HEEEEY everyone! I'm hella extra so yet again this chapter didn't get done what I have planned, so there will be one more ball chapter after this. I've been working really hard on this, but I got stuck on the ending and transitions, so it took forever. Basically, this chapter is just a lot of the Selected, and not even all the ones I planned to include (if they haven't, they'll get their time, I promise!)

Thanks to mnbvcxz-xx, RunawayGirl8125, Nameless, delovlies and Miss Kaydence (for also updating like four times since I have) for your wonderful reviews!

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"I'm sorry, I did warn you!" Wesley apologized again as he clumsily attempted to steer Eleanor in something that resembled ballroom dancing.

"No, it's okay. I supposed I asked for it!" Eleanor didn't look quite as happy as she had when they'd started, and she was still blushing from being run back into a famous celebrity couple by Wesley.

It was completely accidental, of course. He hadn't willingly ever listened to his required-because-prince dance lessons, and the last one he had been to was when he was eleven—ten years ago.

Eleanor, of course, still managed to look completely beautiful and graceful, and despite her claims otherwise, was a great dancer. Her smile had shrunk, and now barely turned up the corners of her mouth.

He didn't miss the way that his Selected had suddenly turned out in mobs to watch them. It seemed like half of them were glaring at Eleanor, and the other half were laughing at him. Georgia's eyes were trained on him like a cat watching a mouse, and Darcy honestly looked like she was thriving off his embarrassment in all her salmon-colored glory. Iris looked a bit disappointed, and she quickly looked away when he made eye contact. Fallon was biting her lip, her hands gathered up against her chest and tucked under her chin as if she was hugging herself. If he hadn't been holding onto Eleanor, Wesley might have covered up his bowtie so Fallon wouldn't see it.

"Sorry, this is a disaster," Wesley said, half-stumbling over his own feet.

Eleanor gave him a reassuring smile, which in Wesley's mind was a small success—better pity than unhappiness. "You're doing great."

"It would help if everyone wasn't staring our guts out."

"I don't think I've heard that one before," Eleanor gave a little giggle.

"You should probably ignore half of the things I say. Especially right now, I just remembered I hate being the center of attention."

"Well, don't look now, but they're recording this," Eleanor nodded over his shoulder. "What do you think, would this make an endearing or embarrassing headline?

Wesley turned his head to see one of the skeleton camera crews they had let remain to cover the event. They were supposed to leave after the first hour of the ball, but obviously, they were still here, hiding by the Great Room entrance. He also saw his mother watching them. She was frowning—not a good sign.

Predictably, as he took his mind off the dance, he lost his steps, bumping into the older couple behind them. He was pretty sure they were important people too, but his brain was too frazzled by the impossible task of dancing to remember.

"Hey, stay with me!" Eleanor tripped a little but took the lead and pushed them back into time with the others. She tightened her grip on his neck, pulling herself a little closer, so close that their cheeks were practically touching. Up this close, he noticed her eyes were more hazel-green that brown, glinting with gold from the chandeliers.

"Now go for a spin—let's give them something to record!" she murmured into his ear. Wesley held his arm holding her hand up, and Eleanor ducked underneath, picking up the skirt of her pale-blue gown with the other hand. She flashed him a smile, and in a second, she was back by his side.

"Wow, okay. I thought that would be a lot harder," Wesley said.

Eleanor grinned, and her nose wrinkled slightly. "I told you it wasn't hard."

He could smell the hairspray in her hair, along with her subtle perfume, and it was intoxicating. But then the image from earlier of Lissa pressed up against Joseph the way Eleanor was pressed up against him popped into his traitorous brain, and he had to quickly step back so they weren't dancing so close. To distract himself from the guilt he tried to refocus on the girl before him.

"So, back in Tammins, what did Miss Eleanor Archibald do? I mean I know you're a ballerina and all…"

"I just finished my training last year. This is my first year with the Tammins Regional Company. I'm just in the corps de ballet, but only four of us from my year even made it in, so I'll take it."

