Miles To Go

Summary: Milestones of Effie Trinket's life - snippets, memories, and everything inbetween.
Warnings: Suicidal attempts, sexuality, cursing, alcohol and drug abuse, and torture ahoy.
Notes: Not really Hayffie-centric until the last piece...but #hayffie cause I can.

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Part One: this world she lives in

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Effie was always looking for something to live for.

The first time it occurred to her that there's nothing she's really good at is when she's seven. Her mother loved to point it out whenever she could, it seemed, because it was always, "Effie you stupid girl," or "You'll go nowhere with that kind of attitude," or "Why can't you be like your sisters?"

That was her least favorite. The one where her sisters lived on the top in the world, and she, well she was sent to the deepest pit of hell. Because hey, someone had to be the family black sheep. So it fell on her shoulders to be the one that no one like.

And she hated it.

She lived in constant comparison. Effie can't do this, Effie can't do that, Effie, oh god why?And when she really did something right — because truthfully and honestly she's smart and pretty too — it was shot down by her mother.

You could've done better.

You could've looked better.

You could've said it better.

You could've you could've you could've.

There was nothing to be proud of. There was always something to improve on. She wasnothing and she didnothing and it hurt, damn it. It hurt her and she was barely a teenager.

When she was thirteen — she was still a kid, really — she was still trying to catch the attention of her mother. Was interested in the right things, made the right grades, dated the right people, hung out with the right people - but surprise, surprise.

Not enough.

It was all the same thing, like she had a string of insults and putdowns at the ready. Like all she had to do was press play and repeat. Entirely convinced that her mother hated her, her father didn't mind her (How could he? He was always playing God to a city that knows none.) and her sisters looked down on her, she had nowhere to go.

In the Capitol, you've got everything if you got enough money.

She bought a bottle of Cyanlite off a poor and struggling doctor; it was a type of drug that just one pill would send you into a deep, deep sleep. It was meant for people with extreme fatigue or criminals that needed to be sedated, however a couple of years ago it was banned by the Capitol. Something about heart failure, something deadly like that. But the doctor needed money and she needed an escape

She took five pills.

Problem is, the doctor didn't tell her is that the pills, taken in quantities more than two in a period of fifteen hours, tend to cancel the effects of the others. That they start shutting down each and every organ function, one by one in the most agonizing way possible. That instead of an easy death in her sleep, her misery would continue for hours — days — stretching and hitting each nerve until she's dead.

The pain started in the pit of her stomach ten seconds after she swallowed the last pill. The screams started almost immediately.

When she woke up in her room four days later — stomach pumped, the rest of the Cyanlite burned to oblivion, her personal doctor on the way out with a fat check in his pocket to keep it hush-hush — her mother was the first to catch her eyes. The woman Effie knew was long gone. Wigs, colors, and lights were discarded. This woman was older in her eyes, the wrinkles previously hidden by blush and foundation now prominent, and with her jaw clenched tighty, she drew her knees to her chest. She sighed, the sound drawn out like usual.

"Effie," the woman croaked out. Her grip around her knees was tighter, her stare fixed on her daughter softer.

Effie looked down in shame. Has she failed again? She waited for the insults to rain down again. Probably something along the lines of not doing it right, or being too weak to suck it up.

Effie braced herself.

Her mother bit her lip. "Don't you know I love you?"

Effie's eyebrows raised. "No."

The woman sighed again, except this one was sharp, cut and stuck at the base of her throat. She looked away from Effie and to the picture of the girl and the mother on the bedside table. "You lived. You never really wanted to leave, did you?"

"It's not like you care," Effie said quietly. "You only act like you do now because you don't want the press to know."

The woman smiled. "Ah. Looks like you know half of it. No, I don't want the media to catch wind of this. It's reelection time for your father, and while he has Snow's stamp of approval, this still is pseudo-democracy."

"So you had me cared for at home?"

"Hospitals have ears, you know."

There is a silence before the mother gets up for the door. She stops, glancing over her shoulder to make sure of Effie. Her hands find the edges of the doorway for support, her body still shaking from grief. She was scared, Effie noticed.

Probably for the family's image. No one likes the suicidal daughter sob-story.

Effie took in everything she saw in her mother's eyes. The care stemming from the ocean blue, the love buried in the green flecks. The wrinkle that creased as she cracked a smile, a grateful one at that.

"I'm proud of you, Effie."