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“Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn nudges the caviar around her entree plate, thinking about the girl on the bridge that afternoon.
“Caitlyn.”
Her hair had been what caught Caitlyn’s eye—bright pink and shaved on one side. Very different from what she usually sees.
“Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn looks up. Directly across the dinner table, her mother is frowning at her. The subtle, finely tuned frown she uses when they are entertaining guests. A frown that does not promote wrinkles but informs Caitlyn that she is going to be in trouble later on.
“Lady Penrose asked you a question, Caitlyn.”
“Oh.” Caitlyn faces the woman seated beside her mother. Her golden hair is a pile of curls atop her head, and her neck is adorned with an extravagant number of sapphires. “I’m sorry, Lady Penrose. What was your question?”
Lady Penrose delicately sips her wine. “How are you enjoying Piltover Secondary Academy, Caitlyn? I think you know my niece, Elisabeth.”
Caitlyn does know Elisabeth. They do not get along. “Yes. We take Politics together.”
“Your mother tells me you are eager to pursue a career in politics,” Lady Penrose continues. “Will you be our next Councillor Kiramman, then?”
Despite the fact that she has no such plans for her future, Caitlyn smiles. Her mother nods in approval, then proceeds to bring up the subject of Caitlyn's latest field shooting trophy.
Caitlyn goes back to her entree, wishing the dinner party to end. There is a crime novel she is halfway through waiting for her upstairs, and she is eager to finally discover if she has solved the murder correctly. There is also a pink-haired stranger on her mind whom she wants to think more about.
An elbow nudges her own, and Caitlyn twists to look at Jayce. “Hm?”
Jayce frowns. “You okay? You seem distracted.”
Caitlyn almost shrugs before remembering that she is not allowed to. “I’m fine. By the way, thank you for letting me come to your place this afternoon.”
Jayce grins. “Hey, you technically own it, right?”
“May I come again tomorrow?” she asks, then lowers her voice. “I don’t want to have tea with the Harriets.”
“Sure,” Jayce chuckles. “I’ll meet you at the bridge.”
Caitlyn nods, feeling happier. After another two courses followed by coffee and port, she is finally excused for the evening. She waves goodbye to Jayce then heads upstairs and changes out of her stiff, custom-tailored dress. Wearing loose pajamas in her favorite shade of purple, she climbs into bed and reads diligently until her clock chimes eleven, reminding her that she has school tomorrow. But as she lies in the dark and waits to fall asleep, she remembers the girl from the bridge again.
Caitlyn prides herself on being very observant, and she had discerned immediately that the girl was from the undercity. Not just by her faded, mismatched clothes, but by her posture: tense and guarded despite attempting to appear indifferent. She had been waiting impatiently for something, or someone, glancing back and forth between Piltover and the Lanes. She took responsibility for the boy and the younger girl waiting with her. Siblings, perhaps. The wrappings on her hands and wrists told Caitlyn that she was a brawler; the blood-stained bandage on her upper arm told Caitlyn that she had fought recently and taken a hit.
When the girl finally noticed Caitlyn staring, her eyes had visibly narrowed, but that was the last thing Caitlyn had observed before quickly looking down at her book, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
Well…she had observed one other thing, but she tried to ignore that.
When Jayce arrived from the university to meet her, Caitlyn hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to look back at the girl one more time. Those narrowed eyes were still watching her, and Caitlyn failed her attempt to ignore her initial observation: the pink-haired girl was very attractive.
Now, Caitlyn rolls over and stares up at her shadowy canopy. Her sigh is loud in the silence of her bedroom. She is sixteen, and for a year or so she has been unsure why she doesn’t reciprocate her classmates’ attraction to boys. This past spring she had been forced to attend her debutante ball with the son of a house alliance, and it was the most awkward evening of her entire life. She has no desire to ever be pressed up against a boy again.
Yes, Caitlyn is feeling more and more certain that she prefers girls, but that notion is daunting, and something she is going to keep to herself. At least she can admire them secretly. And it’s a shame that the pink-haired girl caught her staring, for Caitlyn would have liked to have kept looking.