"Sorry, the core de what?"

Eleanor laughed and squeezed his hand. "It's basically just the dancers in the background. We're not soloists or anything, you have to work your way up. The lowest of the low, but you have to start somewhere."

"What about your family?" Wesley asked. "Do you have any siblings?"

Eleanor shook her head, "Nope, just me." She went back to frowning—not a good sign. "I was always very close to my dad, though."

Wesley didn't miss her use of the past tense. He probably shouldn't have commented on it, but as they always did the question tumbled out of him before he could stop it.

"Why not anymore?"

Eleanor met his gaze and hurt flashed across her face. "He was killed, at the beginning of the rebellion. He was just an artist, but he was drafted in the first round. He died not even a month later."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Wesley offered lamely. "And your mom?"

"She wants what's best for her for me." Her words were short and clipped, and by then Wesley knew better than to ask for more details, and Eleanor didn't offer any.

She winced suddenly and lost her footing slightly, leaning against him.

"Sorry!" Wesley cried. He had gotten so caught up in her story that he'd forgotten to focus on the waltz and had stepped on her toes.

"No, it's okay," Eleanor said, though it had to have hurt. He could see her shoes when she stepped forward, and her open-toed high heels probably hadn't offered much protection against his heavy dress shoes. She had ended their closeness, stepping back away from him.

"I'm pretty sure I just committed the cardinal dancing sin."

"Really, I'm fi-" she stopped with a sharp intake of breath as Wesley accidentally trod on her toes again, sending them both stumbling into each other.

He mumbled several choice curses and combined with his prodding, this time Eleanor looked angry She stepped back away from the dancing, holding her hands up.

"Okay, I can survive once, but not twice! I need these toes to make a living!"

"I'm so sorry," Wesley began. "I told you I'm terrible."

He was aware that the audience was back, only this time instead of his terrible dancing skills, he had just been dropped by his partner. Darcy was laughing loudly, and Valette and Dresden looked like this was the best experience of the Selection so far. This would be a great time for Georgia to show her possible-true-rebel colors and kill him. And where was Joseph when he needed to yell at him and fire him?

Sweat broke on his forehead, and his tuxedo coat suddenly felt like a straightjacket.

Not again.

He was right back to where he started this ball-or at least re-started it when he came out of hiding with Ethan and Nicole. He looked around furiously for one of them, or at least Nat or Andrew or even one of the little kids at this point to save him, but he didn't see them. Only his mother, watching him like a hawk and as it would have it, looking displeased. Her earlier words to him flashed into his brain.

This wasn't supposed to be about the war. This wasn't supposed to be about Lissa. He had to take this seriously because he was fine.

Eleanor was staring him, waiting, but he didn't know what to say or do. He wanted to bolt, hide in the hallway, hop in a car and never return. He wanted to scream or cry or drink himself to death in a haze of fun. He wanted to blame Lissa or Drake or anyone other than himself.

His savior took one of the most unlikely forms.

Fallon all but shoved Eleanor out of the way, and for a second Wesley thought she might literally be there to stab him over his terrible fashion sense, but instead, she grabbed his hand and yanked his other hand into waltzing posture, and before he could even scream for help, she was guiding him around the dance floor in exactly a way a prince would be expected to.

"You clearly have no idea how to do this. Idiot," she mumbled. The dark-haired girl didn't look at him as she danced like she was born to.

She was a Berlin, though. She probably was.

From such a famous girl, he expected a more flamboyant gown, but Fallon's blue-gray one was simple. The skirt wasn't as full as most of the other women's and other than sparkly beading going on down the bodice and flowing over the skirt, it was unadorned. A ribbon headband tied back her softly pinned-up hair, and the ends of the ribbon tied at the back of her head and continued over her back.

Finally, she looked up, her eyes snagging on his bowtie before finally meeting his eyes with her wide blue ones.

"First the tie, now this. I don't think we can make this relationship work."

Her words were emotionless, like the cold look in her eyes. And yet, her very act of saving him from total humiliation spoke otherwise.

