A Previous Selection

Chapter Twenty-Six

I'm sitting at the piano that I asked to be put in my room, playing a light melody, when Alice walks up to me with a small smile, carrying a tray.

"Here's your lunch, miss," she says as she sets the tray down on the nearby table, and I give her a smile in return.

"Thank you, Alice."

She curtsies before leaving me be and busying herself with cleaning my room with the others.

I finish the song I'm playing before sitting down at my table to eat lunch.

It's been two days since everything happened with Stella, and I haven't left my room since then. I thought that maybe a good night of rest would reset my mind, and the memories would decide to crawl back into the hole that I had been trying to keep them in. But when I woke up the morning after it all happened, the dull ache that ran through my body just reminded me of what had been tormenting me before I had gone to bed.

Though the pain is almost completely gone now, the memories have made no move to leave me alone. So I've been pretending to be sick for the past two days to get out of having to see anyone.

I don't want anyone to know what's going on in my head. I don't want them to know about the battle that I'm fighting with my past. And I know there's no way that I could hide the emotional pain I've been going through.

My maids obviously know that I'm not sick, but since I'm still in pain from what Stella did, they haven't said anything. They've been letting me deal with this however I want to, no questions asked. Which I've appreciated.

They've brought me up all of my meals. They got some of the advisors to agree to put a piano in my room, so I'd have something to play. And every time one of the girls has dropped by to see how I'm feeling, they tell them that I'm either sleeping or not feeling well enough to talk.

I was grateful for that part. But it did hurt when I'd have them tell Addison that. I know that it's probably hurting her that I haven't let her see me, but Addison can read me like an open book. If she catches so much as one glimpse of me, then she'll immediately know that it's more than just physical pain that I'm dealing with.

That's why I can't let her see me. Not until I've gotten ahold of this whole thing.

I also haven't seen Cameron, but thankfully, he hasn't tried to see me either.

He's been swamped with business and finance meetings all week on top of all the publicity matters about the Selection. Between all of that and a special event that he's having to plan, he hasn't had a single free moment these past two days.

The only communication I've had with him are the notes that he's had a maid deliver to me throughout the day.

His notes range from telling me about his schedule for the day and how he won't be able to see me to asking me how I'm feeling and if I'm doing okay.

I haven't sent a note back.

I don't know what to say.

I'm afraid that even through writing, he'll be able to tell that the words "I'm fine" are a lie. That he'll be able to tell that I'm actually okay with him not being able to see me. Not because I don't miss him and miss talking to him, but because I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this whole thing a secret when he's looking at me with those eyes that somehow always know when I'm holding back.

And he can't know. He can't know what happened to me. Because what if it changes the way he looks at me? What if it makes him realize that all I am is broken? Damaged? Someone who's never going to be fixed because there's nothing in this world that can fix what HE did to me, what HE took from me?