Hi everyone! I couldn't wait another day...
My heartfelt thanks go out to Pinkbookworm7, vapiddreamscape and KTstoriesandstuff for your wonderful reviews of my last chapter. I'm so glad you enjoyed it, because I certainly was glad to hear from you! So glad, that I made a point of updating today when I should've been doing my homework for grad school. That's okay. Only my husband and the cat know that I'm taking an unauthorized break...oops...
And now, on to today's story. I'm not Suzanne Collins, so I own none of the characters, locations or details within.
Four
Four is the number of times Beetee tries to persuade me to 'make it official.' That's his way of sidestepping that loaded word: marriage.
"Wiress," he begins, and I sense he's about to start in on it again. It's taken us eight years to reach this stage in our communication with each other, but we can pretty much read each other's minds. And right now, my intuition is pointing right to the imminent commencement of Proposal #5.
"Not again," I interrupt, before he can even get started. Every time he asks me, he's got this whole prepared speech, and each time it's harder to get him to stop once he's already started because Beetee is smart enough to learn from his own mistakes, and so each successive marriage proposal comes with more and more counterarguments attached, all of which he employs as weapons against my doubts and defenses.
The first time Beetee asks me to marry him, it is my twenty-first birthday. He does it very well; any girl would love to have such a thoughtful proposal. He has a ring he'd procured the last time he was in the Capitol, and even though it isn't very impressive by Capitol standards—or even District One standards—it puts anything I've ever seen in District Three to shame. Sparkly and pristine in its black velvet box. Seeing the box, I'd thought it was a birthday present—a very thoughtful, probably expensive birthday present from my rich victor boyfriend. However, it turns out it's the kind of present that comes with all kinds of strings attached. He gets down on one knee and professes his love with a lot of pretty words that, even after a year together, it's still hard to hear without feeling doubt or fear—fear of abandonment, fear of loss, fear in general.
But I am hesitant; every bond you forge with another person is just another weapon you hand the Capitol to use against you. I just can't bring myself to walk to the Justice Building and sign the papers, because to see it in writing, in black and white, is to acknowledge that here is someone the Capital could someday use against me. To let him make me his wife would be to put Beetee in danger. It's a risk I cannot take.
I look away, closing the black velvet box he's still holding out to me with an unforgiving snap, shaking my head slowly. We don't speak of it again for over a year.
The second time Beetee asks me to marry him, I have just arrived home from the Capitol. Three days earlier, I'd been called to come in on 'urgent business.' We all know what that means. Home at last, I get off the train without a word to anyone and make my way back to my house, where I run straight to the bathroom, run the water in the bathtub as hot as it can go and climb in, still fully dressed. The hot water is painful when I first lower myself into it, but the pain is soothing in some strange, inexplicable way. It feels better to hurt on the outside than to endure the silent, creeping pain I'd been feeling inside ever since I got the call three days ago. I sit in that bathwater for maybe two hours before Beetee finally appears in the doorway.
"You left the door open," he says shortly. I shrug, not caring that I'd left the door open, not caring that he's standing in the aforementioned open doorway, not caring that I'm sitting in the bathtub with all my clothes on and must look completely unhinged.
"That water looks hot," Beetee continues, nodding at the steamed-up mirror and windows and deliberately avoiding the obvious topic of conversation. "Your skin's turning red," he adds, by way of explanation.
"It's not hot," I reply, "not…"
"Not anymore. That makes sense. You've been in here for hours."
Silence. I don't have anything to say. I feel so empty inside, so used, that I don't want to talk to anyone right now, not even Beetee.
"It's okay. You don't have to say anything. I know."
Of course he knows. He's probably the only person in the whole district who knows. Well, except maybe Gloria, his mentor, but she doesn't get called to the Capitol—at least, not anymore, and I never had the nerve to ask if she did when she was younger.
But it's this—his kindness, his understanding—that breaks my resolve to bear my pain in stoic silence, and I start sobbing—loudly—into my no-longer-scalding bathwater.
"I—I just—I feel so…"
"I know, Wiress, I know, but it'll get better, I promise. Like last time."
Last time…oh, how could I be so stupid as to forget last time? The fact that there was a last time, and a time before that, makes me certain that there'll be a next time as well. How many 'next times' will I have to suffer through?
Beetee holds out a towel, clearly not wanting to invade my space by getting too close, and I take it, flooding the bathroom floor as I climb out of the bath, still dressed, my sodden clothes clinging to my body and making me feel about twenty pounds heavier. Or maybe that's just the weight of my despair.
