The prince turns around and starts walking toward the front door, "you can leave us now. Come on Adeline, let's go."

Despite him giving orders to me, he said it rather gently, so I follow him slowly. As we walk I stay behind him and stare at the ground as I walk. For some reason I always have a habit of staring at the ground as I walk, getting lost in the flooring or the way my shoes look. I sometimes even run into things.

"Come on Addie, let's make this more interesting," he says out of the blue, grabbing my hand and pulling me right next to him. Due to his tall height he easily drags me to his side. "What do you want to do now? Anything in particular?"

I shrug, trying to hide my embarrassment of someone holding my hand. No one has ever really done that before except for my parents when I was young. His hand is warm and large, my small hand being engulfed entirely. It feels nice, despite the prince being a jerk. I kind of feel protected in a way, but in another way I feel trapped.

"Then we'll just walk for now," he says as he tries to pull me even closer, making me trip in my heels. As I fall he keeps a hold of my hand while he catches me. "Oh, I see, just can't wait to be in my arms, huh?" he says, so I shoot him a stern look as I stand up.

He laughs and moves his hand so that our fingers interlock, but I pull away. Even though he has the ability to easily keep hold of my hand, I pull away surprisingly easy. I then clasp my hands behind my back to protect them from being grasped again.

"You don't seem very talkative, huh? Maybe that'll change if we get to know each other better. Then I bet you'll tell me all of your secrets, the quiet ones are always like that," the prince says, chuckling.

I give a deserved stare and say, "like hell I'll tell you my secrets... I mean I don't have any secrets to tell." I don't want to kiss up to him, but I also don't want to be kicked out.

He starts to laugh loudly, actually grabbing his stomach and wiping his eyes of tears. I stop walking and fold my arms, kind of angry at this reaction. "What's so funny? Huh?" I say with some edge.

"Well, I wasn't expecting any of the girls to ever say this. They all idolize me too much to admit we couldn't get along. You keep surprising me, from your interviews to the library to this, I never expected to meet someone like you in this competition."

"How do you find me interesting? I couldn't even answer the question from today," I retort.

"No, but you gave a reason for not being able to answer and that reason makes you seem like a real person instead of a leech."

Then I realize it. I'm not interesting because I'm innately interesting but because I don't act like the others. They all want to be here and I don't, and it shows. Hopefully my mom doesn't notice too, because then she'll say that I didn't even try.

The prince takes a deep breath, "I can tell you don't want to be here but just now you tried to take back something rude. Do you actually want to stay? Is it for the fame? The money? The potential of position?"

"Well, seeing as you can tell this based on the few interviews and one interaction, I'm impressed. Maybe you care about others more than I initially thought..."

"Oh how nice," the Prince says, cutting me off.

I give him a glare and say sternly, "the reason I want to stay is because of my mom, in short."

"And in long?"

"why would I tell you that?" I say.

The Prince chuckles, "well, if you don't want to stay that much, I-"

"Wait! Wait, I'll tell you."

"Well then go on," the prince says.

"She wants fame and the compensation so that we can pay for my brothers' college education. You should know how high the prices now a days are for college. Most people stop after high school so they can start working, so not a lot of kids want to go to college anymore, making them cash out on the few students that do go. It's ridiculous. College should be a more common option than it is, it promotes knowledge and growth as a nation... oh god I've gone off on one of my tangents again haven't I?" I say, realizing I've said too much. In addition, it was his father who implemented the current school system we have.

"See? You're already opening up to me. The smallest voices always have the most to say, as they say," he says, taking a step towards me.

"Sorry... I criticized your father's work. But that's my opinion on it, and who implemented it doesn't really change it."

"No, I agree with you. My father is stubborn, though, and says that it'll pan out and eventually work, but I don't believe it," the prince says to my surprise.

"Oh so you do have some independent thought? I thought you'd be a clone of your father," I tell him as I begin to walk again.

He instantly catches up with me in two strides and smiles at me. "Well, are you a clone of your parents? If that were the case, wouldn't the world always be the same?"

"Touché, you do have a point there, but it doesn't change my mind on thinking that we probably couldn't get along enough to be married."

"Is that so?" He laughs again, "Well we'll have to see about that."

I grunt in displeasure and turn my gaze away, "Are we done here? There's something I want to do before curfew."

"Huh? And what is that exactly?" He asks, raising his eyebrows and staring at me as if he can read my mind and find out.

"None of your business."

"Fine, Fine. You can go now. I want to continue my walk, so you can head in by yourself," he says bluntly. I stop and he continues on, beginning to whistle to himself.

"Fine. I will," I shout, turning around and stomping back to the front door.

No one is there when I enter, but I can sense the security cameras watching my every move. But at least I can sneak back and then go to the garden. Or I could go straight there, it's not like I'll be gardening.

I go down the halls to which I believe lead to the garden. Eventually I will learn the castle better but I guess this long and confusing way works for now. It works well enough, because after a while I make it to the familiar door to the garden.

When I go outside, I am disappointed yet happy to find no one in the garden. I do wish to talk more to that gardener, he seems like a nice man who knows the castle better than I do and can probably help me later on. Maybe it's also a side effect of my home sickness and my want to see my dad gardening. Whatever it is that makes me want to talk to him, I can't deny that the feeling is strong.

It might be better to not befriend him now, especially since I might be going home soon, but I'd rather do it than regret it later. Either way, I can't do it tonight, so I guess there's no use in thinking about it now.

I sit on a bench at the edge of the garden and take a deep breath, the night air cold and crisp as it goes down my throat. I look up to the starry sky and sigh, making me think of home. At home I would sometimes sit outside at night to calm myself down after a stressful day. My favorite part is looking up at the stars because no matter where I go, the starry sky always looks the same.

As I look up at the sky I hear a door open behind me, making me jump up from my seat. To my surprise it's the gardener from before, Dan. He nods his head at me as he carries his bucket and tools into the garden. "Hi, dan," I simply say, sitting down again.

"Hi. You look nice, what are you doing here?" He asks. Dan squats down and begins to pull weeds from around a bed of carnations.

"The prince made me go on a walk with him," I explain.

"Was it nice?"

"Well I did learn more about the prince, but at the same time I felt like he was laughing at me the whole time..." I tell him, kicking up some dirt.

Dan looks up and stops weeding and tells me, "hm, well I know the prince and when he's surprised by something he laughs. So he was probably just surprised by what you were saying or something."

"Well there's nothing to be surprised about..."

"Maybe it's because the others are kiss-ups and embellish things to make themselves look good while you seem more bluntly honest and like you don't like the prince. But let me just say this, the prince may look like a jerk on the outside but he's really different once you get to know him," dan tells me while smiling, almost as if the whole time he was trying to suppress a laugh.

"Yeah? Well I can't wait then... he seems like one hell of a guy," I say. We sit in silence for a little after that, the only sound coming from him ripping up the weeds and the bugs surrounding us.

"Hey... why do you wear a hat and sunglasses even though it's night time? Don't those glasses make it hard to see?" I ask after a little while.

"Well, you may never know," he answers vaguely, "for all you know, I'm terribly deformed under this."

"Haha real funny, but really, why?"

"Well, it's a secret, maybe I'll tell you if you keep coming here at night," he says, standing and brushing dirt from his pants. "Well I'm going in now, so you should go to bed."

I nod as he picks up his bucket, now full with weeds, and his tools. "Goodnight" I simply say before he goes inside.