Madge's POV:
I sit motionless, staring at the bare wall in front of me. Bright white. Clear. Untainted. This was my primary occupation during my extended six months stay at the hospital. The doctor was convinced that I was demented. Even though I was issued a release, I don't believe it was because he was confident in my mental state. There was a level of pressure put on by management to move patients through quickly. He simply didn't know what to do with the silent, still girl who repeated rebuffed his attempts at counseling.
My life and heart is so complicated that it will require years of staring at white, blank walls before I've manage to straighten it all out in my mind. Fervently I wish I could erase the history of my life; maybe even completely removing myself from stage altogether. I feel completely engulfed in a shroud of overwhelming loneliness, as if there is a huge, bottomless hole in me that refutes every effort I make towards closing. It takes an incredible amount of effort to drag myself through each new day.
Gale. He is honestly the last person I want to deal with right now. Seeing him brings back a painful mixture of bittersweet memories – memories I would much rather forget. I want to leave District 12 behind me forever. I want to leave the Capitol behind me forever. In reality, I want to leave my entire life behind me and somehow start afresh. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can never leave myself behind; that is the real problem.
I'm just not sure how to deal with this pain, and the strange desperation gripping at my being. I'm afraid I'll do anything to rid myself of the loneliness that I've carried all my life.
Why did I have to be sent to District 2? Why did I have to be assigned to same area as Gale? Life is too entirely cruel.
He had been so relieved to see me. That's all I ever was – a relief – a balm – what he used to sooth his hurt. Once a wound is healed, the medicine is no longer needed – the story of our acquaintance. Did he mean to be cruel? No, I truly don't believe he realized what he was doing. He was just obliviously selfish.
However now, I can't heal his hurts, because I'm completely broken myself. My whole being is shattered into a million pieces which I don't have the strength or even the will to mend. I can't take on another party's burdens because I am smothering under the weight of my own. He thinks I'm strong and able to comfort. What he doesn't know is that I was never strong in the first place. My entire life people have seemed to view me as somehow emotionally different from the general populace. I am believed to never become discouraged and never to feel the pain others experience. Just because I never made a grand display of my feelings, doesn't mean they don't exist in identical force concealed underneath the surface.
Sorry this chapter is so short. I've been real busy with school and haven't had much opportunity to write.