Caught In The Gray

Chapter Two

Entry One

I can't get her out of my head. I know I only meet her for a moment but it'll never leave. Trapped in my head, she rattles around, her image never fades. Her vibrant green eyes and hair that seemed to want to break free of it's imprisonment.

I can't stand the thought of looking for a wife. I know I'm going to be the next Military Commander and it's required but it repulses me. I don't know what to do.

I only want her.

Father says that I need to chose one of the girls but none of them will be right. I don't want what he and my mother have, I want more. I don't want a relationship built on a lie, cold and never any warmth; a dominant and a submissive.

I want someone who challenges me, drives me insane, leaves me feeling with so much emotion, I burst at the seams. Something tells me it's her, her and only her. Which leaves me nowhere, caught in the gray.

It's been a day since I've had the evaluation, I went home yesterday and hung by myself, I journaled a bit. It's required that you move out of your parents house when you turn eighteen.

Today, I'm going to see my mom at her bookstore, she may be the happiest person I know even though my father died. She's probably my best friend, I can tell her anything.

I open the door to her shop and she's talking to a customer who seems to be happy. I smile and wave before heading to the back room to get a cup of coffee. The backroom has a few chairs, a table and a small kitchen. I pour a cup of coffee and see a new shipment of books that came in.

I take my cup over to the shipment and start to look through them, it's mostly suspense and horror books but towards the bottom there's a few romance novels. I grab the ones from the bottom and see that there's a historical romance, a few paranormals, some contemporary and some romantic suspense.

I pick up the historical and start to flip through it. It's pretty good, basically an arrogant duke is forced to start looking for a duchess when he stumbles upon a witty girl fleeing an old marriage, the two begin a scandalous love affair that ends when she leaves him, a note on the pillow. He runs after her and when he can't find her, he stops looking and solemnly marries a woman of his father's choice. He starts drinking and spiralling down and he runs into her again, she's back with the old husband. Matters are made worse when the two meet at a gala and they end up in a lovers embrace. They remain trapped, not being able to be together but not being able to stay away.

"Hi, Adabelle." Mom says and walks into the room to refill her coffee cup.

"Hi, Mom. This one is really good." I say and hold up the cover. Mom leans against the counter and sips her coffee.

"I know, I already read it. I got you a pastry." she says and nods to a white bag sitting on the counter. I jump up and place to book on my seat.

"Thank you! This is my favorite kind," I say and bite into a blackberry cream cheese danish. She smiles.

"I know, honey. How was the evaluation yesterday?" She asks and I swallow before taking a sip of coffee.

"I think it went fairly well even though I was almost late." I say and she stares at me.

"What do you mean by 'almost late'?"

"My alarm went off late and I had ten minutes to run from my apartment to the building where it was being held."

"Did you make it okay?"

"Yeah, I was fine. I wasn't even the last one in line." I say and she gives me a highfive.

"Did anything interesting happen?"

"Well, when I was running to get to the building, I almost ran into this super adorable black Newfie, Rosy. She was laying down in the middle of the sidewalk and didn't want to move. I said hi and gave her a quick belly rub before thanking the owner and continuing my run to the building."

"It sounds like she was adorable. What did you wear?"

"A gray pencil skirt, white blouse, nude heels and did a ponytail that had a gray ribbon tied around it."

"How was the evaluation itself?"

"I think it went pretty well, the three evaluators seemed nice and I think they liked me. I had to take an Arabic fluency test and I think I nailed it."

"That's good. I told you reviewing everything before would help." Mom says and I nod.

"Yeah, it did. I just wish that Dad was still here." I say and Mom gathers me in a hug.

"Me too, he would've been so proud of you, Abbi loved you." She says and I nod.

"Do you want me to help you with putting away the new shipment of books?" I ask.

"Sure, honey, if you want too." She says and I nod. I wheel the cart back through to the store and start putting the books back by alphabetical order.

Once I have all the suspense put away, I move to the horror section where most of the other books go, it takes a while to put all of them away before I can move to the romance section. It's my favorite section, I love all the passion that seems to echo through the books. I've read almost every book on the shelves.

I take my time putting the books away and looking through them, trying to find another one to read. A while later, all the books are out away and I have one in my hand.

I walk to the register and Mom is counting the money and writing notes down. "Bye, Mom. I'm going to leave, thanks for the danish." I say and she smiles.

"Bye, sweetie. Love you." Mom says.

"Love you too, I grabbed a book by the way." I say and hold up the cover, she waves, signaling that I can take it.

I walk out of the store and back to my apartment. I can walk anywhere that I need to, everything's within a few miles. It's not like cars or other methods of transit are waiting around to be used. In an effort to help Global Climate Change, other vehicles that exert exhaust have been reduced, everyone walks.

Well, everyone except people in the Military, tanks are still used to patrol and people like the Military Commander use cars to get around and talk to others in positions of power. They also use planes when all the Military Commanders meet for international issues.

I have no idea what the next Military Commander is going to be like, no one knows a whole lot about him. The current Military Commander and his wife haven't released a lot of details about him, all I know is that he's twenty one, everyone claims he's very attractive and that he went to a special academy like a boarding school when he was school age.

I've heard rumors about him, some people have said that he's arrogant or a bit of a womanizer, I don't think that it's credible although it could be true. I'm sure he'll be great at being a Military Commander, his father is and it seems like he's been trained by his father to prepare for it.

I definitely don't think that I'll be in the fifty girls chosen, it's such a small percentage of all the girls in America. One thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem like we have a choice, every girl has to be evaluated and if they move on, they become his wife, no matter what.

I guess that they don't become wedded immediately, it seems like there's a trial period that's followed by engagement and than by marriage and children.

Although, I suppose that could be happy marriage if the girl was the most compatible with him and he did choose her so I guess that means something.

I believe I'm not going to end up being the next Military Commander's wife anyways so I'm not going to overthink it. I'm sure that some girl will be very happy, being able to go to fancy events and feeling like she's making a difference even though she won't be doing more than sitting there and looking pretty.