The Luna Choosing Game

Chapter 0555

Holding Elva's hand, we followed Bridget around to the side of the mansion. A camera crew followed us, with their cameras trained on Bridget, Elva, and me. I tried to keep my head up high and my grip firm on Elva's hand. Constantly having cameras watching was unnerving. It felt like I was constantly under a microscope, so I had to perform to be the best person I could be. Since mistakes weren't tolerated, I felt like I couldn't be myself.

As we came around to the side of the mansion, I saw a massive sand sculpture right there on the beach. Bridget ran to it, then threw her arms out, and spun around.

"Elva!" she called. "Look what I made you!"

Elva gasped, then tugged me forward. We rushed toward the sculpture, which I realized as we drew closer, was an elaborate sandcastle.

It was multi-leveled, with towers stretching even taller than Elva. Each tower had winding stairs down the sides that led to a main, large building with carefully carved windows. Every detail was meticulously designed and crafted, even down to the brick façade that covered the entire sculpture.

Elva was in total awe. I was too, for a minute. It really was a work of art.

I wondered who Bridget had brought in to make this.

"I made this castle for you, Elva," Bridget said, "As an apology for the unfortunate accident which destroyed your own little, dilapidated castle."

Bridget made this? My initial thought was to majorly doubt that, but I pushed down on that feeling, recognizing it likely as jealousy. Bridget was so damn good at everything. Would it be so out of question for her to be good at this too?

*This is for me?" Elva released my hand, so I let hers go too. She dashed forward to look closer at the castle.

"I thought you might want to see what a real sandcastle should look like," Bridget said. Her sugary voice might have sounded nice, but I could hear the insult underneath. Fortunately, Elva seemed blissfully unaware, too caught up in appreciating the craftsmanship and beauty of the sand sculpture.

I'm used to," Bridget went on. "You can see now how I

instance, are learning and playing. They don't need to make sculptures like this every

to," Bridget replied, "But they should certainly strive to. If we pushed our children to do better, maybe they would grow up to

a waitress,"

smiling, totally ignoring the fact that she insulted

Bridget a piece of my mind, when Elva called for

"Mommy! Look it!"

my best glare as I moved around her to Elva's side, to see where she was pointing. There, tucked into one of the windows, was a little sand cat, snoozing on the windowsill. To carve something that intricate would have required such

thing, being impressed by windows," Bridget said. She giggled a little, patronizingly, for

admiring the

looked at me. "What

in my mind that Bridget hadn't crafted this sculpture herself came rushing back to me, this time with

that she would have had to painstakingly craft, had

could be twisted to make Bridget seem a victim. Hopefully, through the cameras, the public would be able to see Bridget's true

called from where the others had been

her hand. "Come on, honey. Let's go

"But the castle, Mommy..."

back later," I

standing near Veronica. Nathan was just beyond, setting up the cameras alongside a crude start line, which was no more

water, a few boats were set up to show the water side of

Content belong to

his typical, sideways-slanted smile, though it didn't quite match his eyes. "You

I'll ever be," I