I dry off, discard my soaked clothes in a heavy wet heap in the bathroom sink and get dressed in something clean and dry that hasn't already been tainted by the Capitol and the perverse demands it makes of me. Then I curl up in a ball, wedged into the very corner of my sofa, and cover myself in a quilt. I'd be quite content to stay like this forever and never emerge from this quilt to face the world that's treated me so cruelly.
Beetee takes a seat in a nearby chair, close enough to feel supportive but far enough not to feel threatening. Like Beetee would ever be a threat to me. But when I come back from the Capitol, it's like someone's kicked my senses into high gear. Everyone and everything poses a threat. It's like pouring acid on an open wound. Everything hurts.
It's a long time before either of us speaks. We just sit there, in silence. Then, the words burst out of me.
"I just hate how they think they can…buy me, like I'm…"
"Property. Like you belong to them," finishes Beetee in disgust. I nod, because this is exactly what's been troubling me.
"How did you…?"
"Because that's how it makes me feel, and probably everyone else they call in, too. And I want to point out that I don't belong to them, that I belong to no one, but I know I can't. Not if I want to keep my family safe. That's why you do it, isn't it? And when I think about it, it makes me a little sad, because who wants to be so alone that they don't belong to anybody?"
I don't know how he does it, but he's managed to pull me right out of my despair and get me thinking about something other than my own problems. "You belong to me," I insist, reaching out a hand.
"Can I?" he asks me, looking slightly surprised. "Can I belong to you, really? Why don't we just make it official, Wiress, and then no matter who calls us to the Capitol, they'll know that I belong to you and you belong to me and no amount of money they pay can change that?"
I'm tempted to say yes, but the pain from the Capitol's latest assault on my life is still so raw that I'm unwilling to risk any more suffering, so I don't answer. Beetee's question, like so many of my own unfinished thoughts, remains hanging in midair, to be picked up where it was left off another day.
The third time Beetee asked me to marry him is in the wintertime. It's snowed overnight, and beautiful white snowflakes are still drifting down from the sky. They're still fairly clean as they fall; it's only when they reach the earth that all the pollutants in District Three ruin them. The snow on the ground is already sprinkled with soot. If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't care, but I've seen snow in forests during my Victory Tour, so I know what it's supposed to look like, and 'blackened' isn't it.
Still, I want to go out in it, just for a little while, so I pull on my rubber boots and my coat and scarf. I pin my hat to my hair so the winter wind won't blow it away and spend a few minutes searching for gloves that actually match. Finally, I grab the banister and climb down the icy front steps, stepping gingerly so as not to slip and fall.
The snowflakes cling to my hair, my scarf, my wool coat. White against dark, you can see the intricate patterns in the ice. It's absolutely remarkable. I stand there, completely transfixed, staring down at the snowflakes sticking to my black woolen sleeve in awe.
The crunching of snow announces the arrival of someone sneaking up behind me. Beetee walks around to face me and merely stares for a minute or two before I even look up.
"You look very deep in thought," he remarks casually. I raise my arm so he can see the snowflakes so clearly delineated against my sleeve.
"They're perfect," I breathe, my words coming out in a frozen breath of smoke on the cold air. "The symmetry…the complex geometric formations…just perfect."
"It's amazing," Beetee says in agreement, and I shake my head. "If only I could ever make something so perfect, so exact…"
"Everything you make is perfect," replies Beetee, but he's just flattering me, because there's always a margin of error in human endeavors, though we work so tirelessly on trying to find ways to eliminate it. I point this out to him gently.
"The margin of error—"
"Oh, is it always so hard to give you a compliment? Ignore the margin of error for once. Of course there's room for error; that's given, but in my own personal opinion, everything you make is perfect because you made it. Call it quality control of a sort, if you want."
"I could never…"
"Never make anything like this?" He indicates the snowflakes frozen on my coat. "Probably not. Neither could I. They're a miracle of nature. But that doesn't mean you can't make other miracles."
I look at him, my eyes shining with appreciation for this, his confidence in my capabilities, and I immediately get the feeling that he's not just talking about my inventions. I tilt my head slightly to the side, trying to get the measure of him, trying to see where he's going with this. I have an uneasy feeling, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.
"You know, Wiress, I asked you a question a while ago, and I never got an answer from you. You were really upset that day—and understandably so—but it's been a long time and I'm dying for an answer."
Oh, no. Of course I know exactly what question he's referring to, even though it's been nearly a year. Maybe this is just an annual ritual of Beetee's—house cleaning in the spring, mentoring in the summer, the Harvest Festival (even though we don't harvest so much as a blade of grass here) in the fall, ask Wiress for her hand at some point during the year. But I owe it to him to give him a straight answer, since this is now the third time he's brought it up and I've avoided the subject to some degree every time. I turn to face away from him, unable to say the words when we're standing face to face, because I'm a coward.
