Howard stood at the front door, patiently holding my coat. Despite being all determined to go, when it came down to actually leaving, I dawdled and hung around for ages. Bought time, something I was very used to. Double checking that everything was all locked up, making sure my hair looked nice and all (not that it mattered or anything. I don't think they have beauty pageants on Death Row) hell I was so goddamn time-wasting I even did the ironing.

Which obviously resulted in me burning both hands on the iron multiple times and spending the next hour chained to the cold water tap.

Yes, my son is very patient.

But just when I had finished time-wasting, Howard gave me another thing I could waste time with.

Letters. All my unread mail from the past twenty plus years, which I had deliberately not read for varying reasons. I'm not talking about junk mail- 'cause that just goes straight in the trash can. My pile of yellowy unopened letters did not fall into the category of junk mail, which is why it didn't all get thrown away.

'Cause ignoring letters from the Capitol is bad news. If Peacekeepers had found the letters in the trash (sounds stupid, but I was really scared that would happen) I would have been in so much trouble.

So they'd just collected dust.

I wasn't sure I really wanted to read those letters, but Howard persuaded me that it was a good idea and I suppose it was. If I was going back to the Capitol, I may as well get everything out in the open. Besides, it weren't like I could do anything about it now.

I read them all. I'm a real slow reader, but whenever a bit of a letter made me feel uncomfortable or scared (even twenty years later) I just read it really quickly, like I was on fast forward or something, which meant I got through them all relatively speedily.

Some letters were easier than others. Out of date threats didn't mean too much, but some bits were really kind of frightening. Maybe because I knew just how true they were.

One made me jump with fear, as if he was right next to me and I knocked over a paperweight. I tried to bend down and pick it up but old age got in the way and I was as stiff as a board.

"Howard!" I yelled. "I need the Grabber!"

"Are you sure?" He yelled back. "I can just pick it up for you!"

"No!" Old age also made me stubborn. "I don't want no help. Just the Grabber!"

I been using the Grabber the past couple of years: it's a long pole with a handle and a little robot hand on the end. When you squeeze the handle, the hand grabs what you're trying to pick up. It's real handy 'cause I'm as stiff as a board.

He gave me the Grabber and I picked it up the paperweight and put it back on the table. "There," I said. "Don't wanna leave it lyin' around like that. Someone could trip. Break a neck."

"I think people aren't all that worried about dying that way, Mom." Howard said carefully. He knew I didn't like the word "odds."

My shaky hands found Howard's steady ones and he walked me down the stairs, the same stairs that he had run up and down as a kid so long ago. He held on real tight, like he was worried I might just suddenly go nuts.

I began to slow down.

"Don't turn around" he was pleading again. "Don't turn around or everything just gets more complicated. Don't think about what's been, please."

He put his hand on my shoulder but he couldn't stop me from turning my head. "Don't!"

But too late. I had turned already and I saw it.

I saw the rose.

63 years earlier

"Run, Leah run!"

"The stupid bint got a 3! A 3!"

"The gal with the grain: LEAH WISHART!"

"Girl's as slippery as a barrel full of eels"

"Allies?"

"That'll take the wind out of her sails"

"Let the 12th Hunger Games begin!"

"Win for me Leah"

"Look at us. Look at what they've done to us."

"That is irrelevant, to the Capitol."

It sat on the side, all soft white petals, fine as ever. I tried to figure out how Capitol people could make it last so long without water. It made my brain hurt thinking about it but that was better. Better than my heart hurting. Better to think about stuff I didn't really understand than stuff I didn't really want to understand.

Stuff like the last Games.

I didn't deserve to win. I hadn't earned it the way Careers had. That's what the guilt mutts told me in the finale. But tough, I had. I had played my fellow tributes off against each other. Then I stepped in with my revenging ally to finish 'em all off. Only to then kill her too.

