" How can your dad be together with a seam whore? "
I was only ten when someone in my school said it. I started to cry and ran home with every energy I had left. I remembered the stares when I ran with my puffy red eyes that still cried through the merchant part and into the Seam to my house. My mom was on the porch with my dad, and was about to give him a goodbye kiss as she always did when he was about to go to work. They saw me running and my mother got panic when she saw me in my state.
I started to cry even more and told them what they had called mom and my mother just looked at me with an unreadable face. My father took over and said to me to calm down and that mom is not a what they had called her.
I know now that my father and mother loved each other, even if they lived in different parts of the district. I know that my grandmother hated my mother and my father for being with a seam slut. I know now that my parents had a hard time for being together, because everyone was starting to pick on them, calling my mother stuff that wasn't true, and it got even worse when my mother got pregnant with my father at such a young age. My grandma kicked my father out of the house and with their state of money, they were forced to live in the poorest part in Seam, and people always gave nasty looks at my father, for being the only blond haired man among them as he worked hard to buy food to his pregnant wife at home.
But year passed, people started to forget the gossip around the town, and when I was born, and when nothing was heavy for them any more, my parent got married immediately, without anything or anyone disturbing them.
And as I started to grow up, my dad took over the family bakery, and we had money again, but neither my mother or father even mention to move away from the Seam. They seems to like it there, even if they had money to move.
And as I started to grow even more, everyone knew who I was.
With my blond hair, always in a braid, and with tan skin, and blue eyes, I was Rose Mellark, the child of Peeta and Katniss Mellark.
I have my father's charm and kindness, and I have my mother's hunter mind.
But I never tell anyone.
Because, the sixteen year old Rose Mellark everyone know, is girly, nothing like my mother.
I liked having dresses, it was showing of my nice legs, and I like make-up and I like to chit chat and gossip with my friends, and paint like my father.
But I also like to put on some jeans and my bow and go to the forest and hunt animals too, just the way my mother teached me.
But I have never said it. And I never will. I will only confuse my friends and everyone in the district.
You can't have two personalities in a world like this. And if everyone knew that I can even hold a bow, everyone will look at me different.
So I only show up my side I can show up. And I don't have a problem with it. My mother says it reminds me of Primrose, my aunt.
I like being girly. It's just, so Rose.
" Rose? " I suddenly snap out of my thinking as I look at my father, who has a smile on his face.
" God, you scare me when you are in that thinking state. " My father says and sits next to me on the kitchen table.
" I'm sorry dad, I was just thinking... " I say as I play with my braid.
Dad understood, and noded in silence. As I looked up at my dad I could feel the amazing smell of cookies.
" Dad, why are you making cookies? " I ask.
" You know why. " He said with a grin, and with that, the door suddenly opens and I can hear my only aunt calling my name loud as my mother is trying to calm her down.
I run to the living room to see her there.
" Rose, come here and give me a hug. " Prim says as my mother rolls her eyes with a grin. I can't help but to run up to her and give her a big hug.
" Hey aunt Prim. " I say as she releases me.
Prim, mother and I sit on couch as Prim starts to ask about school.
" With those legs, every guy in school have to chase you right. " Prim jokes and I laugh to as my mother roll her eyes.
" I slap them if they touch me. " I say with truth in my voice and Prim just laugh.
" Just like your mother. " Prim whispers as she laughs.
My father finally shows up, and give Prim a hug as he shows up the cookies he have baked for her.
" Thank you Peeta, you know I love them. " She says and take two.
Even if I am sixteen years old, and should lock myself in my room and to whatever sixteen years old people do, I don't. I like to sit with my parents and aunt and listen to them talking about their memories as children and we either cry or laugh at the memories.
Prim talk about her job as a doctor, and my mother smiles at her big, proud of her for taking their mothers job.
" I was about to get some things in the store yesterday, but it was closed. " Prim whispers. " I remember that it would be closed just one day from the… but now, it's suddenly two… "
The living room got quiet as my parents looked at me with fear in their eyes. The feeling of throwing up was back again, as I put my hand on my stomach.
Even if it only was ten minutes, I can't believe I forgot. I never forget when it's this close from now. It's always in my mind. And I'm so afraid of it.
Tomorrow, it's reaping day.
My mother suddenly cries with two hand covering her face as my father almost jump at her to comfort her. Prim keep looking down at the floor and I could see tears forming in her eyes.
I know that aunt Prim used to love someone, but I don't know who. But he got reaped, and died in the Games.
And I know why my mother is always crying when it's near reaping day.
Once, Prim said that when my grandpa died, my grandma got sick. She loved him so much that she started to stop existing, only staring into space, didn't even care for her children when they almost starved to death. So my mother had promised herself that she would never love someone that much. And with that promise, she put in that she would never bring a child into a world like this, in a world where the games existed. But she broke the two promises by loving my father and giving birth to me. And when it was my first reaping, my mother started to have panic attacks, she started to curse herself every time screaming, and always blaming herself.
So with that, she infected me by get scared to death every reaping.
And I know, if I get reaped, and die in the arena, my mother is going to be like my grandma.
She is going to stop existing, only breath and look into space.
I started to breath heavier. I look at my mother crying like there was no tomorrow, my father trying to comfort my mother and me by giving me comforting fake smiles and Prim almost breaking apart, I can't handle it.
I can't. And I do the only thing I know I'm good at.
I run.
I stand up, and run to my room, changing my skirt to a pair of jeans and run out the door, ignoring my dad screaming after me as I run all the way out from the Seam and the town square. Leaving the reality and the district behind me.
And I am in the forrest.
I stop to run and close my eyes, just hearing the birds sing, knowing that they have nothing to worry about. They are always lucky in life.
" You okay? "
I turn around to see my hunting friend, Will Hawthorne. He's one of the sons of my mothers best friend Gale Hawthorne, and sharing the same hobby, by hunting, we became friends from day one. But we never talk in school, no one actually knows we are friends except from our parents and us. Will is with his friends in school and I am with my friends in school.
Will gives me my bow, like he knew I was coming. But I don't question it and take it with silence. He takes out his rope for his traps he always is a master on and put it besides him.
" It's my mom again. " I whisper and sit down on the big rock. Will sits beside me in silence and nods.
I was only ten years old when I read the Hunger Games books. And I don't remember so much, so if you see something wrong here, please tell me!
Please review and tell me if I should continue or not!
-L