"What happened yesterday?" Sollel demands as I stuff myself full of beef and ice water. "You come back from training and go straight to your room! Assaf tells me you threw a tantrum and left!" I shoot a poisonous look at Assaf, but he keeps his eyes on his own food. "Well?" Sollel barks. "What do you want me to tell you," I ask quietly. The truth is, I'm angry with myself as well. Usually, tributes get three days in the training center, and I've spent my first in the hospital. I pretty much wasted my second day fumbling around at the stations. Then, when I was yelling at Assaf, I felt like I had shoved him out in the cold. He was just trying to help and I shut him down. I should really apologize, but its not in my nature to. I hate that about myself. "I want you to tell me what went wrong," sollel said as she sat down. I stay silent as she watches me pick at a muffin. I try my best to avoid her eyes. Its not so much that I don't want to tell her what went wrong, its that I can't tell her. I have no idea what happened. I'd tell her I just had a bad day, but something tells me that would set her off again.
"Fine, don't talk. At least tell me what your going to do for the gamemakers today." She requests in defeat. This brings a smile to my face. "Throw some knives around. Shoot at things with arrows," I say with delight. I love the feel of a knife in my hand as I pitch it towards a target. "That's it?" She asks, surprising me. "Yeah that's it. What else do you want me to do?" I demand. "Throw something in there to spice up your act. Shoot the dummy with the arrows and spell 'win' or something, I don't care. Just do something to catch the gamemaker's eyes. Your the last person to go, and no one will pay you any attention unless you give them a show." Her words have a ring of truth to them, and I know I should follow what she says, but I don't admit that she's right as I dump my half eaten plate of pork roast, beef and blue berry muffins in the trash and head for the elevator.
"Hey wait," Assaf says, sprinting after me. "I want to apologize for yesterday."
"What for? I was the one yelling at you," I say tiredly. Were half way to the training center in the elevator before he speaks again.
"You're under a lot of pressure," he says finally. I can tell the conversation's over when the doors open and he wanders away without waiting for me. I suppose I can't blame him, though.
Slowly, while I wait for the gamemakers to call us in for our private sessions, I meander around the various stations, reinforcing my knowledge. I do much better today at each of the stations, as I move. The plant station is an easy thing to go over. I quickly do a test on which plants are poisonous and which aren't. The test's a breeze, and I'm walking to the next station in about 15 minutes. I stay away from the knife throwing station, though, and go straight for the archery section of the gym..
The bow feels alien like and unfamiliar in my hands. They make them differently in the capital than the ones I have at home. They're old hand-me-downs sure, but this one in my hands is so sleek, so new. The draw string is tighter, and has to be at least a twenty five pound draw back. I use the thing regardless. This is what they'll have in the arena as well, so I might as well get the feel for them now. I adjust to the new instrument carefully as I send arrows flying at the targets set up in front of me. The first set misses every time. While I go to retrieve the arrows in frustration, I can hear the snickers and see the mocking smiles around the room. One girl, from district two, just out right laughs. I take the arrows and put them into my quiver again as I walked back to my post and take my stance. The first three arrows miss again, but I've gotten used to the tighter string by now and the next hits just two rings off from the center. With a smile I send the another one flying for the target. It hits on the bull's eye nearly dead center.
I send the rest off the arrows off with success, which silences the room. No one's laughing now, as I retrieve the set. I continue with this cycle until the staff calls us to order. We each take our seats and wait as one by one, each tribute goes and shows their talent to the game makers. Later on in the day, the game makers will score our performance and televise them, to all of Panem. This is really so that the audience can get a feel for our abilities. With the scores come a heavy number of betting on who they think will win. This is also a chance to get sponsors, which means I probably should take Sollel's tip and do something theatrical like for show.
Assaf's presence next to me isn't giving me much room to think. He's obviously avoiding me, and I can't stand it. Finally, I just end up blurting out my apology without thought.
"Listen Assaf, I didn't mean to yell at you yesterday. You're right, I'm under a lot of pressure right now, and it's in no way your fault. I don't know why I yelled at you I just want to tell you I'm sorry," I say, cheeks burning red. He just stares at me quietly. It's unusual for him, because usually he's so cheerful. The silence burns. Before I know it though, he's pulling me into a hug.
