Labeled (A The Selection Fanfiction)

Chapter Eighteen

"No!  I'm busy."  I repeat for what must be the hundredth time.

"You're not.  You're probably sitting on your bed, looking at your hands and fiddling with you dress."  My gaze snaps up to the door, as if I can see him.

"No, I'm too busy."  Too busy ignoring you.

"Why can't I just tell you something?"

"You already did.  Goodbye, now."  Will he take a hint?  I don't want to hear his stubborn voice right now!

"Ugh!"  I sight in frustration.  "Why would you even care about what I'm doing?"

"I notice.  I notice things, like how your cheeks seem to glow when you laugh, the way you-"  he pauses, opening my door, "-the way your eyes look at me, like you think I'm locked and your the key."  Now that his voice is in the room, and not behind a door, I can hear the emotion behind it.  "And..and I'm sorry, Clarissa.  I don't know what I was thinking."

Bitterly, I spit, "Yeah.  That makes two of us."  He doesn't move, unfazed.  "Alexander, I told you already, go."  My voice is more stern and commanding than it has ever been, and I sound like a queen.

"No."  Why is he so stubborn and arrogant?  Maybe I don't want to be around him!  "No, you need to hear this."  I might as well start packing my bags.  "I-I sent another girl home after dinner."  What?  He stands at my door for half an hour, barges in, and makes me think he has some giant out of the world secret, for that?  That my competition has gotten smaller?  Great, Princey, just great.

"And?"

"And, Marilyn said some very rude things about you,"  his eyes move up and down me, like a scanner to a piece of paper.  Say no more.

"And?"

"I wasn't okay with that!"  He throws his hands up violently.  I remember the simulation, when my mother almost retreated into violence.  But her words were enough to scare me, and apparently Marilyn's were enough to get sent home.

"So you sent her home?  Prince Alexander, you could have sent home your future wife!  Her home might have been right were she was standing, and you took it away because she said a thing or two about me?!  Since when do you care so much about what people say about me?"  I burst.  He is so stubborn!

"Pff."  He fiercely exhales.  "You just don't get it, do you?"  He sneers at me.  I want to punch that condemning look off of his face.

Here's the Prince Alexander we all know and love.  I guess our relationship is just a love-hate one.  But we never do seem to get around to the love part.

Hate just comes naturally.  It's poisonous.

"Just go."  I hope it sounds indifferent, but the crack in my voice is still there.

"Fine.  Maybe you need to go too, just like Marilyn."  Did he really just threaten me?  Shock registers on his face as he realizes what he said, but he is interrupted by a knock on the wall.  On the wall, because he forgot to close the door.  The door that leads straight into the hallway that all the selected can go into.

Shoot.  I will kill Ale- scratch that.  I will kill his emotions, twist them and manipulate them, but make him feel the pain. 

I shoot a glare at the door, expecting Bridgette, the one and only.

Instead, I see Maxon.  "Alexander, get out of there now."  He sounds furious, not even trying to keep in his rage.  I think I have discovered a trait in the Royal Family.