I let out a groan, rubbing my eyes as the sunlight filters into my bedroom. If I were to be completely honest with you, it's a pretty small room, and I'm pretty sure there's mold growing in the far corner of the ceiling. Not like that matters; everyone at school is convinced that I live in that huge house on the beach that looks almost as nice as the houses in the Victor's Village. Obviously I don't, but they don't know that. They don't need to know it, either.
It takes me a while before I realize what day it is. Reaping day. Now, being from a 'Career District', and being trained in various weapons and survival skills for years, I can reliably inform you that almost no one looks forward to reaping day. Especially since, unlike in the lower districts like 12, I have to get up early. Any person as gorgeous as myself needs beauty sleep, and I hate it when that's interrupted.
At least I get to joke around with my best friend, the one and only person in this entire district that I like. Caspian's probably the only decent kid our age around here, and I think I'd have killed myself already if he wasn't around. He has his fair share of stupid jokes, he shares in the pain of being drop-dead gorgeous, and he's not a total jerk. We do practically everything together, and though we don't really look much alike, people still get us mixed up- that's how close we are. And he actually knows I live in this run-down shack, and that's more than I can say about anyone else- well, aside from my dad, but...
Anyway, even though this isn't exactly a lighthearted event, we've cracked jokes during it since we were twelve. Maybe to deal with the stress, maybe because we're hot and bored, maybe because we just have an uncanny ability to make jokes at inappropriate times. Could be some combination of the three, some other reason entirely, I don't know. But the fact of the matter is, at the reaping, Caspian and I make jokes. A lot. And while it annoys some people, it also eases a lot of the tension and makes some people less nervous, so, if I'm helping people, I guess it can't be that bad. I mean, honestly, so long as you're helping someone, you're not really doing a bad thing, right? Then, I suppose that's not always true. Like, if you're helping to increase someone's popularity by killing them, I guess that would be a situation where that doesn't apply.
Helping someone usually means you're not doing a bad thing, but that's a statement in which you have to use common sense. Perhaps I shouldn't state that aloud, as common sense is less common than it'd seem around here, and I don't want to validate someone's stupidity because they misunderstood my comment due to their lack of- I'm rambling, aren't I? I tend to do that. Although I'm flawless in every way, I have made a habit of rambling. Perhaps because I'm one of two sane people I know. Or perhaps, my near-constant inner monologue has driven me insane and I'm just not yet aware of it.
It is at this moment that I realize I'm still laying in my bed, and have been for the past five or so minutes, and proceed to roll out, hitting my hard wooden floor with a 'thump', which is inevitably succeeded by another groan. I don't know what I was thinking, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have bruises on multiple places on my side. Oh well, not like it'll matter, really. It takes a lot for me to convince myself to get up off the floor, even, but when I remember that I'll have more time to make sure I look nice the less time I spend on the floor, I manage to force myself into a sitting position, and stand from there. I think I might've hit my head a little too hard, as well, but I don't pay any mind to that. I must make my head pretty before I can worry about its well-being.
Before you judge me, I would like to inform you that I'm not nearly as vain, narcissistic, or self obsessed as I may seem, and most things I say should probably be taken with a pinch of salt- or however they saying goes- as not only do I have a tendency to joke around constantly, but I also have a fondness for sarcasm, and I happen to have a certain brand of sarcasm that is nearly impossible to distinguish from the way I speak when I'm not being sarcastic. So, the meaning behind my words can be nearly impossible to discern at times- but don't worry, you'll get the hang of it.
First order of business is to brush my hair, most likely my favorite physical feature on my body, and quite likely the favorite of most District 4 girls. I was blessed with soft hair that shines a nice, reddish color- that is, when it's properly brushed. When I wake up, it sticks up at every angle, riddled with tangles and knots. Which I wouldn't really mind if it didn't take me nearly an hour to make it look up to its usual perfect standards. Sadly, I do have to sit there with brushes and combs and god knows what else- literally knives some days- for anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Today my hair's pretty cooperative, though, and it's on the lower end of the scale when my hair is its shiny and flawless self. After all that brushing and combing, un-knotting and untangling, and smoothing and styling, getting dressed is the easy part. As perfect as I am, I'm not exactly the most wealthy person in District 4, so I don't really have a lot of fancy clothing, but the reaping is something that everyone knows to shop for. I settle for a nice white dress shirt under a light green sweater, with jeans and some nice shoes that used to be my dad's. I look pretty darn nice, if you ask me- though if I was wearing a nice suit, I'd look a whole lot nicer. But that's not something I can be bothered with at the moment. Now, it's time for breakfast.
While my house is, as I've mentioned, practically a shack, it is a nice shack, and I am proud to say that out of all those wretched shacks out there, this one is mine. It's two stories, and while the stairs creak and aren't fun to climb up and down, at least they're there. I may have the only upstairs room, which is quite inconvenient, but on the positive side, people never wake me up at night, and I'd hear any burglars or murderers long before they reached my room. However, that also means my dad can hear me the second I begin walking down to the main floor of the house.
"Morning, kiddo," he calls up the stairs before he can even see me, and I reply with a groan. It seems that with all my getting ready, I still am too tired to speak. And it seems my dad also knows what the past two hours or so have been spent on, as he responds with, "vocal chords still asleep after putting on all that makeup, Sleeping Beauty?" The nickname fits, really. I like my sleep, and we've already come to the conclusion that I'm gorgeous.
"Food," I manage, though the word comes out low and quiet. That's all he's getting. It's too early for talking. Who even does that at what, nine, ten in the morning? And even before breakfast? Not Finnick Odair. But when I approach the kitchen, I am greeted by a pleasant surprise- the aroma of warm bread wafting through the air, filling my nose and warming my entire body. And this is an occasion in which Finnick Odair speaks before breakfast. "How expensive even was this? It smells..." No words can describe the perfection- "Perfect."
My dad just shushes me, which I have learned means 'very expensive', as he hands me a piece. Holding it between my fingers warms my body even more, and I just stare at the bread, hot between my fingers for a moment before slowly taking a bite. As you may have guessed, bread is pretty scarce around here unless you're filthy rich- which, as we've already established, I'm not-, and it's a food that you savor every bite of. And let me tell you, it feels so much better in my mouth than it does on my hands, and it's so hard not to wolf the entire thing down. But, no, I take slow, deliberate bites, letting the flavor fill my mouth, before carefully swallowing, and repeating. Pretty soon, the whole thing is gone, and I take to licking my fingers for crumbs, or flour, any remnants I can find.
As soon as I'm finished with that, I look up to my dad and give him a sincere, "thank you," and he just smiles back at me, as I draw in a deep breath. A tiny voice in the back of my mind says that this might be the last time I eat bread here in District 4, but I push it away. There's no way I'm volunteering. And even if I get reaped, which I won't someone else will volunteer. there's plenty of fully prepared eighteen year olds, and I don't think they'd give up their last chance to go into the games so easily, to some redheaded fourteen year old kid. Nah, they'd fight each other over going in, and no matter who ended up on that train to the Capitol, I wouldn't care, because it wasn't going to be me.