Most of the following day, Emilia had spent laying lazily in her room, stretched on the bed while soft afternoon light lit through the big windows. She had been there for what seemed like hours, flipping through an old novel, which she might have read a dozen times. It wasn’t that the story was particularly compelling, like being hooked with anything interesting in the story, but just to pass the time and to have something to feel rather than the push of the tension sitting heavily on her chest.
The gala was tonight, and maybe that's the thing keeping her nerves haywire and all over the place. Her stomach twisted a little farther every time her mind brought it up, which was like most of the time. She was used to the occasional pretentious people, the stares, the conversations she would h
