She Kept the Trash, I Kept the Crown novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Choosing Day
Daphne picks the Wheelocks in front of the donors and hands Leonie her allergy pen with a smile; Leonie takes the Trowbridge name, and the groom walks over the lawn.
My sister stepped up to the microphone in front of two hundred donors and chose the Wheelocks.
She did it smiling, with her hand on her pearls.
"I know it's a lot to ask the Trowbridges," Daphne said. "But I've always felt at home with people who work with their hands."
The reporters at the back of the garden wrote that down.
Mrs. Trowbridge stood beside me holding a cream envelope with my name and Daphne's name on it.
It was meant to hold one answer.
The Trowbridges were adopting one of us today, on their lawn, in front of everyone who funded their hospital wing.
The one they took would marry Kellan Slade in the spring, and the other would go home with the Wheelocks.
I had known all of that for a week.
What I had not known until I woke up that morning was that I could hear people think.
It had started at six, with the driver's thoughts coming clear from the front seat.
Then I remembered the dying.
Yesterday I had been twenty-two years old, on a ballroom floor in Hartford, with a prize still warm in my hands.
My throat had closed, and I had dug through my bag for my allergy pen and found nothing.
Now I was twenty-one again, in a borrowed blue dress, and the last thing I had won was already behind me.
Daphne turned from the microphone and looked at me.
Her voice came through my head as clean as if she had said it aloud.
You get the cage, little sister. I'm sorry. I tried it once, and I hated it.
I stopped breathing.
She had a first life too, and she had come back with it.
She walked down the three steps from the stage and took both my hands.
"You'll be good for them, Leonie," she said. "They're kind people. I checked."
Her thoughts under it were bright and fast and sure.
Dr. Wheelock's lab wins. I know the year. I know the dinner. Nobody gets in my way this time.
She reached into her handbag and took out a small orange case.
My allergy pen.
Daphne had carried it in her own bag since we were nine years old.
She had never once let me hold it, because I lose things, she said.
Now she put it in my palm in front of everyone, without being asked.
"You'll want this now," Daphne said, and kissed my cheek.
A woman near the front sighed and whispered that sisters were the best thing.
I closed my fingers around the case.
In my last life that pen had never been in my bag when I needed it.
I did not have time to work out why that mattered.
The Wheelocks were standing by the iced tea table, a grey man in a chalky cardigan and a woman holding her husband's elbow.
Daphne waved them forward.
She was already walking away from me, and she did not look back.
Mrs. Trowbridge bent to my ear. Her voice was kind and her thoughts were frightened.
Please don't let the other one walk away too. We have waited three years for a daughter.
Then Mrs. Trowbridge said aloud, "Leonie, dear, you don't have to decide in front of all these people."
I looked at the envelope.
I looked at the lawn, the tent, the two hundred faces.
My sister had left me the Trowbridges on purpose.
She thought I would be miserable in a mansion with a husband I did not choose.
She had no idea I could hear every word she thought.
I took the envelope out of Mrs. Trowbridge's hand.
I walked up the three steps she had just come down and leaned into the microphone.
"My sister has chosen the Wheelocks," I said. "I choose the Trowbridges."
The tent went quiet.
"I'll take the name, the house and the engagement. I'll take all three, gladly."
Mrs. Trowbridge made a sound and put her hand over her mouth.
Daphne stopped on the grass with her back to me.
I heard her think, in a flat small voice, Well. That's wrong.
It was the first thing she had thought all morning that she had not planned.
The applause started with Mrs. Trowbridge and spread out.
A man had come in late through the garden gate, and he was the only one not clapping.
He was tall, in a charcoal suit, with dark hair cut short and a scar on his chin.
He crossed the grass without hurrying and stopped in front of the steps.
"Miss Hartwell," he said. "I'm Kellan Slade. I was told it would be your sister."
His voice was dry and level.
Under it, I heard him think: Thank God.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend