"Aspen? Is it really you?" I whispered as I touched the side of his cheek. Aspen turned his face away from mine.

"Mer, it's good to see you but you can't do that. You can't just put your hand on my cheek while you know fully well that Maxon is in that room. The room that you just came out of." His voice was as cold as ice. "Although I'm surprised to see you here. Considering how angry Maxon has been at you since he kicked you out."

That was it. Why was he being so cold towards me? "You know, I could say the same about you. I thought you were banished." I folded my arms on my chest. If he was going to have an attitude, so was I.

"I can't tell you here, Mer. I'll tell you everything after my-" he paused and looked past me. I looked over my shoulder and saw that another guard was walking in our direction.

"Are you okay Lady America? Are you sure you don't need to see the doctor?" Aspen said as the guard passed by. He peeked to see if the guard was still within ear shot. "Meet me in my room at exactly 11:36. My roommate gets back at 11:40." He whispered.

I gave him a solemn nod and he walked away. I had around 15 minutes and that gave me enough time to find Celeste.

I asked a few maids if they had seen her or knew where she was but no one knew. Eventually I thought of the one place that first made us close. I searched the library where she had confessed about her fears. I found her in the very spot I had found her that day only this time instead of crying she was laughing.

"I was wondering when you would show. You know, this is turning out to be just like those trashy soap operas. First you get kicked out because of a guy, then you stop a wedding, and now you have sex with the supposed to be groom." Celeste doubled over in laughter.

"One, we did not have sex, and two, I just had a conversation with the very reason I got kicked out, which for the record, yes Aspen is still here and I'm going to talk to him." I don't know why I just told her that but I think I just needed to get it out of my system.

She wore a look of shock on her face then calmed down. "Okay, well, um...yeah. That must be a lot for you to go through right now. I honestly have no words. Actually, correction I have a question. What the heck is he doing in the castle?!"

"I don't know I'm meeting him in five minutes. He said he'd tell me everything."

"Wow. First Maxon and now Aspen. America, you are on a roll," she chuckled.

"Thanks for that," I rolled my eyes. "I really must get going, so if you wanna catch up let me know."

I walked to Aspen's room conjuring up the most ridiculous reasons how he could still be here. At first I thought he was here and Maxon didn't know, but that wouldn't be possible. I beat Aspen to his room so I paced around trying to kill time.

"Okay good. You're here." Aspen walked in, panting.

"Yeah, you kind of let me wonder how the heck you're in the palace." I said as I folded my arms.

"It's actually simple. Maxon realized I was one of the best guards in the palace and he couldn't afford to lose me. He only really wanted to hurt you as badly as you hurt him, so he let you believe you were never gonna see me again." He said as quickly as he possibly could. "We only have a minute until my roommate gets back so I really think you must be going." He showed me out. I couldn't even get a word in before he closed the door.