The Thing About Regret

The thing about regret was, it always came after mistakes were made.

Gabbi needed a regret filter before she opened her mouth. One comment about peeing less than usual and suddenly everyone's worried about edema.

The doctor prodded at her extremities, pushing bony thumbs into the flesh of her calves, looking for any signs of pitting or water retention. Gabbi had blown up like a balloon on her sixteenth birthday, legs so thick with fluid she didn't have ankles. Essie was the only one who didn't freak out, her tiny, gentle fingers poking smiley faces in Gabbi's squishy skin. She had laughed and laughed and laughed, even when everyone else was crying.

"Have you been having trouble breathing, Your Highness?" the doctor asked, jotting down notes furiously. Everything Gabbi did or said was critical, even when it was a false alarm.

"No, no trouble."

"Good," the doctor said, pleased as she ticked a few more boxes on her sheet. Satisfied that Gabbi wasn't going to die right there in the chair, she let out a sigh. "I think we've fine tuned things as much as we can at this stage."

"Does this mean I'm done? Can I go?"

It was a beautiful day outside, and she was already running late for her meeting with Ezra. She had stuffed a hundred flash cards of members of the royal family inside the pocket of her cardigan, and created a whole game to go with them. Ezra was going to love it, and if he didn't, he would learn to. She was in this to win it.

"Not yet - clerical issues." The doctor flipped her clipboard to another sheet. "You never formally signed off on the DNAR. And there is still the matter of a will."

Both things that, since she was a minor, required the signatures and approval of her parents. Who she still hadn't told about her terminal diagnosis. Right.

"Can I rain check on those?"

Gabbi knew the answer before it left the doctor's mouth. The woman had a terrible poker face, couldn't keep the pity and concern from showing. "I am afraid we are running out of time for rain checks, Your Highness."

"Tomorrow," Gabbi said, already half way out the door. "Tomorrow for sure."

Logically, Gabbi knew what she was doing was immature. She knew that she needed to slow down, needed to face the truth and her parents no matter how much it scared her. But how could she? How could she be the reason her mother lost the light from her eyes? How could she place another scar on her father's battered heart? They had been through so much, lost so many people.

Breathe, Gabbi told herself. Slow down and breathe.

She had been running - well, speed walking. She hadn't even noticed until she was half way down the stairs, one hand braced on the railing and her chest heaving from exertion. It was true, she had no trouble breathing. That didn't mean she wanted to overexert herself, pass out, and prove the stupid doctors right. It was too early for a mental breakdown.

A few doors down, someone opened a door. Someone dressed in nothing but a bedsheet, hair askance and makeup smeared across their face.

"Delia?" Gabbi asked, not sure what she was seeing. "Are you...sneaking out of your own room?"

"Shhhhh!"

Delia put the hand not holding the sheet to her chest to her lips. She looked like a cross between drunk and high, and walked a little to the side. It was then Gabbi realized that Delia was completely naked underneath that sheet. And that she had just woken up. After coming home from a date with one of her Selected.

"Oh my God...you didn't - "

"I said shhhhh!" Delia hissed, her face flushing bright red. It was all the damning evidence Gabbi needed.

"Dee!"

"Questionable decisions were made, I have no excuse," Delia proclaimed as blanket responsibilities for her sins, which judging off the current state of her, were many. "Just, please, don't tell Mom or Dad. They were so excited that I finally went on a decent date."

The urge to use this as blackmail was strong. If Gabbi were Hayden, she would have no problem hanging this over Delia's head. But seeing as though Gabbi was above such things, being as mature and benevolent as she was, she graciously turned a blind eye.

"And was it? Decent?" Gabbi asked. Even though she was pretty sure Delia was using these guys as a distraction from whatever chaos was going on in her oh so secretive personal life, she did want her sister to be happy. Gabbi didn't know much about Andre, but the smile creeping up Delia's face, soft and dreamy, was enough to make her like him.

"Andre is great. Even better in bed, let me tell you - "

"Please don't."

" - they can do this thing with their tongue - "

Gabbi reached out and pinched her sister's lips. Gently, but firm enough that even Delia's wiggling couldn't loosen Gabbi's grip.

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Gabbi said, gesturing to herself. "Still a minor. This is child abuse."

Gabbi let go of Delia's lips. Delia rolled her eyes but didn't say anything else on the subject. If anything, she looked a little insecure.

