"Are you rejecting me?"
Adolph asked so bluntly, Laurel didn't know how to answer. Then, she nodded her head her face burning with embarrassment. A moment of silence passed and Laurel’s stomach churned with anxiety. Why wasn’t he saying anything? She glanced at his face and found his expression unreadable.
“I-I’m…” She tried to calm down and speak clearly. “I’m just an ordinary girl. A girl from the border. I don’t have any business… I don’t deserve to be your partner for such a formal occasion, and--”
“If you were an ordinary woman your age, you would have accepted the invitation with joy.”
She winced. She couldn’t argue with that. An ordinary girl her age would have tried on the dress and admired herself in the mirror for at least an hour, not packed it up, and tried to return it. If