"I can't marry you," I say softly, because the snow has caused an unnatural hush to fall over the deserted streets, and I don't want to spoil it the way I'm spoiling Beetee's hopes of hearing 'yes,' rather than the 'no' he's probably grown accustomed to by now. "It's too…too dangerous."
"Dangerous? I must admit, that's not exactly the excuse I thought I'd be getting this time," Beetee replies, his voice betraying both surprise and maybe even a little amusement. As if he's thinking, Is this the best you can do?
"What would happen if the Capitol knew?" I ask, challenging him to come up with some amazing solution to this dilemma. "What would they make of it? What would happen the next time they wanted me or you to do…do something for them? They wouldn't have to look far to…"
I don't want him to see the tears in my eyes, which both burn and freeze at the same time as they come into contact with the frozen air. Still facing away from him, convinced that seeing his disappointment would completely undo my resolve to let him go, I blot my eyes with the tips of my gloved fingers.
"They don't have to look far as it is!" he insists, grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me to face him, so he can look upon me in all my despair and incoherence and cruelty. Because I have to be cruel to him in this one matter if I'm going to protect him. I only hope he'll forgive me later.
"Remember Haymitch Abernathy? The victor from Twelve? He won five years before you; we see him every year at the Games. Do you remember that stunt he pulled with the force field in the arena? The Capitol killed his whole family to get him back for that little bit of ingenuity. And yes, they killed his girlfriend, too. And no, they weren't married. There wasn't some piece of paperwork in a drawer somewhere in District Twelve saying 'This is Haymitch Abernathy's girlfriend.' They figured it out anyway, and if they really wanted to, they'd be able to figure us out as well, so all your precautions are kind of pointless in the end."
I shake my head, warding off his reasoning. "And now they're gone and Haymitch Abernathy…he's free, I suppose. Of the Capitol. They can't command him anymore."
Beetee's eyes widen in surprise. "And is that how you want to escape them? By being so completely and utterly alone that you have no one left to comfort you but a bottle of liquor?" He sounds completely disbelieving, and even I am taken aback by the awful finality of this statement. I suddenly feel as cold inside as the falling snow around us.
"No…" I begin, wondering how I can work my way out of this. "I don't want that, I just don't want to make it easier for…"
"You can't cast off everything you care about in life and everyone you love just because you're afraid of losing them," Beetee says firmly. "Otherwise, the Capitol wins. If you're broken and alone, you've got nothing left to fight for."
I think about this for a moment, because he's right, as usual. I'm still not ready to take this huge step, though, because even if we're discreet, news like this gets out. When you're a public figure, your life is fodder for gossip in the Capitol and everywhere else.
"I can't say 'yes'," I tell him, trying my hardest to look purposeful and serious.
"But you don't say 'no,' either," he rejoins, barely hiding a grin. "So at least I have something to hope for."
I never really appreciated how beautiful the snow is, until that day.
Last time Beetee asked me to marry him, we had an appointment at the Justice Building with an official from the Patents Office, who'd traveled in from the Capitol to see us. We spend what must be at least an hour sitting on hard wooden chairs outside an office that's been appropriated for the patent official's use. Beetee's got a whole file of sketches and I'm holding a really cumbersome box containing my latest creation. I'd set it on my lap when I first sat down, but now that I've been sitting here for a while, its weight is getting to me and my legs are falling asleep. Finally—probably because he's eager to get out of District 3 and back to the Capitol as soon as possible—the official calls us in, one by one, and we present our work to him.
"What a waste," I mutter as we head back down the tiled corridor. I'm struggling with the box under my arm, balancing it against my hip as I walk, but my arm's barely long enough to go all the way around it.
"A waste?" asks Beetee, and I raise my eyebrows. "That took ten minutes. They kept us waiting all day, when we could've been…"
"In and out. I know, but since when is the Capitol a model of efficiency and good judgment?"
This makes me laugh, and we stand there, sharing a smile at the Capitol's expense, before I shift the heavy box yet again and announce, "Let's go home, before they find a way to waste even more of our time."
Beetee pushes open the front door and holds it for me, but he jumps back inside, stepping on my foot, before I can follow him out.
"Ouch! What was—?"
"Sorry, Wiress—they're taking a picture, I'm sure they'll only be a minute…"
Curious, because why would someone be photographing the Justice Building?, I unceremoniously shove my heavy box into Beetee's arms and open the door a crack so I can peek out.