"You're not still mad at me for the whole Selection thing, right?" Delia asked, rubbing at her bottom lip. "I didn't know Mom and Dad would pop off and go all princess in the tower like that."

Bitterness, old and irrelevant, spiked at the mention of the mandatory lockdown that she was technically still confined to. It would be unfair of Gabbi to hold that against Delia when she had found ways to subvert the system.

"Of course not. Like you said, how could you have known?"

"Good." Insecurity vanished as quickly as it came. Delia threw her arm around Gabbi's shoulder. Even through all her layers, Gabbi could feel the heat pouring from Delia's body. "I can't stand it when you're mad at me. Everyone else can suck it, but you, Gabs...you're the only one I can trust."

Trust. That was a low blow. She wondered how much Delia would trust her if she knew that Gabbi was trying to influence her Selection? She only wanted what was best for Delia, and Delia did have a nasty streak of self-destruction. Gabbi just wanted to help, but now she was starting to see just how problematic that help could be.

Was she doing the right thing?

Gabbi fidgeted under Delia's arm. The flashcards in her pocket weighed a brick.

"This is way too heavy for Saturday morning."

"Agreed. I feel hungover and I didn't even drink." Delia's stomach to the opportunity to growl, loud and unashamed. "I need food. You want to go grab some breakfast?"

"Technically it's lunchtime. And no, thanks. I have, uh, somewhere to be."

"Another check up?" Delia asked. Gabbi went with it and nodded. Delia cringed in sympathy. "I don't know why they keep poking at you. You're gonna kick this thing's ass. Always have."

"I don't think it works like that, Dee."

"Sure it does," Delia shrugged, then remembered that she was still wearing a blanket. Though she was crass and brazen on a good day, this would be pushing the ratings for live television. "Can I borrow some of your clothes? Hayden has permanently banned me from her room."

All Gabbi had in her closet was oversized sweaters and sweatpants, but if Delia wanted to join her in the frumpy librarian club, more power to her.

Out in the garden, the sun was shining. It was unnaturally warm for the season, but that didn't stop Gabbi from hunkering down in all her layers. She was always cold, always shivering, even in Angeles, one of the warmest places in Illéa. Dad had offered to move the family to Clermont a few years ago, but Gabbi hadn't seen the point. Angeles was her home. The palace had all her favorite places, including the rose garden.

Through the wrought iron gates of the furthest garden, surrounded walls of shrubbery, sat the most beautiful collection of rose trellises on the entire grounds. In the center of the garden sat a fountain, still bubbling away as it would until the pipes threatened to freeze in the winter. And next to the fountain, sitting on on the green grass, was Ezra, his head tipped to the sun.

"Sorry I'm late. I got held up."

"No problem, teach." Ezra smiled, light and breezy as Gabbi took a seat next to him on the grass, folding her legs so they vanished underneath her massive skirt. "So, what's on the agenda today?"

"Since you've got that quiz on royal family trees coming up, I thought we could run through the major countries really quick, and then I have these flashcards - "

"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down." Ezra's playfulness sobered into something serious. He looked a little green as he looked at the folded-up charts Gabbi had pulled from her pocket. "This is some serious stuff."

"Yeah, the Selection is a serious competition. Don't you want to win?"

Ezra bit his lip, ruffled his hair with his left hand. He looked...ashamed. If Gabbi had to guess his answer, it would probably be no. She couldn't blame him for that, not this early in the game and when he bold faced confessed to entering for the money. Since agreeing to tutor Ezra, Gabbi had tried to imagine him next to Delia, a face on the Schreave family tree, maybe what their kids would look like. She wouldn't mind having Ezra as a brother-in-law, but that was completely up to Ezra.

"What are you getting out of this?" Ezra deflected. "Why help me at all?"

"Something to do, I guess." Gabbi shrugged.

Truth be told, she didn't know what she was doing. At her core, she knew that cheating was wrong, that so much about this was wrong. But Ezra had a nice smile. He treated her like a human, not something sick and fragile. Sure, she was lying to him too, but she wouldn't be around long enough to see that blow up in her face. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was mean. But so was Ezra only sticking around for the money. None of their intentions were purely good. There was too much grey to be asking questions of 'why'.

"You're the General's granddaughter; you have friends in high places. There has to be a thousand better things for you to do than help a single Selected who could get sent home tomorrow."

"You're not getting sent home tomorrow," Gabbi said, rolling her eyes at the dramatics. "Delia likes you, I can tell."