"Is it that bad?" He looked down at his bowtie and shirt.

Fallon nodded quickly, her eyes back on her shoes. "I might cry. Really. I might."

"Well, before you do, at least let me tell you that you are an absolute saint for saving me back there. I don't know what I did wrong, one minute everything was fine and then Eleanor was practically dumping me."

Fallon's eyes met his for another fraction of a second before she looked away. She cleared her throat.

"I don't actually care about your problems, but please get your head out of your ass and focus here before the queen murders us all, please and thank you. You're out of rhythm."

For the next several songs the orchestra played, Fallon insulted his dancing skills while proving to be a ruthless instructor as she softly instructed him on the finer points of dancing. She was pretty liberal in her use of resorting to kicking him or even shoving him when he wasn't moving fast enough, but Wesley had no choice but to shut up and listen to her. She squeezed his hand so tightly at times it hurt. Even thru her long white gloves, her hand felt cold. The hand that was on her back could feel her spine and ribcage through the thin fabric of her dress. She felt delicate and almost breakable, and to be honest, he had no idea what to think of this girl.

All he had to go on was what his mom had told him about her, and her popularity. And more importantly, that he needed to go on a date with her.

"So, from what I've heard, people have been dying to see us together, and they keep blaming me when you're the one who keeps turning me down. What made you change your mind?"

Fallon flashed a scowl at his attempt to be flirtatious. "They haven't actually been dying, so please don't use that."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You should be."

Wesley's legs got tangled up, and he stepped forward right onto her foot. Luckily, unlike Eleanor, her heels were not open-toed.

"Sorry," he said for the umpteenth time.

"That's it, I'm leaving you. We're getting a divorce." Fallon mumbled. She nudged his leg with her knee. "Wrong leg, focus here!"

Despite what she said, she showed no sign of ending the merciless and slightly painful dance lesson. When he got back into the dance, he decided to try again.

"I've been thinking—we should go out. On a proper date."

Fallon pressed her lips together, and he decided that was as close to a smile as he was going to get. "Preferably one that doesn't involve dancing," she replied. Now, dip in one, two, three." Fallon let go of his hand and leaned backward on his supporting arm around her waist, and the music of the song came to an end. "I think that's enough dancing for me."

"So is that a yes for the date? I promise, no dancing." Wesley pulled Fallon back up, and she let go of the vice grip she had on his hand.

"Um, no. It's a no, I mean," she swallowed, and then nodded several times. "Like I said, I can't go on a date with you until you show me some better clothes. Not-" she waved her hand at his tux, "—this."

Wesley sighed, knowing he was defeated and not wanting to make another scene. Besides, he had gotten the feeling that Fallon was a lot nicer than she seemed, and his clothes weren't actually the reason she was refusing.

"You should see what my valet had picked out for me. It was even worse. Consider yourself lucky that I changed."

Fallon opened her mouth and then turned like she might skitter away, but she paused and looked back at him.

"Your valet is a bit of a dick."

Wesley couldn't help but burst into laughter, only imagining how that interaction had gone down. Fallon pressed her lips together and smiled the teeniest-tiniest smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling up ever so slightly.

"Thanks for the dance lesson," he said when he finally could speak again.

She nodded again. "We aren't doing it ever again, but you're welcome."

Fallon slipped away into the crowd before he could say anything else, gone almost as quickly as she had appeared. The orchestra had stopped playing, and the music switched over to the speakers hidden all over the room to loud upbeat pop music.

The transition provided a good enough distraction for no one to notice Wes slip away from the dance floor in search of perhaps an alcoholic beverage but probably just a soda, or worse, a juice box, due to the fantastic new rules dominating his entire existence. Really, he just needed a break. Plus you could never go wrong with fancy appetizers, either, like those bacon-wrapped things on toothpicks he had seen earlier.

It didn't turn into much of a break unless you count half of a mozzarella stick (even better than the toothpick bacon-wrapped things) and waiting for the foam on his Sprite to stop fizzing before his relative solitude ended with the arrival of Lady Georgia.

