The Elite (Selection)

excitement on Aspen’s face.
    I closed the door behind me, and he immediately ran over and scooped me up.
    “I’ve missed you.”
    “I missed you, too. I was so busy with that reception, I barely had time to breathe.”
    “Glad it’s over. Did you have a hard time getting here?” he joked.
    I giggled. “Seriously, Aspen, you’re way too good at your job.” It was almost comical how simple his idea was. The queen was a little more relaxed when it came to running the palace. Or maybe she was distracted. Either way, she’d made dinner an option: in your room or downstairs. My maids prepped me for the meal, but instead of heading to the dining room, I walked across the hall to Bariel’s old room. It was too easy.
    He smiled as he took in my praise and sat me down in the back corner of the room on some pillows he’d already piled there. “Are you comfortable?”
    I nodded and expected him to sit too, but he didn’t. Instead he pushed over a large couch, which blocked the door from sight, and then pulled in a table that brushed the top of our heads as we sat on the floor. Finally he grabbed a bundle he’d left on top of the table—it smelled like food—and settled next to me.
    “Almost like home, huh?” He moved behind me so I was between his legs. The position was so familiar and the space was so small that it did feel a little like our old tree house. It was like he’d taken a piece of something I thought was gone forever and placed it neatly in my hands.
    “It’s even better.” I sighed, leaning into him. After a minute I felt his fingers combing down my hair. It gave me shivers.
    For a while we sat there in silence, and I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of Aspen’s breathing. Not so long ago, I’d done the same thing with Maxon. But this was different. If I had to, I thought I could pick Aspen’s breathing out of a crowd. I knew him so well. And, clearly, he knew me. This tiny bit of peace was everything I’d been aching for, and Aspen made it real.
    “What are you thinking about, Mer?”
    “Lots of things.” I sighed. “Home, you, Maxon, the Selection, everything.”
    “What are you thinking about all of that?”
    “Mostly how confused I get about them. Like how I’ll think I understand what’s happening to me, and then something shifts, and my feelings change.”
    Aspen was quiet for a moment, and his voice sounded pained when he asked, “Do your feelings about me change a lot?”
    “No!” I said, pushing myself closer to him. “If anything, you’re the one constant. I know that if everything turns upside down, you’ll still be here, in the exact same place. Everything gets so crazy that my love for you gets pushed to the background, but I know it’s always there. Does that make sense?”
    “It does. I know I make this whole thing more complicated than it already is. I’m glad to know I’m not completely out of the running though.”
    Aspen wrapped his arms around me, like he could hold me there forever.
    “I haven’t forgotten us,” I promised.
    “Sometimes I feel like Maxon and I are in our own version of the Selection. It’s just him and me, and one of us will get you in the end; and I can’t decide who’s worse off. Maxon doesn’t exactly know we’re competing, so he might not be able to try as hard. But then, I have to hide, so it’s not like I can give you everything he can. It’s not really a fair fight either way.”
    “You shouldn’t think about it that way.”
    “I don’t know how else to see it, Mer.”
    I exhaled. “Let’s not talk about that.”
    “All right. I don’t like talking about him anyway. What about all the other stuff you’re confused about? What’s going on?”
    “Do you like being a soldier?” I asked, turning toward him.
    He nodded enthusiastically as he reached down and opened the food. “I love it, Mer. I thought I’d hate every minute, but it’s fantastic.” He popped a chunk of bread into his mouth and kept talking. “I mean, there’s the obvious stuff, like I’m always being fed. They want us to be big, so there’s plenty of food. And the injections, too,” he said, amending his thoughts. “But they’re not so bad. And I get an allowance. Even though I have everything I need, I get money.”
    He stopped for a moment, toying with an orange slice. “I know you know how good it feels to send money home.”
    I could tell he was thinking about his mom and his six siblings. He had been the father figure