Hey guys! Long time no update! Sorry about that! Here is a chapter just for you! Chapter fifty! (Technically)

POVS...

Pierce, Jestelle!

CHAPTER FIFTY: TELL ME THE TRUTH

Pierce

Has anyone ever told you that pictures are magical? No. Never. I guess I sort of found it out myself then. Books are like adventures. Art is like your own little world. And pictures are memories wrapped up in a camera or sheet of paper. Whether or not you printed the picture out or not.

Maggie use to say she loved photography. She loved when I took picture like our great grandfather. (MAXON!) And she loved it when I showed them to her. She was my little helper. She showed me what to take a picture of, and I did it. And I didn't even complain when she wanted me to take a picture of a flower, or a bunny rabbit laying in the grass. I just did it. Because it wasn't really of what the pictures were about. It wasn't what was in the pictures that I cared about. I cared about spending time with Maggie, and that little moment when you click the button to save the picture forever.

I just wish we had more memoires that were amazing. I wish we visited Germany or France more often and took pictures. Maggie would have loved to look at them one more time before she became blind. Maggie would have loved to gone there, and see it with her own eyes.

And I regret not letting her. It's not all my fault though. It's not like I could have picked her up and thrown her and myself into a plane to go to France. Our parents would have scolded me for years afterwards. They would have waited until I was forty something to have my Selection. But I guess it'd be kind of worth it. I can't believe how much I wished I could go back to the times where Maggie's bright sky blue eyes actually had a meaning other then just to make her look a little less scary then a blind person without irises.

I looked at Maggie who was forcing herself to face a window, even though it was useless. She couldn't see outside. Why did she bother?

I tapped my pencil on my desk and watched her. It was raining outside. It felt like that first day. It felt like the first time I ever found out I was having a Selection. I was in my office and she came running in, soaking wet from being outside with her roses.

But things felt so different now. We weren't the same people we were before and it hurt so much to think about that. She was growing up. I was getting married in a little while, and neither of us knew what was going to happen after all that. Or at least we didn't know what was going to change. We both knew she'd be married off. But would she ever look at us the same again after that? If she even could see by then?

I didn't want my little sister, as much as she use to annoy me when we were younger, to leave that little shell she had. I wanted her to stay young. I liked her young. I liked it when she went outside in the pouring rain and picked roses for me to take all of the thorns off of. I liked it when she stole all of the cookies in the kitchen and snuck into my office to give me one too. I liked it when she couldn't sleep at night and she'd crawl into my bed with me because she use to call me her protector. I was her knight in shining armor that both of us knew by now she'd never get.

I didn't think it was fair that she didn't get a fairy tale ending. That was her dream. She wanted a prince of her own. She wanted a Cinderella story. And I couldn't imagine how she'd get that now.

Jestelle

It's pouring outside. The rain falls in a pattern like rhythm. It feels like the raindrops are guards. They march, and march, and march on. And nothing can stop them from getting where they need to go. For raindrops, it's the ground, to soak into it and help plants I guess. But for real live guards. They're doing this for Illea. They're marching into battle and I can't help but think of how frightening that'd be.

It makes me wonder if Vance was picked to be a guard, if he'd ever wonder about me as he went off to battle. But Vance wasn't here anymore. And I had to stop thinking about him. I was here for Pierce. For a couple more minutes.

"Prince Pierce?" I asked knocking on his office door. I heard noises inside and then he opened the door and Maggie went piling out. I wondered how she knew where she was going. She was blind wasn't she? How could she tell? Did she just know the palace well enough that everything in it seemed like a cut in wood for her?

"Lady Jestelle, what did you need?" Pierce sounded kind of surprised to see me. I smiled a little at him and pushed my red hair out of the way of my vision.

"Pierce I'd like to talk to you," I said quietly and he opened his door up wider so that I could walk in. He started to bit his lip nervously. I wondered if he thought I was going to yell at him for putting our lives in danger. Or something else.

"I'm really sorry about everything that's been going on lately Lady Jestelle. I hope you'll forgive me," he said and glanced at me. I only smiled and said, "It's fine really, that's not what I came to talk to you about."

He sighed a little but then returned to his usual state of royalty.

"I wanted to talk about the Selection," I said and his shoulders slumped a little.

"Yes about that, I'm terribly sorry I haven't gotten to spend any time with you. It's been crazy around here and I-"

"Why am I still here?" I asked, interrupting him.

He looked at me confused at first and then worried, "What do you mean Lady Jestelle?"

Lady Jestelle was all I really needed to heard before I looked at him, "Pierce, I mean, sorry Prince Pierce. I just want to know why I'm still here. Be honest with me. Be totally honest with me. Do you feel anything for me. Anything at all?" I'd have an easier time asking a dead man this. He sat there nervously and I found myself wishing I could go home, no matter how terrible it was there. I just wanted to sit at my doorsteps and think about him. About the boy who changed my mind forever. The boy who flipped me upside down and turned me around until I could see my old self fading away. I wanted to think about Vance, not Pierce, because I had a hard time believing that Pierce, a man who was nothing like Vance, could ever pass as him for me. I would never love Pierce the way I loved Vance. That was the cold hard truth. And I hated to say it, but it made me feel all warm and candor inside.

"Lady Jestelle I can't-"

"Just tell me!" I said a little nasty and forced but I got it out. And he answered me.

"No, I'm sorry, but I don't really feel anything. I kept you because I felt like I could learn to feel something. You were so nice. I didn't really want you to go. But I have to be honest with you here. No, I felt nothing," he said and I nodded.

"Then I guess it's better for you to send me home, and spend more time with your other Selected, but Prince Pierce?"

"Yes?"

"They need you now more then ever."

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Sorry I haven't updated in a little while! I had a ton of things to do! But here I am with a new chapter for you! Yay! I hope you liked it and I also hope you have a sparkly day!

Questions:

Do you see the connection from the prologue and this chapter?!

Did you like Jestelle?

THANKS AGAIN! Have a FANtastic day!