She had practically snuck up on him yet again, which seemed difficult considering her five-inch heels, peeking out from the ruffles on the flared bottom of her blush-colored dress, that fitted close to her body until just above her knees, with a train of several inches.

Wesley half-choked on his mozzarella stick and mumbled a greeting around the mouthful.

"Sup!" he blurted out loudly, trying to act normal.

Georgia didn't smile, of course, she didn't smile. Wesley didn't think she was even capable of smiling. She just did that infuriating eyebrow thing and tipped her head to the side.

"A bit of a slight, isn't it?" she said, in that quiet voice of hers that forced you to listen. "Celebrating victory?"

Wesley didn't have an answer, so he just grabbed his Sprite and took a long drink that ended up being the whole glass because nothing came to mind as he drained it. Georgia never broke her gaze, just watched him. He wasn't even sure she blinked.

When there was nothing but ice cubes left, he wiped his lips on his sleeve.

"I like your hair tonight," he stammered. "Your dress is cool. And those shoes, wow, you're taller than me."

Georgia's blonde hair was twisted up into an elaborate bun-thing, with a few strands framing her face, and Wesley suddenly came to the embarrassing realization that the two inches the heels gave her on him made her boobs just an easy glance down.

Great.

She blinked extra long in a way that gave him just enough time to evaluate his life choices and know he had made the wrong ones before responding.

"We're supposed to be back to being one whole country, but this ball is basically rubbing salt into the secession wounds," she said, her voice louder than her normal controlled tone.

Wesley busied himself with trying to dump an ice cube into his mouth which only resulted in all of them sliding from the bottom of the glass onto his face. He lowered the glass and cleared his throat.

"Can't you just think of it as…a union…united…u…not political in any way ball?"

There went her eyebrows again. "Perhaps we should have just not attended—Fallon, Vera, Reese, Valette, and I—since we represent the provinces that seceded. Would that have worked better?"

"But—but you were like a spy. For us."

Georgia lifted her chin into the air, and the lines of her body tensed up. "Not like, I was. But that doesn't change the fact that Yukon seceded and failed, does it?"

Wesley didn't have an answer for that either, and he was out distractions.

"I guess I didn't think of that," he muttered. There was a question burning in his mind, and he had never had good impulse control, so like with Eleanor he was asking it before he could think twice.

"But what I meant…are you happy with how it turned out? Are you happy we won?"

He hadn't realized that Georgia was capable of feeling any other emotion aside from distaste (namely directed at him) so Wesley was a bit shocked to see her expression change to hurt. She lowered her eyes, and some of the blonde strands out of her bun fell across her eyes. It was even more shocking to hear her next words.

"More than anything," she said, her voice soft again. "But it doesn't feel like I thought it would. I didn't realize I would be alone when it was all over."

Georgia looked at Wesley, and he looked back at her, and she didn't even move her eyebrows the slightest, so he figured it was something of a breakthrough.

"I didn't think that I would either."

Her eyes flitted around the room. "You would kick me out if you knew half of the things I did," Georgia said, her voice far away. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I just did what I had to do… to keep this country together."

"I should probably thank you."

Georgia turned her head away. "You don't have to, but I appreciate the thought."

They were quiet for a minute, standing on the outskirts of the ball. Wesley sloshed the ice cubes around his cup, and Georgia didn't glare at him, so he decided she probably wasn't trying to kill him.
But you never know.

She left without a word a little bit later, leaving Wesley—plus his mozzarella sticks—in peace.

After his break, he made the rounds, speaking to all the important people and joining his family for some more snacks and strictly-enforced non-alcoholic beverages for him. He danced with his mom, Christine, and Nicole, and then the kids all at once for maximum embarrassment. After the banquet dinner, he ate cake with Nat, tried out his new dancing skills from Fallon with Adele, moaned about not being able to do shots with his brothers and Ben and Colin, took too many selfies with Gracie, and was flatly turned down with a rather terrifying stare from Elvira when he asked her to dance.

