Chapter 10: Stage
I'm lost in my grief, overwhelmed by the despair of what's happening to my world. My motions are monotonous, and if I have any true emotions anymore, I can't find them.
But soon I have to wake up and play the part that's expected of me. We all have to take the stage more than once, and I'm no exception. We victors can never escape the spotlight.
"Victory Tour." That's what's written in bright letters along the side of the car that arrives with my prep team and Portia. The words fill me with dread and disgust.
After I'm acceptably scrubbed and polished, I'm relinquished into the hands of my stylist. Portia looks at me with a deep sympathy, and once again, she feels like the mother I never knew.
"I'm sorry," I tell her.
"For what?" she asks.
I wish there were some way to tell her about the impossibility of any rebellion, how the flaming headdress at my interview was pointless. How I've been forced to give up, and how I no longer have the energy to keep going. But I can't voice that here. "I – never mind," I say. She gives me an odd look and then hands me my outfit.
It's a blue-green turtleneck shirt with pleated black pants. Sturdy boots and a knit cap. A jacket goes over the shirt, and I feel too warm with the goose-down padding.
"Smile," Portia commands. I do my best and she shakes her head. "That's not it. You look like a snarling dog. Come on, it's a winter day, the snow is falling softly from a nice blanket of fluffy gray clouds…" She continues like this until I've relaxed some. "You'll do," she says, and then Effie shoves me out the door.
Portia was understating things. Lightly falling snow? I've been forced into a blizzard. Fluffy gray clouds? It's like an inky pit over my head. Yet I somehow fix my smile in place and stumble my way toward the depot.
On the train, I stare out a window as the snow vanishes and is replaced by endless fields of grain. "District 11?" I ask, and Haymitch nods.
The speech is horrible. I'm unusually lacking in fluidity, and can only stammer out my prepared words with the gazes of the dead tributes' families burning holes in me. Thresh's grandmother appears despondent, while his sister glares fiercely at me the entire time. If looks could kill, I'd be dead a thousand times. I just might prefer that to the sight of Rue's family.
Her little sisters watch me unwaveringly. I manage to avoid their eyes until the last sentence, which upends my already nonexistent concentration. "… I'll never forget the…" I cough, trying to regain my voice. "The help she gave me…" I step back, unable to continue. The microphone cuts off, and I try to shield myself from what I've done.
Needless to say, the entire tour is horrible. There is one long act, too many scenes in which I am the star actor. My performance seems to matter little to the audience. Some of the crowds are weary and obviously want to leave. Others are focused on me, but with murder in their eyes. But a few – mainly 4, 7, and 8 – look up at where I stand with something akin to hope.
By the time I get back to 12, almost two weeks later, I'm a wreck. I nearly collapse when I give my speech to my own district, where there are no families of the dead, but merely an empty platform. With her "cousins" and immediate family on the run, nobody represents Prim. I want to cry from relief when the curtain falls, shielding me from my self-wrought damage.
I sink back into my stupor, glad that the cameras are gone again. Nothing to do now but wait for the Quell, the inevitable horror that's looming ever closer. If I weren't the youngest victor, I'd be driven to drink like Haymitch.
One thing haunts me more than the others now: the hopeful look in some districts' eyes. They see me as the rebel, their symbol, someone to put on a banner. They don't know that I've been broken.
They don't know that they're waiting for a rebellion that will never come.