I. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

"Strange isn't it? Each woman's life touches so many other lives. And when she isn't around she leaves an awful hole, doesn't she?"

TW: brief mention of child abuse.

{FROM THE DESK OF SAPPHIRA STARLETT}

It's really no secret that my parents Saffron and Sarae Starlett never intended to have a child. Everyone in District One knew it, hell, I myself knew it when I was as young as five years old and they sent me, their daughter Sapphira to St. Silvatore's Daycare without batting an eyelash. Well, they didn't send me usually, my housekeeper Bonny did, because they couldn't be bothered to do even the small task of dropping their daughter off at school as it turns out.

"Sorry, love, we're busy," That's what my father usually said when I asked him why he didn't show up at back to school night, my parents the only ones who didn't, my artwork still hanging on the wall since nobody came to pick it up, "Your mother and I work very hard for you to have the things you have, so you should be grateful."

"Yes, daddy, I understand," But I never really did get why her parents couldn't be bothered to give me, their small and impressionable daughter their attention for even a few hours, but being confrontational would only lead to them getting angry with me, "I won't ask about it again."

But of course I did, I asked my parents multiple times why they didn't seem to care about me in the slightest as the years went by, but the response was always the same, always "We work very hard to give you this lovely life; you should be more appreciative."

And I wondered though, what good was our mansion, all the bright and shiny objects that collected themselves inside the place if I had nobody to share them with?

In hindsight, the fact that I was so used to being so alone should have been an indicator of what was to come of myself over the years, but as a child, I wasn't all too concerned about who I'd be someday. I was just well, trying my best to indulge in the storybook of my childhood as it wrote itself out on a page yet 'twas hard when there was nobody to read it.

Nobody except Bonny and what good was she? Seriously, she was hired to take care of their house first and me second. I wasn't a priority even when I was being compared to a literal building, a pile of bricks and mortar more important than my flesh and bones. Maybe it was because the place reflected my parent's status, the fact they were seemingly above the vast majority of District One and they wanted everyone to know it when they approached the gold-leafed building with marble pillars and a tall dark oak door. The flowers and hedges in front were always perfectly trimmed, never anything short of the perfection and luxury that One was known for, expected to produce even.

But I wasn't the house. I was just a child, no golden leafs and marble pillars and tall oak doors. So what good would it be showing me off? I was too young to be a commodity after all. It was rather silly of me to spend a good chunk of her childhood being jealous of a building, but I couldn't help it. I've always been jealous to a fault, just the way I was seemingly raised to be.

I think perhaps one of the worst moments of my early childhood was when I asked my mother around the age of eight what she did for a living. And I know, I know, that doesn't seem like it would be too traumatic, especially when I've been through… well… you'll see soon enough, but it was the fact that after nearly a decade of being alive, I had no idea what my mother was so busy with that she couldn't raise me. Maybe I'd asked her before then, but if I did then all she told me was "important things you mustn't worry about, dear." So here I was, a child who heard my classmates blabbing about what their parents did all day, jewelers, fashion designers, cosmetic surgeons, all the stereotypical District One junk, and in the rare occasion one of them asked me, "Sapphira, what do your parents do?" well, I had nothing to say.

So I asked my mother and her response was a mere, "The movies." I was just eight years old, I knew what a movie was, but I didn't understand how somebody could work for them. I pried for more information from her, but again I was met with an unsatisfactory, "You wouldn't get it."

I was an inquisitive child, I share that with my daughter, both very precocious too, and that meant I was left unsatisfied with my mother's answer, but my interest was piqued by the whole concept of working in the movies, whatever that meant to mother at the time. I wanted to dance amongst the stars like she and my father seemed to do effortlessly, longed for the glamour and posh lifestyle they had yet I wasn't completely integrated in yet.

But this moment of neglect between my mother and I turned into one of the best moments of my childhood too, because after several minutes of pleading with her, my mother went to her back closet and came out with a box of tapes for our projector room which I previously hadn't been allowed in and told me, "If you're so curious just watch some of these."

And just like that… I was transfixed.

Now I'll admit, it took a few tries to get the projector to run, but once Donahue Garamond's "The Man and His Muse," was showing just feet away from me, my legs crossed on the ground as I shook back and forth, I knew that I wanted to see myself on the screen, singing and laughing and well… having a ball. I was in tears by the end of the film, but they were good tears. Yes, I was miserable, frustrated at my mother and by extension my father, but that didn't matter anymore, because on the screen all I saw was laughter, all I saw was laughter and joy, and I wanted some of that joy for myself.

Yes, this contradicts my typical answer to the "What inspired you to start acting?" question people ask me during interviews. I usually lie in such situations and say that my parents took me to lessons because I was bored, because let's be honest, the general public doesn't want to hear that my parents neglected me and showed me movies so they wouldn't have to give a damn. That isn't very glamorous now is it.

Because yes, that's the truth. My childhood wasn't as glamorous as I've previously made it out to be. Growing up as me was actually quite hard…

It's the middle of the afternoon and I'm once again down in the basement watching a film, this time it's Desmond von Amsel's "Wars Against Love," a recent ninth birthday gift. I've dimmed the lights down just enough that all I can see in front of me are the shadows of my fingers as they eat popcorn I popped for myself on the stove, nearly burning myself with the oil several times. It's a beautiful film though, really the dialogue's lovely.

"If you love somebody then you mustn't fight for her, she'll fight for you first if it's really true," The hero of the story's girl Amethyst Breccan declares before crying and falling into Brandon Sterling's arms.