He tried to dance with or talk to as many of the Selected as possible, and to his relief, things were finally going well and he was enjoying himself. He showed Alyex his awesome socks patterned with lightning bolts wearing sunglasses at her insistence while he danced badly with her to even worse pop music. Dresden refused to dance with him, but she kinda scared him so he wasn't too upset. He was in awe of Ophelia in her gorgeous pale pink embellished blue-gray gown, not to mention her pretty slick dance moves as they sang along to the songs, and he even managed to make Callista smile with his horrible jokes over those bacon-wrapped-things on toothpicks. He and Iris were too shy bring up their date disaster when he danced with her aside from nothings about the party, but he managed to get three words out of Piper, so-progress. He ate celery sticks with Lillian in the gardens, talked exercising and proper squat technique with Reese, and managed to avoid Darcy the rest of the night.
But as the ball dragged on later and later, he realized the absence of one of the Selected. He hadn't seen Veyra at all. He searched all over the ballroom of the Great Room, but no luck. She wasn't outside in the gardens or on the terrace, and none of the girls he asked had seen her.

He finally located her with the help of one of the guards. Despite the secret agent's vivaciousness, he found her alone on the balcony level, leaning on the railing surveying the ballroom below her.

"Hey," he said as he came to the top of the narrow staircase. "One of the guards said you were up here."

Veyra looked up and greeted him with a smile. "Aw man, I told George not to give me away for hiding up here." She raised a plastic cup complete with a straw to her lips and took a drink.

"Is that…iced coffee?" Wesley asked, eyeing the container.

Veyra nodded as she sipped from her straw. "Your guards here are really nice. They're totally down for feeding my addiction."

Wesley laughed. "That's funny, last time we talked, you told me one of them almost taser-ed you for going in one of the off-limits wings of the palace. Besides, isn't it, like, eleven o'clock at night?"

Veyra shrugged casually, drawing his attention to the black velvet dress she wore that fitted her like a glove, all the way down to her stilettos. "Isn't it, like, a ball?" she repeated, lightly mocking his tone but going down several octaves even though there was no way his voice was that deep. "It didn't take long to win them over and they know I'm responsible enough to go where I please. And I can drink coffee right now because everyone else is getting completely wasted on cocktails down there." She cocked her head, a wave of dark hair sweeping off her shoulder. "Except you. You look completely and utterly sober."

Wesley rolled his eyes and sat down on one of the benches that lined the balcony-hall behind her. "New rules, new me." He propped his hands behind his head. "I think we all have had enough of drunk me. Everyone but me, that is."

Veyra snorted a laugh and turned to face him, leaning against the railing with her hands outstretched on either side of her. "Aw, come on. Seeing drunk you stumble around the reception with your shoes untied was one of the most bizarre and entertaining things I've ever seen."

Wesley couldn't help but laugh. "Ugh, don't remind me. I need more alcohol to forget that!"

Veyra finished off her coffee and shook the ice cubes around as she eyed it forlornly. "Well, crap."

"So, what gives? Gonna tell me why you're up here feeding your unhealthy caffeine addiction all by yourself?"

"Hmmm, probably feeding my unhealthy caffeine addiction," she repeated as a smile played on her lips. "Actually, I never can seem to shake the feeling that I'm supposed to be alert to any information. And too many people make it a little overwhelming."

"I imagine it's hard to just stop being a secret agent like that."

"No more than stopping being a pilot and being thrust back into royal life," Veyra said. She fixed her dark eyes on him, crossing one leg over the other, revealing a slit in her dress that went to her mid-thigh.

Wesley shifted uncomfortably. He had liked being up here above all the people, but a combination of her question and her intense stare, not to mention her beauty made him break into a cold sweat.

"I guess so," he mumbled, before quickly changing the conversation. "You don't drink?"

"No, I do every so often. But old habits break hard and agents can't exactly afford to be intoxicated," she explained. "Just like princes, huh?" Her stare turned into a playful smirk that was beginning to drive him crazy. "Or do you have your own reasons for suddenly choosing soberness?"

