasn't sure if that was a relief or not, but I thought that maybe it was better that I didn't see Salvatore constantly smirking and laughing. I think that would've made my nerves worse.

Alexander and Mason weren't interviewed, and the Report was solely about the Selection, so the only announcements were the people that had left or been eliminated, though they gave no reasons and they didn't specify whether they had been kicked out or had asked to leave.

We were all interviewed again, and I was seated in the last row, so I had plenty of time to zone out and ignore the interviews of the other Selected. Quite honestly, I didn't care about what any of them had to say except Aquia, and she was in the row in front of me, so it would be a while before I actually had to listen.

I was instead thinking of a conversation I'd had with Clara earlier, out of the princes' hearing.

"Don't you think it's a bit weird?" I asked. "Technically being engaged to two guys that are so old, I mean. Isn't it a bit weird to you?" After seeing the way men older than them ogled after girls her age and younger on the streets, it was weird for me to see her so accepting of marrying Salvatore or Liev, even if five years wasn't such a big deal. I mean, she was only like sixteen, and they were twenty-one! It was a little weird.

Clara shrugged. "It's the way things are. Besides, it's not like they're in love with me or I'm in love with them or anything like that." Her nose wrinkled up like she'd smelled something foul. "You didn't really think that there was any romantic interest, did you?"

I shrugged too. "I don't know, maybe? You wouldn't believe the shit I've seen on the streets."

She just laughed. "Salvatore and Liev only proposed because they been close to Victor. He'd asked them both to propose so that I didn't have to marry Haydn, but honestly, they only think of me as a little sister. My interest isn't exactly in them, anyway."

"And Victor?" I asked. "He was their age, wasn't he?"

She nodded. "Yes, he was. But he and I had also known that we'd be getting married since I was born, so it was a bit different...though even he doted on me like an older brother, so I'm not entirely sure that there was any love there."

 "So you loved him," I guessed.

"I suppose. I'm not sure how much of it was love and how much of it was making the best of a less-than-desireable situation." She made a face. "That sounds unfair. He was a wonderful person."