Come to think of it, it was a miracle I made it out in one piece, but I was covered in dirt and scars and splinters and blood and bruises and rash and midge bites. Small stuff- I'd been too afraid to notice. They were all gone now- except the scars. I was all new pink skin- and teeth. When I came out of the arena and started eating proper food again my teeth started falling out like dominoes, they'd gone all loose in the Games. I made a joke out of it at the time: folded my mouth over my teeth like an old granny but it hurt even more than getting all the hair on my legs ripped off again. It weren't like I liked my teeth or anything, but they were just- there. I remember when I was eight or nine years old and I'd just stand in front of a mirror wiggling a loose tooth with my tongue. Wiggling and giggling. Then I'd pop it under my pillow and get a shiny quarter in the morning. I felt sad, now that I'd lost that too.

I was worried they'd pull out all my teeth and I'd have to wear false ones and put them in a glass of water at night. And what if I couldn't find a glass big enough for 'em?But it turns out I had nothin' to worry about- with teeth, at least. They just plugged in shiny white new ones. My other teeth were so worn and crooked they had to spend ages just tryin' to get them all to match.

My stylist and my only friend in the Capitol, Calpurnia, came in with a little tray of porridge and grapes. Ever since I got on that hovercraft I had hardly ever stopped eating, even if eating hurt. The first thing I had was buttered toast, bread made with grain from my District and it never tasted so good, after too long of hard bread and worms and acorns and even a bit of bark (trees are plants too, aren't they?) with just mint leaves to make it taste a little better. I sure lost a lot of weight in the Games, not good since I didn't have all that much to begin with. At least I'd stopped growing by then, so I wouldn't be real short like some other victors went on to be.

Eating was good. Eating reminded me that I wasn't in the Games. I wondered if maybe that was why the Capitol folks ate so much. Eating was certainly a lot easier than thinking. Boy, I'd been doing a lot of thinking lately.

In a way, I was kinda dreading going home. Sure, I wanted to see my District again, more than anything, but I didn't know if I wanted to meet the people. Were they cheering me on? Did they hate me? Did they even wanna talk to me anymore? And my family. I'd have to go back to them and tell them I didn't save my brother, aka my District partner. Would they think I was bad? They thought all the other victors were bad. What would make me any different?

What was I going to do with my life now? During the Games, I had a plan. I always had some idea of where I was, what I was gonna do. Now it was all over, I felt lost. I hadn't planned for this. Sure, I wanted to win, I told myself I would try to win. But winning was so unlikely I didn't spend all that much time thinking about what would happen after.

It felt so strange to be inside again. The Remake Center, where I was all dolled up for the recap and crowning, felt like a whole new place. I felt like a whole new person... all muddled up. I had just got of the arena only to find out that them folks who ran the whole show wanted me dead the whole time. (But they sorta botched it up completely. Hell, I could have done a better job at killing me.) I barely made it and then after being attacked and threatened I had to go on with the crowning like nothing had happened and I'd just spent the afternoon napping on the couch and not trying to fend off a murdering batty lady.

"Do I have to do this?" I asked Calpurnia, again.

"Yes" Her answer was the same every time. "You are an adult now."

"No I ain't!" Adult meant scary stuff. Adult meant laundry. And bein' polite to Peacekeepers. "I can't be. I still count with my fingers."

"Then be an adult who counts with her fingers," She sighed. "But don't do it in public. You can't get out of this Leah."

"I been told that too many times" I said to myself.

She helped me into my dress like I was a little kid. It was a lovely dress, all soft and light in a fabric I'd never seen before, let alone worn, in a really pale shade of purple. Looking in the mirror, it looked like I was wrapped in a little purple cloud. It didn't hide the weight I'd lost during the Games. This was only more obvious when Calpurnia put a plaited dark brown belt around my waist. I looked like a gust of wind would knock me over.

It was all a lot simpler than what I wore when I was interviewed as a tribute. It was like somebody'd taken the girl I was the night before the Games started and washed all the life out of her. I looked real nice and all, but I didn't look strong. I guess that's what the President wanted.

"Quite simple ain't it?" I said to Calpurnia, carefully.

"Yes," she said. "Humility is a virtue that the Capitol wants you to show more of."

"Then why am I back in purple?"

She gave me a sneaky little half-smile. "I did have my own say in the matter, you know. And I want you looking spectacular."