Usually, he found it easy to be casual around people, especially females, but first Georgia and now Veyra was beginning to mess with his chill. "Ehh, my mother's new rule. She commanded me to take this seriously, and I don't have the best track record in the media for my behavior. I wish she would just get off my back sometimes, I know my father's death and all this change has been hard on her, but still."

Veyra looked down, and her smile slipped from her face.

"What?"

She shrugged. "Oh, nothing really. Whatever I was about to say isn't probably what you want to hear now."

"No, it's okay." Wesley stood up from his spot and joined her at the railing. "I haven't talked to you much yet, and I'm in no hurry to go back down there."

One side of Veyra's mouth twitched into a half-smile, and she fixed him with a thoughtful look. "It's just…I know mothers can be annoying. Every kid knows that. But—appreciate her while you have her," she paused, and sighed deeply, her face remaining impassive. "I lost my mom a few years ago in the war and…there's so much I regret about our relationship."

She looked so sad there like she didn't know what to do with herself. Wesley lightly touched her arm.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She smiled, of all things. "I don't want to bore you or keep you from the party."

He sensed that she did want to talk about it, and if he was honest, he would much rather be hiding out up here finding more about one girl than all the others combined down in the chaos of the party.

"You won't. I was kinda done being down there anyway. I guess I'm getting old, I used to love parties."

"Well, I'm going to need a drink, so you might have to reconsider your new you."

"Done." Wesley grinned.

Veyra grinned back. "Cool. Be right back."

She left him alone in a flash, slipping quickly and quietly down the stairs down from the overhanging balcony. She was back in a flash, holding two little plates of various snacks balanced on the rims of two glasses of champagne.

"Don't worry, no one knows it's for you," she said, maneuvering the plates onto the ground and handing him one of the glasses. She sat down right on the floor, sitting cross-legged with her back against the railing and looked at him expectantly. "Well? C'mon, don't tell me you don't like picnics?"

"Uh, I happen to love picnics." Wesley plopped down opposite her, neither of them caring about their party clothes. He took a sip of his champagne.

"Sorry, I forgot to mention I'm a total lightweight when it comes to drinking," Veyra said, digging into the snacks—one plate of savory things and one of the desserts.

"Nah, this is fine. This way I won't be stumbling around losing my shoes again. Or whatever, I don't remember. I'm taking your advice to heart and mostly accepting my mom's rule."

"Good for you, I know we're both twenty-one, but I would listen to my mom any day of the week if she was still here. She's why I entered the Selection."

"Oh, really? That's actually insanely cool." Wesley said with a mouthful of the awesome mozzarella sticks.

Veyra nodded, and snagged the other one she had brought, and took a bite. "I was too young to enter Prince Ethan's Selection, but I remember she told me that I could enter yours, because we were the same age, and she went on and on about it when we watched the Reports and stuff. I thought she was so annoying back then because entering the Selection was the last thing on my mind."

"What did she do? Was she a secret agent like yourself?"
Veyra shook her head and took a sip of champagne. "No, I got that from my dad. My mom was a model. She was so gorgeous, people sometimes thought we sisters or something. After the secession, she did this fund-raising thing to help the people in the north who had nothing, and she even flew up there with the team. Things got out of hand, and the rebel army killed everyone because they suspected them of sending aid from the crown. I joined the ISRA after that, trying to help stop the war and all the senseless death."

As she spoke, her voice and face remained calm and never close to crying, completely separated from her emotions.

"That's awful, Veyra. I'm so sorry."

"Thanks," she smiled slightly. "It's not important. Everyone lost someone, it seems."

"No!" Wesley practically interrupted her. "It's important for you. What everyone else experienced doesn't discredit what you did."

Veyra met his eyes for a second and then looked away. "I guess."

"And I think your mom would have been proud of you."

Her smile widened, and her eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Really," Wesley said. He held up his champagne glass and raised his eyebrows at her. Veyra clicked her glass against his.

