The Selection (Is A Modelling Competition)✔️

Chapter 20: Fights & Tears

"There must have been some kind of mistake," I said hollowly, sitting in the makeup room as they prepared us for a publicity photo shoot for some magazine that was doing a piece on our "feelings after this elimination."

Elise shook her head, disturbing the hairdresser who was styling her dark, glossy locks into an elegant up-do. "There wasn't a mistake. Rules are rules."

"But Marlee was so nice," Natalie said sadly through pursed lips as someone painted her mouth a deep red. "She wouldn't do something like that."

"How do you know?" Celeste snarled. "She was poor, wasn't she? Who knows what she'd do for money." She looked at me as she said this, and I tensed but kept myself from saying anything too harsh.

"Still," Natalie said, less stiffly now as the stylist moved on to her eyes, brushing on glitter and drawing eyeliner. "Marlee was a good person."

They were all talking like she was dead. It hurt.

"Hold still," the girl doing my makeup commanded me, keeping me from also jumping to Marlee's defence. "I'm gonna put on some lipstick, and then lip liner, so don't move your mouth."

"Yeah, America. Shut up." Celeste folded her arms across her chest with a smirk as someone did her eyebrows.

That was the last thing I wanted to do. But getting into another fight would definitely get me kicked out of the competition, and so I folded my hands in my lap, and blinked back tears.

"How are we doing, ladies?" Maxon entered the room, a camera slung around his neck. I turned my head away; looking at him hurt too. A reminder of the things that were wrong with this competition, of what made me want to stay anyways. I needed to pull myself together. Be strong. But all I wanted to do was cry.

The other girls answered him with smiles and a chorus of 'good's and 'great's and in Celeste's case, 'better now that you're here.' It made me want to gag. Maxon walked over to me.

"Hello, America," he said. I looked up, and there was a profound sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry about Marlee."

"Did she do it?" I croaked. My voice was hoarse from crying. "Did she really do it?"

"America - " he began, but I was beyond tears now. Just angry.

"Tell me, Maxon." My hands clenched into fists, painted nails digging into my palms. "Tell me the truth."

"I'm sorry, America. It was the truth. Marlee did it." Maxon's eyes were still sad, but I was done. I was done with this competition, done with all the pain it had brought me.

Aspen and I were over. Marlee had left. I knew I wasn't model material. Why on earth was I still here?

"Let me go," I said through stiff lips.

"What?" Even as he spoke the words I knew he understood; he just hoped he'd misheard. Well, he hadn't.

"Let me go home, Maxon. I'm done with this competition. I want to go home." I didn't care if any of the other girls were happy that I was leaving or if Maxon would be sad when I was gone. I needed to pull myself together, and I could only do that at home, where nobody was trying to make me into someone I wasn't.

"America, you don't mean that. You're upset. If you'd just let me explain - "

"I said I'm done. Respect my decision, Maxon. Please, if you ever cared about me - " I swallowed, hard, because I still didn't know what he felt, and if I left I might never know. "Let me go."