"I forgive you," he sighs. He opens his mouth to say something else, but a peacekeeper is calling his name for his session before the words come. He doesn't look to the peacekeepers as he slowly smiles. Before I know what's happening, he's leaning forward, pressing his lips to mine. I'm too shocked to move as he kisses me. Through the surprise, I can feel half of me wanting more, and the other half screaming at me to stop this. I don't have enough time to think through what I should do before he breaks away, and quickly walks towards one of the smirking peacekeepers who readily leads him out.
My face is burning as I look down in shame, in delight. I can hear one of the peacekeepers whispering to his coworker.
"This will make for a good show," the first one says.
"Yeah, remember the last two love birds that came in here? The girl died trying to save her boyfriend, when she could have easily won herself," the other one replies. They walk off before I can hear the rest of the conversation. The person they're talking about sounds familiar. It's on the tip of my tongue, but I loose the thought as one of them call my name. 'Fifteen minutes has gone by already?' I say quietly to myself. I must have been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't notice the time flying by. I follow the same peacekeeper that lead Assaf away into the room where I will be demonstrating what I can do.
I walk in to find a fairly large amount of people drunk beyond coherency sitting in a viewing area. Wrapped around them is a force field for protection. I can tell by the ripples every so often placed in the field. A few of the game makers are stuffing themselves silly, and pay me no attention as I walk to the archery station to grab the bow I was using earlier. It's design is simple. A long bow generously dipped in jet black paint. It's only extra design were the swirls around where the draw string connected to the bow. I pull the string back, testing it quickly, then grab the matching quiver, and go to a starting line. I start by just shooting at a few target, but I quickly see Sollel's point as they continue with what they were doing before I came in, so I sling my bow over my shoulder and walk towards another station. It's not really a station, its just where they store the extra targets. I grab a dozen or so disks and a launcher specifically made for archery, and go back over to my starting position. I place the launcher beside me, and press the launch button with my foot to send the first disk into the air in front of me. I quickly pull back an arrow, and release the string. In an instant, the disk is in pieces on the ground.
I'm rewarded with a few glances from the game makers as I continue. As I release each of my arrows at the disks, more seem to look towards me. I release my last arrow as the head game maker, Aquila Posh, stands up and thanks me for my time. A peacekeeper is shoving me towards an elevator. I'm pretty sure that I didn't do enough, and it wasn't that theatrical, but it was enough to at least turn a few heads.
The elevator doors open, and there, Assaf, Juni, and Sollel engulf me with questions of "How did it go?" "What did you do?" "Did they look at you?" among others questions. I decide to answer Juni's first to get her off my back.
"It went well," I began. "They bearly paid me any attention, but I turned a few heads."
"Do you think you did well?" Assaf asks.
"For the most part, yeah," I say. He nods and smiles, and I'm reminded of how he kissed me earlier. I look away almost too fast, and jump into Sollel's question.
"I shot my bow," I say.
"Did you spice it up?" she asked.
"Not really, but I did enough."
"What exactly did you do then?" she demanded. I didn't feel like telling her really.
"It was my private session," I tell her, walking over to a set of food laid out for lunch. Sollel sighs.
"What did you do, then, Assaf?" she asks.
"Not much. I did some sparring with an avox, and that was pretty much it," he says.
"You guys are useless," she says, sitting down in front of the TV. I don't pay her any attention as grab a grilled cheese sandwich and pour myself a bowl of tomato soup. It's a small lunch compared to my breakfast, but I'm not that hungry.
After I finish, I change into something more comfortable, a pink tank top and some pants, then come back out to watch whatever's on. They're replaying the chariot rides currently, every so often cutting to reporters or commentators in the crowd. I see myself hunched over in pain right before they arrive in the city circle. I get back up, and they go back to the rest of the chariots.
I don't feel like watching the rest of them, so I slip back into my room. I'm feeling awfully tired all of a sudden so I lay down for a quick nap. It seems like I just closed my eyes when Assaf comes in.
"Are you okay?" he says.
"Yeah," I mumble. He sits down on a couch across from my bed. I want nothing more for him to leave, considering the fact that I'm still sorting out what happened earlier.
"Oh. So, um, about earlier," he begins. "I didn't mean to kiss you, exactly. Sorry if you didn't expect that." I have no idea what to say to that so I stay silent. I do sit up and meet his eyes. He looks down, and I know I should say something to comfort him. I don't like seeing him so… vulnerable? That's the only word that comes to mind.
"It's okay," is all I can muster though. It makes him smile at least.
I feel like I'm slowly improving with each chapter I write. Please feel free to review!