"To those we've lost," she toasted. He echoed her words as they hit him like a punch in the stomach. They both finished off their glasses.

He didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to keep it bottled up inside and never tell anyone, never face those looks of pity on their faces, never feel the helplessness that came with it, and most importantly, he never never never wanted to remember.

Maybe it was the champagne loosening his tongue, maybe it was the stress of the ball, or maybe it was the way Veyra's dark eyes were searching his face, her dark eyes sparkling in the glow from the chandeliers.

Whatever it was, the words started pouring out of him, and there wasn't a way to stop them.

"It was my fault," he began, "I thought we were going to be okay, and I let my guard down."

He began talking faster, "I was flying from Columbia, we were supposed to get all the way to Baffin. There was a plan to attack the rebels from the east instead of just the south. My plane was carrying a shipment of hard weapons and supplies. It was an eight-hour flight over rebel territory, and my co-pilot was sleeping so when we flew over Bankston he would be alert because we thought we were safe. But we weren't."

Wesley's logical explanation ended there, and he started to ramble, making a fool of himself when Veyra had told her story so calmly. "I was being careless. I was so stupid! I was looking at the stars, and I let us get tailed by a rebel plane. There weren't supposed to even be rebel air force in Ottaro, that was supposed to be our territory. And I just froze up, I didn't know what to do. Only he wasn't just my co-pilot, he was also one of the best friends I've ever had. He was one of the only friends I've ever had outside the palace and there wasn't time to react, and I just didn't know what to doand he made sure I got out but there wasn't time and he didn't get to jump and the plane…"

Wesley stood up so fast he upset his empty champagne glass, though it didn't break. He sucked in a lungful of air, jamming his stupid shaking hands into his pockets to hide them.

It had all been going so well.

"It was my fault."

Veyra stood up too and took a step towards him. "Hey, hey, it's okay," she said, her voice soft. He realized he had started to yell. His heart was slamming in his chest just from telling the stupid story. He wanted to run, not face the memories, not face this girl he barely knew with them.

He just wanted to forget.

Wesley turned away from her and looked out over the railing.

"I should be getting back," he said.

Whatever the moment could have been, he had ruined it.

"Are you sure? Do you need to talk about it?" Veyra said gently. "I mean, I talked to you."

"No," Wesley said sharply. "No. I don't. I'm sorry. I'll…uh…see you later."

Like the horrible awful jerk and terrible stupid coward he was, he left her up there and retreating back down the stairs into the main part of the Great Room. He barely even noticed the ebb and flow of the ball around him as he moved around the side of the room, not really noticing the increasingly drunk dancers like Veyra had said.

He had tried his best to make the best of this night, to grab hold of that hope to let it pull him forward. But maybe there wasn't hope at the end of the road. Maybe bad things were always just going to be waiting just around the corner, pulling him back and never letting him go.

He might never be okay.

He passed Alyex and Ophelia, increasingly tipsy and giggling wildly as they danced to a popular song.

"Hey!" Alyex squealed, her voice loud. "Where have you been?"

Ophelia stopped singing along to the words long enough to give him a truly theatrical hug. Her usual soft gentleness had been hyped up by the champagne, he guessed. Both girls were holding glasses of the stuff, and their eyes were bright. "Come dance with us!"

"No, no, wait. Show us your socks!" Alyex cried, breaking into unstoppable giggles.

Ophelia clapped her hands together, and Wesley stopped long enough to oblige them, but he declined their offer to dance, and left the excited girls as quickly as possible to their own fun.

He contented himself with a juice box and hung to the edge of the room. Everyone was too happy and crazy to take much notice of him. Well, most people. A quick glance to the balcony area overhanging the room showed a lithe black-clad figure watching him, with a curtain of dark hair around her shoulders. She wasn't smiling.

Which sucked, because he had really liked Veyra in the time he had spent with her. And now he had royally stuffed up their conversation and left her like a jerk and his memories hung like a fifty-pound chain around his neck and no matter what he did they never left him alone and there was nothing he could do about it.

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.

…