Chapter 3: Maysilee

Haymitch woke entwined in satin sheets. His head pounded against his skull in awful repetitive thumps. The room smelled of peaches and lavender. This was not his house. The memory of the previous day swam hazily into being. He could feel the awful thrumming of the wheels against the tracks. Of course, he was on the train. There was something he was supposed to remember. Something important. He buried his head in his hands. Think Haymitch, think. Thinking was the only thing he'd ever been good at. His eyes closed tight and he saw it - the flashing gold pin - Masilee's pin. His heart, which he had so carefully hardened against the world, broke again. Where had the girl tribute gotten it? Shouldn't it have been buried with Masilee? He remembered giving it to her in secret. He had loved her even before the games. But, he was born in the seam, and she was a town girl. It was an impossible thing. He shouldn't have loved her. He remembered the day he signed up for tesserae.

Haymitch had to sign up for tesserae at twelve, for himself and his father. He was lucky it was only for the two of them, he had friends in school who needed tesserae for brothers and sisters. They had more to fear. But still he hated that he forced into this situation. He had shown up at the town center too early. He wanted to get it over with before daylight breached his senses. He waited alone, shivering in his thin coat.

"What are you doing?" A voice hissed at him.

He looked around, and saw a girl he knew vaguely from school. "Maysilee?" he asked.

"Don't pretend you don't know I am."

"Why are you out here? It's not even daylight," he asked her.

"I saw you from my window." She pointed to a well constructed house a few meters away. It looked nothing like the hovel Haymitch called home in the seam. "Are you signing up for tesserae?"

He sighed. Maysilee hung out with the mean gossipy town girls. He hated them all. If she knew what he was doing, his entire class would know by morning.

"You know I am."

Her lips twitched, and he could see her mind turning. Was she thinking about how fun it would be to tell her friends about his hardship? God, how he hated her in her expensive dress, and silk slippers. She was so safe.

"If you're signing up, so am I."

"What! That's crazy."

"I don't think so. I'm twelve. No one can stop me." She placed her small arm through his and whispered in his ear. "Small defiances, Haymitch. It's all we have."

"Your parents..."

"They'll kill me." She started to laugh, a pretty trilling sound. Against all of his best intentions, he fell in love with her in that one shining moment.