That seemed to shock Ezra. "Really?"

Okay, so Gabbi was stretching it. Delia had just been caught red handed sneaking away from a Selected. But sex didn't mean anything to Delia. She could throw Andre away tomorrow and be on train Ezra the day after that. She hadn't thrown Ezra out yet, which meant there was still hope.

"Really."

The shock wore off. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're avoiding the subject."

Another roll of Gabbi's eyes. "Just like you were avoiding my question earlier."

Ezra had no argument against that. They were both stuck at an impasse. Unlike with her mother or her siblings, this one was quite fun, the tension much easier to unravel and move past.

"If you won't tell me why, at least let me pay you back," Ezra conceded, looking a little guilty.

"I don't want your money," What use could she possibly have for money? All the money in the world couldn't buy her more time, more experiences, more memories. "Besides, doesn't that kind of defeat the point of all this?"

"Then what else?" He wasn't letting the issue die. It was really annoying. "You are putting a lot of time and effort into this." He picked up the flashcard with Gregory Illéa's face on it and waved it around. Gabbi had color coordinated each flashcard based on generation and numbered them based on spot in line for the throne. He was right; she had gone a little overboard. "There has to be something I can do."

Gabbi worried her bottom lip, sinking her teeth until the point of pain. There was something...one thing...

"Promise not to laugh?"

"Promise."

Trust was such a strange thing. Gabbi trusted her sisters implicitly, even Delia. Her parents less so. But this absolute stranger with floppy hair and genuine brown eyes, someone who had stumbled into her life to marry her sister only a few weeks ago? Gabbi shouldn't trust him...but she did. It drove her insane. Not even her siblings knew about this, but there she was, sitting on the grass like a fool, about to tell Ezra. She hoped this wasn't a mistake. She hoped this wasn't something she would regret.

"I have this list. A bucket list of things I want to do before I - " Gabbi cut herself off and scrambled for another, safer word. " - before I turn eighteen. I can't do all of them by myself, and I have been looking for someone who would be willing to break the rules a little and help."

"Do you have it with you?" Ezra asked. "I need to know what I'm getting into before I commit."

Gabbi could lie and say she left it in her room, that it was full of silly things that weren't that important. But it was important to her. She had no time to waste on shame or embarrassment. So, she took her colored pen started writing on one of the blank index cards.

The list went something like this:

- stay up all night and watch sunrise from Angeles Beach

- get a tattoo

- get drunk and smoke a joint

- be on TV

- go to a ball

- attend a university class

Ezra let out a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Gabbi asked, feeling self-conscious. She knew this was a bad idea. She knew it!

"Drink alcohol, be on TV, go to a ball," Ezra rattled off in a funny voice. "You live in the palace, best friends with the royals, and you're telling me you've never been a ball? And this: attend a university class. If you just wait a year you'll be old enough to apply and that'll happen."

"I don't want to wait a year. In a year, I won't be eighteen." In a year, I won't be anything. I'll be in the ground, reduced to dirt. Nothing. "I want to do them now."

"But why? Why do all of them now?" Ezra asked. He passed no judgement, but remained puzzled. "I'm all for adventures and trying new things, but you have your whole life to complete a bucket list. Why cram it all into a couple months?"

"Why not?" Gabbi countered, trying to be nonchalant with her shrug. It wasn't like he knew her time was limited, that the sands in her hourglass were reduced to grains. "Life is too short to spend waiting for something to happen. And if I run out of things on the list, I'll just make a new one. That'll be future me's problem."

Ezra looked at the list for another minute. Gabbi could see him visibly weighing his options, if she was worth all the hassle, if she was worth the risk of losing his place in the Selection. He had told her that he needed the money, that he needed this for his family. If they got caught, if Mom and Dad found out that he was putting her 'at risk'...

"Alright, let's do it," Ezra said, his smile creeping back up to sunbeam-level watts. Gabbi could hardly believe her ears, or keep the smile off of her own face. "I will help you complete your bucket list."

"And in return, I will make you into the best royal boyfriend to ever walk the palace halls. Delia won't be able to resist." Gabbi stuck out her hand, sealing things the way she'd seen her father do with diplomats and businessmen. "Deal?"

Ezra's hand was warm in hers. "Deal."

His grip was a little rough, grip a little too firm, but Gabbi didn't care. She was too busy looking forward to the rest of her life.