Say Goodbye (a Selection story)

Chapter Four

       The next few days end up to be quite uneventful. The only exciting thing that happened was that I got to move into my new apartment in the area where Three's got to live. It's amazing how drastic the difference is between living as a Five and living as a Three. My apartment is bigger than the first floor of my old home and everything is new and modern. I wish my whole family could move in with me and have this luxury as well, but only I was moved to a Three. Being a Three however means I'll have to pick a new job, and I only have a few more days to do so.
        I stare at the job application sheet in front of me. I've been avoiding applying for my new job for as long as I could, but they only gave me three weeks to decide and I only have four days left of that time period. I don't know why I've been avoiding it so much. I already know what I want to do: teach music. If I can't sing and play at parties anymore, why not teach other kids how to do it. Music has always been a passion of mine and I want to spread it to other kids.
        A knock on my door makes me jump out of my seat. I walk to the door and open it. I smile when I see May standing there.
        "May! What are you doing here? You never told me you were coming over," I say as she walks in.
         "Yeah, I know. I just felt like seeing you," she says.
        "You just saw me yesterday."
       "So, I'm used to seeing you everyday. Now I only see you when it's safe for you to come outside and not get proposed to."
        I laugh and role my eyes. It's true. Just about every timeout step outside my apartment someone tries to propose to me. Government officials, royal guards, celebrities, even this one drunk guy who thought I was his childhood sweetheart, you name it. I turned every single one of them of course. I'm not going to marry someone for their title, and I'm not even ready to be in love again and I honestly don't know if I ever will be.
          "I'm sorry May. I've just been stressed with moving in here and I honestly needed some time to just be alone and recover," I say.
         "I know, but then you'll be getting a job, which I see you still haven't applied for," May says grabbing the application sheet.
         I snatch it from her hands. "I will be applying don't worry," I say.
        "Yeah, sure you said that yesterday, and last week, and the week before that, and you know what I think you said that when we landed back here in Carolina."
         "It's an important decision. I wanted to make sure I'm making the right choice."
         "Ames, you know you want to teach music. You said that right away. Why aren't you just applying already?"
        "To be completely honest with you, I don't know," I say while sitting down at my table.
        "Well, I'm no psychologist so I can't tell you what's wrong with you, but I know you'll be a lot less stressed if you just fill out the dang paper, Ames," May says while handing me a pen.
I take the pen and begin to fill out the form. All they really wanted was my personal information, what I wanted to do, and my qualifications for doing that job, and let's not forget the great question everyone loves: why do you want to work here?
May came with me to drop off the application form at the county office. I don't know why but it felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders when I gave the lady that piece of paper. I guess I was stressing out about that more than I thought I was. Why? I still don't know. But it felt nice. It was a step into my new life, my life away from the palace, away from Maxon.
I haven't really thought about him the past few weeks. I try to avoid any sort of thoughts about him or the palace in general. It's only on Friday nights when we have to watch the weekly Report do I ever think about him. He's always on the Report, looking all happy with Kriss. Smiling and laughing, so different from when I saw him last. It kills me to see that. It feels like that big, empty hole in my heart is ripped open all over again. It's miserable. But that's what I'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. I'll have to watch the man I was desperately in love with, marry someone else and grow a life with someone else. And it's going to hurt like crazy, at least until I fall in love again, and I don't know if even then it will stop hurting.
        He probably has already moved on, already forgot about me. Kriss is probably making him so happy being his perfect little princess. He probably hasn't thought about me at all.