I had a horrible weekend, possibly the worst of my life. Something about Sundays. Anyway, how am I coping, you might ask? Two words. Selection. Fanfiction. And let me make it clear I am not coping very well.

I want to read much more than I want to write, but I think I've already devoured every Eadlyn and Kile fic ever written, so here I am producing something close to garbage. The sadder I am=the angstier my fics get; know that this could be even worse but I restrained myself.

"You like her, right?"

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," I lied, going back to erase yet another line on my clipboard. I was using a ruler. How did I keep screwing this up?

"I'm talking about Eadlyn, obviously. You know, the one you kissed and it was all over the news?" Josie asked sarcastically.

"Oh, right. Her." Her did not do justice to the complexity of the situation. "Define 'like'."

My sister drummed her fingers on my bedside table, clearly thinking very hard. "Do you think she's super smokin' hot?"

"I mean, yeah." There was no point in lying about that. Her Royal Highness was objectively gorgeous.

"Do you get butterflies in your stomach when she's around?"

"This is so embarrassing!" I complained. "You need to stop."

"It's just a question! Butterflies or no butterflies?"

"…there might be a few butterflies. Occasionally," I eventually admitted.

"So you do like her! I knew it!" Josie exclaimed.

"It's definitely not that simple." I pushed my sketches to the side for now. Obviously I was getting nowhere. "Did you not notice we've been enemies for ten years? I doubt the butterflies are mutual."

"Oh, please. Obviously she likes you, Kile!" Josie cried. Right, like she was some kind of expert on this.

I just frowned. I didn't want to explain it to her; I didn't fully understand it myself. Eadlyn and I weren't enemies anymore. At least, I didn't think we were, but we couldn't exactly be called "friends" or "lovers" either. Friends with benefits, maybe, and that was being generous.

I wanted more than that. I wanted to give it a try, for real this time, but one thing had been clear since the beginning: I cared far more about Eadlyn than she cared about me. Turns out, kissing her was a slippery slope towards falling in love with her, something I hadn't thought in a million years would be possible. I had tumbled head over heels, but as far as I could tell, Eadlyn was still firmly at the top.

So yeah, I liked her. Josie could be right about that. That didn't change the fact it was never going to go anywhere.

I couldn't explain that. There was no way I was saying any of that out loud. Instead, I just said, "Yeah, right. What are you even doing in my room?"

"Osten kept pitching TV shows to me. I needed a break."

"Well, I need a break from you. Get lost."

Josie rolled her eyes and left, but she'd accomplished what she'd (as far as I could tell) set out to do: annoyed me. This was all stuff I didn't want to think about, and here she was, making me think about it.

I suddenly had a very strong suspicion about who had put my name in the Selection.