And I mimic her words, the same way I do whenever I watch a film, I mimic her words and her posture and her poise, I say, "If you love somebody then you mustn't fight for her, she'll fight for you first if it's really true," before falling over onto the ground and spilling my food all over the maroon velvet carpeting.

This is a cause for concern, because if there's one thing my parents don't like, it's messes, more specifically messes left by me. I've been told time and time again that Bonny's job isn't to pick up my crumbs, it's to make the beds and clean the showers and windows. I've been told, "Bonny's a busy woman, she doesn't have time to clean up after you, Sapphira." I quite enjoy my time with Bonny though, even if it's gotten more and more brief as the years go by.

So I sweat for a little bit, because I'm thinking, Holy lord it's a mess down here, and then I look and see the dark brown of the chocolate I drizzled atop my popcorn as a treat interwoven between the granules of the carpet, and every particle of the stain reminds me of my own inadequacies, the way I'm somehow not the daughter my parents want, but then again they didn't even want a child to begin with.

Or… I hope they didn't want me, since they certainly don't act like it. I can already picture it again, my father coming downstairs into the screen room and seeing me, chocolate surrounding my lips and a mess on the carpet.

He'll look me straight in the eye and say, "Sapphira, why'd you go and make a mess again."

Then I'll say something stupid like, "It's not a big deal father, Bonny can just clean it up."

(Which means we spiral back into the whole Bonny conversation that I absolutely loathe, since we need that again apparently.)

But eventually I'll do what I repeatedly swore up and down that I would never do again, and that's giving into my father.

Which means I won't make a sound, I'll just sit there all helpless as he unloops his belt from his neatly pressed brown pants, flexes it twice in his hands and then instructs me to turn around so that he can strike my back. I've gotten used to it, unfortunately so. It doesn't even hurt, really it doesn't, especially when the people in the movie's I'm watching are being killed, heads torn from bodies and whatnot. A slight sting on my skin is better than that by all means.

I just… it's a shame that he prioritizes the house's cleanliness over my skin's.

(It's a good thing my father and I got better with time…)

I better get to cleaning. Unfortunately that isn't exactly something I'm wildly knowledgeable in being I was raised with the affluence I was raised with, but I make do and pour some of the water from my silver bottle onto my napkin, scrubbing away at the ground until the fibers of the chocolate loosen themselves from the ground and the mess is all gone.

I laugh at myself after the fact, of course I got myself so worked up over something as irrelevant as a carpet stain.

Then I go over to the projector, flick the switch on the side and get back to my movie.

And it makes me feel better. Film's had that effect on me always.

Which brings us back to the question of why I started acting…

Well, I do it for the young girls and boys who were like myself when they were younger. Those who felt so lost in the world that their only home was a constellation of stars rolling through the lens of their projector. The children who, again like myself were so desperate to escape that they'd do just about anything, yet they settled on being lost in a fantasy since it was the only way out. I strive to be like those kids with every performance of mine.

Now looking at it, I've sure got a lot of questions about me that remain unanswered, and I question what it is about me as I've grown up that's made me so secretive. So that's what leads me to today, pen in my hand as my daughter's fast asleep, my wife the same way, as I decide: I'll write it all down. I'd like to say I'm decent at it, considering people like the lyrics to my songs I put out over the years, so again, I'll write it all down.

If you're reading this, that means that I was successful in my journey to tell the story of my life with paper and a pen, and for some reason somebody cared enough to publish this series of moments from my life. Beyond this page, you'll find some of my most personal memories, those I never shared to the public before in relation to my career, the women I loved and lost, and of course, the time I won a little charade known as The Hunger Games.

And who knows, maybe when all is said and done, you'll be inspired to live your life the same way I've chosen to live mine: without regrets and completely honest to the person I've chosen to be.

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

Hello okay and welcome to the A/N where I am me, Linds and not Sapphira Starlett. If you've gotten this far, thank you so much for reading! And now, for the sake of people who don't know me, I'll do a little introduction about who I am and what this project is.

My name is Lindsay or just Linds and I'm a rising college freshman with a bit too much time on my hands. I've spent the past year of my life diving back into my childhood hobby of Hunger Games fanfiction, as is common with lot's of people. I've always been a fan of the Submit Your Own Tribute (SYOT) format of fics, though I didn't write my own until a bit less than a year ago.

Sapphira Starlett is the victor of that story's Games, entitled We The People, and it centers around the First Quell. I am not sure I can recommend reading it, as it's not up to par with my current writing. But regardless, I fell in love with the character of Sapphira (kudos to my dear Ripple237/Will for blessing me with her) which has lead to me including her in WTP's sequels copiously, and now writing a memoir from her point of view because again, I am in love and I am obsessed.

For those of you familiar with my work, this is a spinoff and not at all "canon" to my main SYOT series. The majority of the events are true to Sapphira's life, but I've decided to recast the Quell with my own characters, so the Games will be completely different, even though she still wins (surprise!). Also, what do you think of me doing first person? It's a new thing for me, so I'm still tampering. I'll still write everything else besides this project in third.

Once that's done, we'll go through her film career and grow old with her, so that'll also be fun I hope. I have no idea how long this whole thing is going to be, but I promise it will be a fun time for all. I am posting this first chapter today, April 30th, because it is Sapphira's birthday.

And one err two last things! First off, I'd like to thank my dear friend FlawlessCatastrophe/Brooke for designing the story's cover. Second, I created a visual aid for the story, which can be found at astudyinstarlett . weebly . com so check that out if you want.

That should cover everything so if you've made it down here, I love and appreciate you tremendously, and I can't wait to continue the adventure that is Sapphira's life.

Ta ta darlings,
Linds

(I'm trying a Sapphira-esque sign-off, deal with it.)