Adeline took one look at the envelope addressed in her name and promptly stuffed it inside the freezer next to a frostbitten tub of ice cream where she knew her mother would never find it. It wasn't that she didn't want to enter the Selection. Because she did. Desperately. A chance to meet Prince Leopold, a chance to fall in love, a chance to get out of her prison of a home, such a thing would be a dream come true. But she knew it was a dream that could never be.
It was just as she was rinsing off the bowl that she had used for a healthy helping of ice cream (because frostbitten or not, it was still ice cream) that her sister walked through the door with a tanned hulk of man at her side. Adeline looked up.
"Hey, Addy!" Houston squealed, almost as if she were happy to see her sister. She wasn't. Adeline could tell. Houston may have one of Illéa's most up and coming actresses, but Adeline knew all her tells.
"Hey Houston," she said curtly, "And Julio. Always nice to see you in your natural shirtless habitat." Adeline thought this joke hilarious, but it's meaning was lost to the slightly dim-witted Julio.
"HOW. ARE. YOU?" The tanned brute shouted. Adeline knew he was just trying to do her a favor, but the shouting just made his lips harder to read.
Houston slapped her man's hand coyly and giggled, "Julio, don't be rude."
"I'M GREAT, JULIO. THANK YOU FOR ASKING, " Adeline shouted in reply. Julio proceeded to give her two thumbs up, obviously proud of their ability to communicate.
Houston, getting bored with the formalities tapped Julio on the butt and said, "Why don't you go wait for me by the pool, darling?" She flashed Julio a smile that said, just wait and see what I'm going to do to you, and Julio, drooling, perhaps from anticipation or perhaps from mental handicap, made his way to the pool.
"Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can stand him for much longer," Houston grumbled as soon as Julio was out of sight.
"Then why are you dating him?" Adeline asked out of genuine confusion.
"Because he's loaded," her sister replied, as if the answer was obvious.
"May I remind you that you are also loaded?" Adeline added.
"Addy, someday when you are rich and famous, you will understand. Rich and famous people need to be around other rich and famous people. That's just how it works."
"Noted." Adeline finished up rinsing her dish and stuck it in the dishwasher.
"You know we have servants for that kind of stuff." Houston was pulling a pre-made glass of lemonade out of the fridge and taking a sip.
"What mother and father don't know won't hurt 'em," Adeline muttered. Juanita and Neo, the family's main servants, were the only people Adeline might consider her friends. Not to mention that not being able to leave the house for any extended period of time had endowed her with a love of cleaning. Not a love that she would ever want her parents to find out about, of course.
"Whatever. Later, sis." Houston set her still nearly full lemonade in the sink and went to join her boyfriend in the pool. Adeline sighed, drained the wasted lemonade down the sink, and put the glass neatly in the dishwasher next to her bowl.
Author's Note:
Hello, beautiful people! So...I am super new to the world of fan fiction, and really writing in general, so if y'all could post a review and tell me how I'm doing, that would really help me out. :)
Also, The Selection belongs to the always beautiful, always deserving Kiera Cass. Let us all light a candle for her in our closet shrines. (Don't try and pretend you don't have one.)