Standing on the front steps of the Justice Building are a young couple, probably around my age. The girl has on a white dress—well, I imagine it must've once been white, perhaps when it was made back in District 8, but everything white generally darkens to the same shade of grayish off-white after exposure to the air here in District 3—and the young man beside her is dressed in what must be the finest clothes he could lay his hands on. He's wearing a somewhat worn-looking suit, which must've been black when it was new. It doesn't fit entirely right, but it looks okay, really. It's clear they've just been married; their families are gathered around them, chattering excitedly. An older woman—probably the bride's mother—holds an official-looking paper in her hand, and someone with a camera is positioning the happy couple for what may be the only photograph they ever take, depending on their circumstances.
Their excitement is contagious. I watch them through the crack between the door and the doorframe for several long minutes, and when I turn to take back my parcel, I'm still smiling. Beetee takes note of my smile and moves closer so that he can take a good look at the happy couple, too.
"They look so happy," he says, correctly interpreting the source of my contentment.
"They do," I concur. "She looks beautiful, in her wedding dress…"
"You would look beautiful in one, too," Beetee teases, and I nearly drop the box as I swat at him in retribution.
"You, know, we're already here," he continues, and his voice takes on a more serious, thoughtful tone. "It would be easy. We'd just have to run right into that office over there, fill out some papers…we could run and get your sister, to act as witness…we could even stop and get you something pretty to wear, if you want…"
"Convenient, yes, but easy? Never easy!" I retort, because he's seriously thinking about it.
"Well, nothing in life is easy," he concedes. "Loving you included. It's a very complicated business, Wiress; you certainly don't like to make it easy for me. But what do you say?"
"Now?" My voice comes out in a squeak, like a young girl's. "Not today, not now!"
"Why not today, why not now?"
"I'm just…I'm not…not today."
"Another day, maybe?"
"Maybe."
It's the closest he's gotten to an outright acceptance from me, and I can tell it raises his spirits. What's surprising is that it raises mine, too, and the world looks so much sunnier and more beautiful as we step outside. I'd thought that even seriously considering marrying him would fill me with anxiety, but I'm rewarded with a profound sense of calm.
Which brings us to today. We're sitting at my kitchen table, drinking tea—he has a taste for coffee, but I never really liked it much, and he didn't think to buy more—as I look over the sketches for the latest project I'm working on. I don't know what moves Beetee to bring up the topic of marriage again, out of nowhere, unless I was right and it really is an annual thing with him, marked down on a calendar somehwere.
"Wiress," he begins, and already I know where this is going.
"Not again." He sighs in frustration and flips the cover on my sketchbook, so I have no choice but to give him my undivided attention.
"Wiress, this is ridiculous, are you going to keep me asking forever? I promised you six years ago that I would always protect you and make you happy. I'd do anything for you. Why can't you just trust me to take care of you? I've taken away every excuse you've offered me over the past five years. Do you have anything new to add, or are you finally out of excuses?"
I'm out of excuses. I'm 26 years old. Beetee's been a constant in my life for the past eight years. Six years ago, I'd taken the huge step of letting myself fall in love with him, despite my fears, and it was the best decision I'd ever made, because I don't know how I would've lived all this time without him. I marshal my thoughts, searching frantically for a single good reason why I shouldn't marry him that he hasn't already disproved, and I come up completely empty.
Today, Beetee asks me to marry him for the fifth time and as usual, I refuse. I refuse to go down to the Justice Building and fill out the papers. I refuse to let our personal lives be the subject of gossip for all of Panem. Most of all, I refuse to hand the Capitol the one weapon it could use to utterly destroy me. But after I give all my refusals, I reach out and take the ring from the velvet box at last—it's still sparkly after all this time—and allow him to put it on my finger. Then, I stick my head out the front door and call Gloria over for a quick minute. We rummage through the kitchen drawers to get the wire we'll need for the old District Three marriage ritual, where a couple joins their right hands to be wrapped in copper wire by their witness, 'sealing the deal,' as some would say. We repeat the words our parents said before us, and their parents before them. And after this, we're as married as any two people can be. Gloria writes out an official notation—that on this day, she witnessed our marriage, according to the customs of District Three, and in doing so made it legally binding. We hide this notation at the bottom of our silverware drawer, where no one would ever think to look.
In the end, I got my way. No Capitol papers were signed. No forms filled out. We took not even a step in the direction of the Justice Building. As far as the Capitol is concerned, there is absolutely nothing between us worthy of note. Just the way I wanted it.
But we also have a secret, Beetee and I. No matter what the official records in the Justice Building's files might say, I am his and he is mine and what has been joined together no one can separate.
And that's also just the way I wanted it.
And the moral of the story? Not sure, but I bet t would be something along the lines of the rewards of perseverance...
I just love happy endings! And so, as a wedding present to the newlyweds, please review and let me know what you're thinking!
I hope to return soon with our next update, which fast-forwards by a considerable number of years. Until then, remember to review and all the best!
Delilah