Cultur Springs, District Eleven male -17

Maybe things would turn out okay. I didn't think so though. I could tell my parents wouldn't like Summer. Summer wasn't the problem; she was sweet and kind and a wonderful girlfriend. It was my family. We'd always been poor and they just thought everything was always against them. They were so ready to tear anyone down and talk about how I had "such potential" and needed to raise our family up out of poverty. I was just one person. Why couldn't it have been any of my three older brothers that raised us up? They also wanted me to have the perfect wife, something else my brothers hadn't done.

Dad opened the door as Summer and I walked toward my house. It was the day before the Reaping, a day when my family always had a big family dinner with whatever food we coild scrape together. It always seemed kind of stupid to me that we'd do something like that. I could have taken out less tesserae if we saved some of that food for later. But it meant a lot to my parents and I'd already had enough fights with them. I took any happy moments I could get.

"Cultur, you're here!" my dad said, smiling widely. He looked at Summer and his smile faded. "And you brought your friend."

"Dad, this is my girlfriend Summer," I said.

Summer put out her hand, which my dad took, though he made a face like he thought it might smell bad. "I'm very excited to meet you, Mr. Spring." Summer said.

"Come inside," Dad said, turning his back on Summer. I took her hand while we walked into the dining room. Most of my family was already sitting there. My big brothers looked up as Summer came in. Some of them looked at her in a way I didn't like.

"You must be Summer!" my mother said, taking Summer's hand in a surprisingly friendly manner. She lowered her voice and pretended to whisper, though it was still loud enough for everyone to hear her. "I think I have some spare dresses in my closet. You know, since you've outgrown that one and can't afford more."

Summer's smile went awkward as she tried to think of what to say. She mumbled something and I shot my mother an angry look as I helped Summer find a place at the table and sit down.

"So how did you and Summer meet?" my father asked with more of a smirk than a smile.

"We had class together. At first we were just friends but things kind of just went from there," I said.

"It's nice to have some fun before you settle down with a nice girl." My father said.

"Yeah, we were thinking after I get a job then we could-"

"A nice girl," my mother broke in. "I was just talking to Mrs. Whitmore and she has a few nice prospects for you to look into."

I sighed. My mother had always had it in her head that she and Dad would arrange a "suitable" match for me. I kept telling them that this wasn't the 1800s and people married for LOVE now but they weren't hearing it. Or at least they weren't caring.

"Yep. A nice girl. Like Summer," I said.

My little brother Marc sniffed derisively.

"Do you have a problem?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair.

"I just thought you'd be marrying a woman, not a-" Marc started.

"That's enough," I interrupted, pushing my chair back to stand up.

"It's okay-" Summer started, holding up her hands and trying to smooth things over. She glanced nervously at my parents.

"No, by all means, let's hear what he has to say," my father said. "What were you going to say, Marc?"

"I was going to say it's too bad my brother is carrying around with a tramp." Marc smirked.

I should have had more self-control. I shouldn't have gone at him, but I just saw red. Summer was the best thing in my life and I'd spent years listening to my family pick on me and it just all boiled over. I grabbed Marc by the shirt and threw him out of his chair. He launched himself back at me and tried to throw a punch, but I was older and bigger. Before my father could tear me off I threw Marc backwards and turned away.

"Come on, let's go." I said to Summer. She started to cry as we reached the front door. I ignored my mother calling after me and slammed the door behind us.

"I'm sorry." Summer sniffed as we walked back to her house.

"No. You don't need to be sorry. They were being huge jerks. I'M sorry I'm part of that family."

"What are we going to do?" Summer asked. Most people in Eleven lived with their families- no one could afford to live on their own. Summer's parents were dead so she lived with her aunt, who already had ten people packed into a two-bedroom house.

"We'll make it work somehow. Don't worry. We'll make it, just you and me." I didn't tell Summer the rest of my plan. For someone like me, there was only one way to make a better life. The Games were our biggest fear but they were also my only chance.

Soleil Kingston, District Eleven female (17) (14 during scene)

I flinched at the knock on my door. Whoever it was, I didn't want to leave the room. I didn't even want to leave my bed. I kept feeling like if I just went to sleep I would wake up back in the real world and none of this would have happened.

"Psst. It's me. Can I come in?"

I hadn't been expecting Axel. I felt guilty, but it was easier to get up for someone not in my family. Axel wasn't connected to… what had happened. He was an outside face and I felt like I could be normal around him.

"Okay." I said, not getting up. Axel gently opened the door and stepped inside. He sat on the edge of the bed.

"So… sucks, huh?" he asked.

I laughed as tears filled my eyes. There wasn't anything to say so Axel just said it how it was. No "I'm sorry for your loss". No "Take your time and let things heal". Just the painful truth. This sucked.

"It doesn't even feel real." I said. Over and over, I'd tried to tell myself. My father is gone. My father is gone. It felt like I was just saying some ridiculous lie. My father couldn't be dead. Fathers didn't die when their daughters were only fourteen. He was supposed to see me grow up. To come to my wedding. To visit me when I had my own family.

"Yeah, it just… happened so fast," Axel said. He was as lost as I was- more, really, since he hadn't been there when it happened. I had. I saw it all. The snake that rattled suddenly under Cricket's front legs. The way she reared and then bolted. How the ground she ran across was so rough it jarred my father sideways in the saddle. The slow-motion as he slid off and fell. The way there was no noise when he hit the ground but I could still SEE it had hurt him. It seemed like I teleported to his side- I didn't remember running over to him. I was trying to hold him together but I didn't know what was broken. He was struggling to breath and as I was trying to see what was wrong he shuddered all over and that was it. He was gone.

"I couldn't save him." I said. I wasn't blaming myself. It was just another cold declaration of fact. There was nothing I could have done. We'd called out a doctor just in case, just in case maybe he was in a coma and we couldn't hear him breathing. The doctor said he was gone. Head injury, he said. There was nothing any of us could have done. Nothing to be done about a family forever missing a piece. That's what it felt like. I didn't know how my heart could heal when it was missing a piece and always would be. I didn't even know how I could get out of bed.

"I know this doesn't matter right now and you just need to mourn for a while, but… he would want you to be happy," Axel said. "So we can just sit here and grieve as long as you need to, but when you're ready, we can go back out." He was kind of rambling at the end, but I knew what he was saying. He just wanted to be there for me. I guess that was what I needed more than anything else. Someone I thought would always be there for me wasn't anymore. I just wanted to be able to depend on someone.

Axel WAS there for me. For the next few days he stayed with me in my room, just flopped on my bed talking when I wanted to and doing nothing at all when I didn't want to. For the next few weeks he came to my house before school to walk with me and dropped me back off at my house afterward. And for the next few months he was always there as I started adjusting to my new life, and seeing that things would never be the same but that I could still have a good life. A life without a father but with a best friend. Maybe even more than that.