Desiree Redwood, District Seven female (17)
Wren looked up at me with focused, half-lidded eyes. Her face was covered with a sheen of faint sweat, her cheeks red with her irregular huffing breaths. Her legs fidgeted as she jostled for position. The fingers on her free hand were curled tight as if to anchor herself. Every now and then a little sound squeaked out of her faintly parted lips.
Arm-wrestling is no joke.
Wren was one of only a handful of ladies I arm-wrestled. I arm-wrestled plenty, it just usually wasn't ladies. When you're six and a half feet tall it just makes more sense to fight within your own weight class. We were all jacked out in the lumberyards but there was more than just muscle in arm-wrestling. There's also the leverage you get from longer arms, which gave me an advantage even over most of the men. And of course there's also technique, which comes both from years of practice and from sincere love of the sport. There were a few hulking neanderthals I couldn't beat but for the most part I was the well-renowned arm-wrestling champion of Seven.
Work hard, play hard. It might as well have been the motto of the Seven lumberjacks. Get up at five in the morning, move heavy things around until noon, eat a dozen pancakes each, move more heavy things around until the sun sets. Except sometimes I ate more than a dozen since I wasn't just any lumberjack. I was a hauler- one of the guys and ladies who pulled around hand-carts full of lumber sections. It was the single heaviest and hardest job in the forest and only the biggest of the big pulled that position. That's right, everyone. When Des Redwood walks around, the ground shakes. I don't need an axe to cut down an oak tree. I just yank it out by the roots one-handed. Ladies form a line because if it's muscle you want, there's enough Des Redwood for everyone.
Wren was a fellow hauler. She was shorter than me but about twice as wide. I'd never seen a chick as muscular as Wren. I was pretty sure if she ran at a wall she would leave a her-sized hole. Which was pretty hot. There was hardly anything Wren couldn't muscle past, but at the moment she was starting to get pretty red-faced and short of breath.
"Had enough?" I purred at her. All around us other lumberjacks placed bets, cheered one party or another, or focused on their own matches.
"You don't have enough for me," Wren managed to reply, her bravado undercut by the wheeze in her voice.
I leaned forward on the table to match the improved stance Wren had moved into minutes ago. Positioning meant a lot in arm-wrestling. If you can't outpull someone you can sometimes just plain weigh them down with your torso weight. Dirty trick but I wasn't really doing that. I was just matching Wren's own dirtiness.
Wren's cheeks puffed out and her eyes went wide as her hand started drifting closer to the table. I grinned wickedly and gave one final heave.
"All right! Des wins again!"
I couldn't tell who said it, since so many other people were saying similar things. All around us people groaned or cheered as they started giving or taking money. I leaned forward to claim my own bet. When I wrestled boys I played for money but when I wrestled girls I played for keeps. I played for kisses.
Martin Jackman, District Seven male (15)
It was just a normal party. Nothing unusual was happening. So why was I so stressed? My leg was doing that bouncing thing again. I laid a hand on it to try to calm down but every few minutes it just hopped up a few inches like it had a mind of its own. I took a look around the room to see if people were staring. It's hard to blend in when you're like me.
"So you think I should ask her out?" I tried to focus on what Sedge was saying. He'd been talking to Sienna for ages and I was just awkwardly let out third-wheeling on the other end of the couch.
"Acorn," I said suddenly. I put my hand over my mouth as Sienna looked over at the sudden noise.
"Sorry, that happens- acorn- sometimes," I said. "I'll just- acorn- go over- acorn- here."
I got up and wandered over to the snack table to see what everyone else was up to. There was no real reason for this get-together. It was just a couple of friends hanging out. I loved anything that involved hanging out with other people and I always loved the energy and conversation of a party. I just wished my tics weren't acting up. It was hard enough being a teenager without having to deal with neurological issues. My friends were always nice about it but they just had no idea what it was like. It must be really awesome to go through life just not constantly dealing with a lifelong debilitating condition.
"Hey, Martin, what's up?" Paul asked, holding up his cup in greeting.
"Oh, just wandering, you know the- dig a hole-" My arm shot out and tapped the edge of the punch bowl. I have Paul a rueful grin. "Sorry."
"This again?" I hadn't noticed Lark behind me. I turned around and saw her standing with her arms crossed and her head tilted a little in a suspicious glower.
"You still keeping this up? I thought you'd at least move on to something else by now," Lark sneered.
"No matter what you think, I can't just- acorn- turn it off," I defended myself. I didn't know why I even bothered with Lark anymore. Somehow she'd gotten it into her head that I was "faking" all my tics. Why would anyone want to fake this? It was inconvenient, it always got people staring at me, and it popped up at the worst times. It was a fundamental part of who I was and I couldn't believe she'd say something like that.
"Glad to hear the crippling anxiety got better," Lark said sarcastically. "And the agoraphobia? And also the peanut allergy, judging by your plate?"
"Turned out to just be a stomach bug, so sue me. And I'll thank you not to-" my hand reached out and tapped a stack of glasses.
"Come on, let's go find something to do," Sedge said as he swooped in. I let him lead me away from the side table and left Lark to go bother someone else.
"You know I'm not faking, right?" I asked Sedge as we went. He and Sienna were two of my best friends and I couldn't stand the thought of losing them. It drove me crazy when I didn't have anyone with me. It felt like I didn't even exist if no one noticed me.
"We're your friends," Sedge reassured me. "We like you just the way you are."
Not really a content warning, just a PSA: Martin is a Tourette's FAKER. What he is displaying is not real Tourette Syndrome and is not accurate Tourette's representation. All the inaccuracies are because in-universe Martin is very much not an accurate case since he is not a case at all but is a faker. I deliberately did not do any research on how to properly portray Tourette Syndrome because Martin is a dumb kid who has no idea what his fake disorder actually looks like.
