I'm pretty sure Effie's butterfly dress in the second movie was the most beautiful article of clothing I have ever seen in a movie but that is not at all the point of this story.
I do not own Hunger Games. Read and enjoy.
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The first night in the new house, she is certain she will dream of the torture. She lies like a corpse, quailing, terrified to remit herself to sleep.
She vowed never to hurt like that again. With her hands bound behind her back, water cascading down her forehead, her hair plastered over her eyes, wet cement under her bare knees, she promised herself that if she were to survive an hour more, a minute more, she would never have to feel pain again. She thought hurt was transient.
But when exhaustion finally forces her eyelids down slowly over her stinging, searching eyes, she dreams of the children.
Haymitch's worn hand grasps the handle of the knife, and he cajoles it down to the cutting board with a slight twitch of his arm. The knife slices into the green apple, releasing a swift, soft hiss. Juice beads at the seam and she sees the blade cutting into a boy's smooth shoulder, blood spattering his woven tunic. She chokes the nausea down. The apple she forces down as well, gagging on the chunks.
She pats her mouth with a napkin at the end of it, and her lipstick leaves a purple stain on the cloth like a lingering bruise.
Slowly, like a metamorphosis, she changes her style.
It's the least she can do.
She takes the seams in until everything pinches and bites. Tighter and tighter until she fancies she hears a rib crack. She leaves the hems rough so that they scratch her tender thighs and shoulders. It hurts, but then she remembers drowning. Her lips parting and receiving nothing but water. The red blotches on the backs of her eyelids, burning fervently like twin suns.
She remembers the children.
She stands before the mirror in her overly-constricting outfit, silently buttoning the sharp silver nobbles and tugging at the neckline, which chafes. The tights are encrusted with jewels. They dig into her thighs.
She sent them away.
She sent them away. And she knows hurt is not transient because this feels like torture, the words cascading over her face and into her mouth when she tries to breathe in, like she's gasping on her knees again, her palms flat against the wet cement, the room reeling on an axis around a point in space where sixteen small sweet bodies lie. And she can't stop apologizing but all words are dust motes, shifting through the air, alighting lightly on the open eyes of the ones who cannot listen. So she stops apologizing but it never stops hurting.
Haymitch observes from the doorway but says nothing. "I'm ready," Effie says primly, and turns on her heel to join him. They walk out in front of the masses. The shoes squeeze her reddened feet and the starched angle of her elbow strains when she waves but every pinch, cramp, and bother is nothing, nothing compared to how the children suffered.
The brooch at her collar she leaves undone, so the pin is at her throat and brushes her skin lightly like the leg of a butterfly. If she turns her head too suddenly, she's reminded of its razor-like, minute presence.
No one except herself knows of it. They cannot see the scratching seams, the ragged hems, and the buttons like bullets. She doesn't let them see.
Let it not be said Effie Trinket has made mistakes.
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Reviews are much appreciated!