I felt very free in it, but I also felt sort of exposed. I guess that was what the Capitol wanted as well.

Calpurnia picked up a big bottle of perfume, about to spray some on my freshly-washed curls but I stopped her. She shrugged.

"This is your night, Leah."

I looked back at the rose. In a way, it sorta looked back at me. If roses could talk, (and hell what an interesting world it would be if they could) it would say: "Why not?"

Why not indeed, I thought. So I picked it up, and put it on.

It was real stuffy under the stage. I knew of course, that after all this stuff was over I could go home and stick my head under the pillow and do nothing, but that didn't make me feel better. I just felt like I was going into another arena.

It was nice to hear the anthem. Reminded me that my Games were over and that next year someone else would take my spot, if the President didn't just go really mad and kill me first.

Then Isis Polava came on and I almost wanted to go up on stage just to see what crazy thing she was wearing. Charmian, Iras and Cymbeline got their bows as my prep team. Calpurnia got a- a standing ovation, I think it's called. Isis talked to her for ages to make up for the obvious lack of mentor, but even I could hear people talkin' in the audience- where's Dalia? Luckily my showing up onstage was enough to shut 'em up and most of them probably forgot all about Dalia.

I could hear Isis' shoutin' my name and I was lifted onto the stage. All the lights seemed even brighter than before. There was loads of applause and I gave 'em all a big wave, which they seemed to like. Isis came tottering over and gave me a big kiss that was sort of not a kiss. She just sort of kissed the air, which seemed a bit pointless to me but apparently all the divas do it. I almost wanted to laugh at her, she had completely forgotten that the night before the Games she was supporting District 2 (fair enough, they had won most of the previous Games) and she was wearing a bright red sparkly dress with a massive fruit basket on her head. Nobody had had the guts to tell her after she had gone onstage that District 11 is fruit, not 9.

I felt really nervous when I sat down in the victor's chair, like I wasn't supposed to be there. It then dawned on me that I would have to sit for three hours watchin' all this. I'd have to watch my brother die, all over again, in high definition. And of course, when the moment did come, they'd be sure to show my reaction so that everybody in the country would see me break down. Everybody in all of goddamn Panem would know how much it hurt me, all over again.

Heck, it's such a major moment in the 12th Games they even did it in slow motion in the highlights, the spear tearing through my brother, my scream edited and drawn out really slowly so that it was twice as long. Then the slow-motion cannon.

Every Games is a story and the 12th Games was a rags-to-riches one. They exaggerated this by including the interview with my family and editing the background so it looked even poorer than usual. My family were all in their best clothes, obviously, going on TV and all but the grief of the loss of my brother made 'em look so much poorer.

It was hard to look happy about anything after the bloodbath. When the boy from District 6 ran into a tree when he was being chased by mutts and collapsed, people in the audience actually laughed. I remember sittin' there and thinking: "Where's the joke? The fact that he ran into a tree? That ain't funny. He died 'cause of that."

They cut Mall's suicide from the highlights and used her speech as a voiceover for single flashbacks of what she had said: the mutts, the gas, all of it. To make it look like the Gamemakers won, not her.

The last bit of the Games wasn't the trumpets after I won, it was when I cut off my last opponent's head, with Mall's voice in the background: "Win for me Leah."

The anthem started again and suddenly everybody was standing up. I stayed sitting down like an idiot until I realised that the President was coming onstage and then I scrambled up and everybody laughed at me.

Coriolanus Snow held the cushion that my crown was on. He noticed the rose before the President did. He smiled, but the President was spittin' nails. He glared at me as he put the crown on my head and mouthed something that looked like "bench."

Then suddenly the President looked a whole lot less like a weasel and a whole lot more like someone could kill me. I wanted to run, fast as I could, back home. I wanted to be forgotten completely.

Isis brings the show to an end, happy not knowing anything beyond another great Games over. I left the stage when the cameras went off in a silent panic and all I really remember was Coriolanus Snow in the corner of my eye, looking as pleased as punch, like he knew something I didn't.