We don’t get to see what Maxon and America talked about after the party.  Instead, we skip straight to a few weeks later.  Frankly, I’m glad.  I didn’t care what they were going to talk about anyway.  America summarizes a bit for us, telling us that the palace is getting comfortable and that the magazine they did the photo shoot for picked Marlee as the best.  America has been practicing a lot with the fancy palace instruments, but despite this being her only hobby/skill, we still don’t get to see her actually do it.  I get the feeling the author doesn’t actually give a shit about music.

So, about a month into the Selection, America and Marlee talk.  Outside.  Ohhh, I hope a sniper gets them.  Anyway, Marlee is bummed because she keeps going out on dates with Maxon but she doesn’t seem to like him.  They don’t have any common interests or chemistry.  You know, there’s no limit to the stupidity of making this contest all about love, but there is a limit to the number of times I can rant about it without just boring myself.

Marlee cries about how much she doesn’t love the prince, then says she can’t tell him so because she can’t go home.  But she won’t tell America why she can’t go home.  My money is on ‘secret palace lover.’  Marlee runs off and then avoids America for a few days.  (…and now my head canon is going to say it’s because she has a crush on America.  I doubt this book will actually include a lesbian character, it doesn’t seem to even acknowledge that homosexuality exists, but I’m going to believe that until proven otherwise.)

After that, Maxon comes to take America out on a date.  She is still conflicted about her feelings for him.  Hm…sort of as if no time at all had passed between this chapter and the one where she admitted she liked the guy.  I know matters of the heart take time an all, but no progress of any sort in, like, three weeks?  Really?

They go to the movie theater, but America doesn’t know what kind of movies she likes.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t get to watch a lot of movies. But I like romantic books. And comedies, too!”

Books cost money, too.  But more than that: books cost time.  A lot of time.  A lot more time than movies.  Time should be a valuable commodity to this girl, because she should be spending all her time either practicing or working.  Her family is poor and partially dependent on her income.  Why does she have all this time to be sitting around reading romance books?  Maybe a few here and there, but she’s also seen a few movies here and there, so why wouldn’t she know what her preference in movies are, too?

They walk along and see a bunch of guards.  Low and behold, one of them is Aspen!  Yeah, who didn’t see that one coming?  I mean, did you really think we’d get through a YA romance book without a love triangle?  I called this one as soon as she mentioned that people could get drafted into being a fucking guard.

Incidentally, you don’t want draftees around your royalty.  You want carefully screened volunteers, because those are the people most likely to 1) not being militant fucks who would turn rebel in a second just because they’re angry, and 2) be actually dedicated to the job and well behaved.  Draftees are notoriously misbehaved, and normally only the threat of being shot by the enemy will convince them to train and follow orders.  At a cush job like palace guard?  With danger that only comes about once a month or so?  They’re going to be mouthing off and sleeping on shift like crazy.

It had been more than a month since I’d seen Aspen, but this was the person I’d spent years committing to memory, the person who still visited my dreams. I would know him anywhere.

Do people normally forget what their boyfriends look like after a month?  It’s been years since my first, and I would still recognize him, but I didn’t do any bad-poetry, super-duperest-special-love memorization thing.  Damnit, book, stop trying to pad things with extra drama.

He looked a little bigger, like he’d been fed, really fed, and was working out a lot. His scraggly hair had been cut short, practically all gone. And I was used to seeing him in secondhand clothes that were barely being held together by threads, and here he was in one of the brilliant, fitted uniforms of the palace guard.

He was alien and familiar at once. So many of the things around him seemed wrong. But those eyes … those were Aspen’s eyes.

*sigh*  So apparently the only things America notices about people are haircuts and clothes.  Nothing else matters.   Because it’s not like his face would be unique or anything.

Put this girl in a wig and she’d probably try and talk to the stranger behind the glass who keeps mimicking her.

America tells Maxon they are from the same hometown, since they both showed signs of recognition and she has to say something.  Maxon once again brings up the fact that America doesn’t keep a maid at night and thus needs a guard.  (Seriously, ninja maids?  Fuck it, I’m just going to consider it canon.  Ninja maids rule.)  Therefore, Aspen is now one of America’s guards.  Maxon shows no sign that he realizes this guy is her past boyfriend that she told him about.

America has more feels, and they are confusing.

America decides not to tell who Aspen really is, because she’s afraid that Maxon hates her past boyfriend for being mean to her and would punish him.  She bases this on the fact that he set up that food program because of her stories.  And since he does one well-meaning thing, that means he’d totally do one cruel thing, because the two concepts are so very much the same?

Maxon is clearly over the moon about her, and as dumb as he is, I can’t see him being mean-spirited enough to punish a guy for breaking up with someone.  All America would have to do is say “That’s my old boyfriend.  But don’t hurt him.  Just assign him somewhere I don’t have to look at him.”

Furthermore, there’s only two reasons they broke up: Aspen was poor and worried about going into a war zone.  Well, now he’s a Two with a steady paycheck and a relatively safe assignment.  He could propose, she could drop out of the competition, and they could run off happily married.  But they can’t because…reasons?  Seriously, America doesn’t even for a second think about how Aspen dumped her because of a situation, and that situation has now changed, so maybe they can get back together.  She’s treating this exactly as if he’d dumped her because he stopped liking her.

She also says she has to stay because her family needs the compensation checks, so I guess she’s not going to send any of her super money home.  Actually, since the whole army is ‘Two,’ they probably aren’t defined by money and don’t get super-duper paychecks, but that does beg the question of why Kota wants to be one so badly.

She and Maxon go on their date, and she’s all distracted through it and doesn’t say much, so she claims tired and leaves to take a nap.

Yay, what a short chapter!  I hope all the rest are this short!