This is Ours

Chapter 20

If I thought things were awkward when it was the four of us, than they need to come up with a new word for how bad it is now that it's just me and Kriss. It's literally so bad. We can barely even look at each other. We avoid each other like the plague. I accidentally exited my room at the same time she was leaving hers and I got so spooked that I fled back into my room. I actually didn't come out of there for like an hour. There's like an unspoken rule that we don't go to women's room for fear of seeing each other. She never goes near the music room or library and I never go near her favorite sitting room where she likes to draw. The only time we have any interaction at all is during dinner and even then we never speak. I usually speak to Maxon and Amberley and she'll speak to Amberley or an advisor. Maxon can tell the tension is there and I can tell the Queen is beginning to get a feeling for it too. Which is why I was completely unsurprised when it happened.

Today I was supposed to play Violin with Alaina. I always play violin with Alaina today. Sometimes Auli will come in and play the harp. Occasionally Maxon and Austin will come in and watch. But always, I play violin with Alaina. But when I went in my room to get my Violin it was gone. It wasn't weird because my maids take it often. Sometimes to shine it or tune it or replace the strings. I just don't have a violin.

So my next stop was the music room. The have multiple violins in there. All very shiny and well tuned. Except when I got there, there was none. None. There wasn't a single violin in there. They always have at least five with the best quality. But they have none. They always have some.

So I went to the last place I knew had a violin. The women's room. I used to keep one in there because I'd play for the selected throughout the game, but I'd stopped now that it was forbidden to speak to one another. But I prey that because we both don't go there that I won't run into her. I hesitantly creeped the door open as if I wasn't supposed to be there. No one ever told me not to and yet I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Which I'm not. Right?

Anyways, I tiptoed into the room none the less and saw.....Kriss there. Peeking into a cabinet. Pencils in hand. Her eyes flashed over to me and she looked like a child with her hand stuck in the cookie jar.

"What are you doing here?!" We both yelled. "You go first!"

"I didn't have any water color pencils in my room. I didn't know where they'd gone. I knew they had some in here," She explained, looking down and holding up the pencils.

"I needed a violin," I whispered, reaching behind the door to grab the one I keep there. "Mine was gone too."

"That would be our doing, I'm afraid," A prim voice sung as she entered the room. It was Miss Silvia. With Queen Amberley and Maxon training behind her. Maxon had explained to me that after he came up with the idea he had become a quick advisor for all things having to do with the Selection. He also confined in me that he thinks it's a pity job from his mom. But he says he's rooting for me all the way and placing little subliminal messages for them to pick me in they're heads. I don't know how to feel about that but I had said thank you none the less. "We had to get you two both in here. You both seem to refuse to come here on you're own accord and we couldn't just send the message by maid mow could we, Queen Amberley?"

"No, of course not. This is too important," The Queen agreed

So it was a set up, I figured out. I placed the violin down and Kriss gently placed her pencils away too. We both met at the couch, sitting on very opposite ends.