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

Chapter 20

The night before the spring party nearly every girl was up, running around to the other girls rooms and asking questions like,

What are you wearing?

Have your maids showed you your dress yet?

What are you doing with your hair?

Are you excited?

I didn't have a lot of visits from most of the other girls but I went over to Rae's room. Her dress was hanging in her open wardrobe as we sat on her bed.

"I like it." I say eyeing her dress. It had off the shoulder sleeves with yellow flowers on it. The overall color of her dress consisted of yellow, black, and green while I haven't even seen mine.

"You should see the heels." She says. "I don't think I'll ever walk again."

I laugh and fold my legs closer to me.

"My maids still won't show me, but I trust them I guess." I shrug.

"Are you going to lunch tomorrow? I heard some of the girls are skipping just to get ready." Rae tells me fiddling with her sheets.

"My maids can work faster than that." I say with a laugh. "We don't need to be downstairs till what? Three?"

"Three thirty." Rae corrects. "That gives us four hours. If you can't get ready in that amount of time. Something. Is. Wrong."

"I want to be open alright?" I say.

"Yeah sure. Hit me." Rae says hitting her chest a few times.

"I'm serious." I laugh. "I've met the prince twice now in his library."

"Oh." Rae says wiggling her eyebrows. She's funny to be in a competition with. I know it isn't that she doesn't care, but she knew what she signed up for. We were all fighting for something like a jewel. But to me, the jewel wasn't that pretty and wasn't worth it for me. But people needed this. The longer I stayed in this competition, the better off my whole family would be.

"Not like that!" I say and slap her arm. "He was teaching me."

"That's no better, Charlie!" Then I realized what I said.

"That's not what I meant either!" I say falling over sideways onto the bed laughing. "He was teaching me to read. I can't read." I say trying to be more serious but failing.

"Oh really?" Rae asks her eyes widening. "You never would've guessed. If I couldn't read I'd go around squinting at everything like it would help me understand it."

"God if we weren't in a competition for the prince i'd totally marry you." I say making us both fall laughing on the bed. Of course I would never marry her, but I don't think I could go back where I would have responsibilities with no friends. Sure I had Paisley, Jason, Henry, and Tayloe, but friends and family have a fine line for me.

•••

About five of the girls were missing at lunch, which I just rolled my eyes at.

"Where is the prince at?" Rae whispers.

"I'm not sure." I whisper biting into a strawberry. The King and Queen sit easily eating their food while Addy sits frozen to her seat, avoiding eye contact.

A few minutes later both doors open, and a very unhappy looking Alex walks in.

He whispers something when he sits at the table. Addy seems to relax and the King just nods. I'd never be able to guess what they were talking about.

Rae looks at me but I just shrug.

"I've got to go." I whisper feeling slightly sick. "I'll try and come to your room before the party."

I walk slowly up to my room, realizing when I moved quickly it only made my urge to vomit higher.

•••

"Do you think your maids will come to my room and fix you up there?" I ask wonderingly.

"I don't know." Rae says considering it. "Hey Julie?"

"Yes miss?" A small framed women jumps into the room with her black bun bouncing slightly.

"Do you think you and the other ladies can move your supplies to Lady Charlie's room and get me ready there?" Rae asks with slight authority.

"Of course miss." She curtsies and goes back into the bathroom to clean I assume.

"Okay give me five minutes then come on in my room. I'll tell my maids." I tell her and get up from her bed.

"Alrighty." Rae says perkily.

I laugh and walk across the hall to my room.

"Ladies?" I ask.

"Yes miss?" They all say at different times.

"Lady Raelle's maids are coming over and getting her ready here if you all don't mind." I sort of ask.

"That's perfectly fine." Tailor smiles.

Rae and I sit in chairs while our maids work frantically on out hair and makeup. One of each of our maids were going "finishing touches" to my dress.

I wasn't sure what they were actually doing to my hair until it was done. A crown made out of my own hair made a fine circle with no start or end. The Dutch braid was beautiful. Only a few pieces of hair fell out in front of my face were curled.

"Thank you guys so much." I tell them smiling.

"you haven't even seen your dress yet!" Wendy claps her hands. Minutes later Tailor comes through hauling a dress bag.

Before she even finished unzipping it I gasped. It was beautiful. The top was white lace we sleeves that cupped my shoulders then ended. A straight line dignified another layer of something under my dress that flowed all the way down with the thin lace around it.

Different color flowers led diagonally down my torso to the bottom of my skort where they sprinkled everywhere.

"Your hot." Rae speaks first. I laugh and slip into the dress. It fit perfectly just like all the others. My maids put little flowers in my hair for a finishing look I smiled happily.

"Thank you ladies." Rae says. They all curtsied and Rae and I walked out together. A few girls were walking down the staircase in poofy ball gowns and silky smooth dress that hugged too much of them.

"Are you ready?" Rae asked.

"Do we even have a choice?"

That was a slow update but schools starting back and I'm having a hard time keeping up with everything😁