The Luna Choosing Game

When we finally made it downstairs, it was as the others were beginning to make their way toward the dining room for dinner.

Julian spotted me first, standing at the bottom of the stair, and began laughing his head off. Veronica, beside him, noticed me a moment later, and gave me a hint of a smile, a big deal for her.

Elva looked up at me and laughed.

«What are you wearing, Mommy?” held open my arms and she ran into them. Then I lifted her up.

«1 forgot all of my clothes,” I told her, not wanting her to know about the sabotage done to our bags. I would protect Elva as much as I could as long

as I could about the harsh cruelties of the world. } As the others walked by, Jessica followed them. She glanced at me but appeared indifferent to my appearance.

Bridget, however. Her gaze went ice cold as she inspected me from my shoulders down to my toes. She didn’t say anything, she kept on smiling. But I'felt like the air in the room dropped a few degrees.

“Nicholas,” she said. She dragged her gaze from me to him. “The dinners are supposed to be couple specific. That means you should be with me.” That last sentence seemed to hold more weight than the rest, and honestly seemed vaguely threatening. I remembered what Nicholas said, that

— Bridget wanted promises from him that he wasn’t ready to give her.

[ wondered if this was just one more of her demands that he wasn’t too keen about.

“Very well,” he said, acknowledging nothing else about what she said or how she said it. “I take it that means chairs will be placed at Julian’s table for Piper and Elva.’ “I really couldn’t say Bridget said which seemed like the polite way of saying that she just didn’t care all that much.

“I’ll find out,” Nicholas said to me. He touched my shoulder, squeezed it, and then walked passed the others to enter the dining room first Bridget should have followed the rest,

but with Nicholas’s absence, she stopped and stared at me. She stared so long that even Elva grew « uncomfortable and turned her head.

“What is it?” I asked her, when it seemed like she wasn’t going to give up any answers on her own.

most of the little time you have left.” If what she had said to Nicholas before had been vaguely threatening, this was much more overt. Yet said with that bright

said. “Thank

smiles competed against one { another, until

hungry,” she whispered in my

Bridget, and then headed

that the room had been arranged with three separate round tables, set for two each. Nicholas was personally pulling a pair of chairs up

table as her own. There was an empty place setting across from her. That seemed almost like a cruel joke,

up until the last minute. Maybe no one had told

had told them that Elva

me then and went to the middle table, where she plopped herself down contentedly and presumably waited for Nicholas to

I saw them, then he moved to his assigned seat with Bridget Carrying Elva, I moved

this seemed like

at the time they came up with it,” Veronica said, glancing across the

trip,” I remind her. “A reward for doing well in the theater event.” An event that had been rigged from the start to give

the non-romantic kind,” Julian said. He smiled for us, but that smile dimmed as he glanced

stood with each other, I didn’t

festered in the back of my heart, and I

even worse. But for now, I could

them to watch Jessica. She had seemed alright at first, but the

fit one more at our table, couldn’t we?” I asked the others. Both followed the length of my gaze.

with the staff,” Julian

her if she wants to move,” I said, standing also. To Elva, I said, “Stay