Chapter 64- Terra Coppersmith
I sit on my bed back in my room on the train, looking out the window at District 1. I have no desire to go watch the recap of my speech and see me go into a flashback onstage. Am I never going to have a normal life after this? Have Shuttle or Woven? Have any of the other victors gone back to a normal life after they won?
I think back on all the victors I've met on this Tour, and how they've all coped with the aftermath of their individual Games; drinking, drug addiction, even in training the next generation of tributes. I see their dead eyes and tremors in their hands, the glazed over faces when they think nobody's looking. They can pretend all they want, but the Games have never gone away for them.
Am I going to end up like them? Like Orna who saw imaginary snakes onstage and now has turned to morphling to get by? How am I any different than any other victor? The thought of vanishing within myself to keep the memories at bay is terrifying. I can't disappear, not with Iry. I have Iry to look after, which means I can't allow myself to disappear.
"Terra? Can I come in?" Shuttle's knocking at the door.
"Yes," I say, and the door slides open.
"Are you alright?" she asks, coming to sit beside me. I don't look at her, choosing to keep staring out the window instead.
"I'm fine."
"If this is about Garnet, just ignore him-"
"It's about everything, Shuttle. I don't really want to talk about it."
"Don't close yourself off, Terra; it's the worst thing you can do," Shuttle says, and I jump up.
"Close myself off? Me? I don't want to talk about my Games for the same reason you don't! I want to forget they ever happened, and it's bloody impossible while being on this tour. I'm reminded every second of what happened in that arena, and I hate it! I hate it, Shuttle! Three people are dead because of me, and I've had to look their parents in the eye and pretend that I didn't care. Fletcher's dead because of me, and it's all my fault!" I scream, running my hands through my hair like a madwoman.
"You want me to talk about how I feel, you want me to open up about my Games, how about you do it first, hmm? You don't like to say a word about yours, just vague hints here and there. If you want to talk, fine! But don't make me do it. Not after Fletcher."
"Do you think I didn't want Fletcher to come home? Do you really think I wanted him dead either?" Shuttle says, her temper flaring. "I chose you, Terra; you were my tribute, and it was my job to get you out alive. As much as I wanted to keep Fletcher alive too, he had to die to keep you alive! I was your mentor, that was my job!"
"Everyone knows I won by chance; Calypso should have been the victor! I didn't mean to kill her; I thought I would die first!"
"Nobody is a victor by chance, Terra. We all had to do whatever it took to get out of our arenas."
"I shouldn't have run! I left Fletcher to die!" I say.
"Stop going on about that! You would be dead too if you stayed, and he was enough of a fool that he didn't fight back against the Careers," Shuttle says, jumping up off the bed.
"Fletcher was no fool! You told me before how he died an honorable death. And why are you telling me to stop going on about the Games when you want me to open up? Think about your logic!" I yell at my mentor.
"You are not the only one who's been damaged, Terra. Think about it! Do you really want to know what happened in my arena? In Woven's? I know you've seen them, but the Games all just blend together for those who weren't in them. I've told you how I killed my ally when it was just the two of us. Do you really want to know what happened?"
I don't say anything, just glare at Shuttle. She looks fierce, and I can see her now as a victor, as someone who has killed and is capable of killing.
"You don't want to know about these things. You don't want to know what it was like for me, just like I don't want to know what your Games were like to you. So go ahead and forget them, Terra. Good luck with that. They're never going to go away," she says, then turns and walks out of my room.
I pick up a nearby vase and throw it at the closed door; it smashes into thousands of pieces, water from the now broken roses pooling on the floor. "I hate you!" I scream, then throw myself on the bed like a child.
I cover my head with a pillow and scream into the covers for a minute, until I see black spots on the insides of my eyelids. I throw myself off the bed, landing wrong on my feet and falling over. I slam my hand into the ground, then cry out with the pain and fury of it all.
Scrambling to my feet, I cross to the door with a ferocity I didn't know was in me. Throwing the door open, I march down the hall, grabbing my fur shawl from a hanger on the way.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Shuttle asks, sitting on a couch with a glass in hand. Her face is bright pink, like she's been holding her breath. Woven is sitting next to her and looking back and forth between me and Shuttle.
"Out," I say.
"What do you mean, out? Terra, you can't leave the train without one of us or an escort," Woven says.
"Try to stop me." I press a button on the side of the door and it slides open. Before Woven or Shuttle can stop me, I've dropped into the snow and I'm walking away as quickly as I can without running.
I don't get very far, though. A tall Peacekeeper stops me in my tracks, saying, "Halt. Where are you going?"
"I've decided to have my tour after all," I say. "I need to find Silver Bellcreek, the victor."
"You must go back to the train, miss," the Peacekeeper says, then pulls me back to the train where Woven is standing confused in the doorway.
"Thank you, we'll take her from here," she says, pulling me up into the train. As the door shuts she turns on me too.
"What were you thinking, leaving like that?"
"I'm not a prisoner, Woven," I say.
"Of course you are! We're all prisoners! Don't you get that, Terra? Every single person on this train is somewhat of a prisoner, and you are not excluded from that. Shuttle's upset and won't tell me what happened, you're trying to run away. Everyone, just sit down and stop fighting for a minute."
I open my mouth to argue, then shut it again. "Fine," I mutter.
"You are not acting like yourself right now, Terra. Go sit down or something until it's suppertime," Woven continues. With that, I walk straight back into my room and close the door behind me.
As my anger cools, I realize that I have probably behaved terribly today, and I regret the words I said to Shuttle. It's just- everything. Everything that's going on, and everything that's happened since July. I want to go home.
Damius comes and gets me ready for supper without the others of my prep team. "I thought you might like to have an evening off from chatter," he says.
"Thanks."
He doesn't react much to my ripped dress, which I'm grateful for, and helps me put on the silvery evening dress he's brought instead.
"Go and have fun tonight," Damius says. "This is your last district."
"I'll try," I say, then I'm escorted out of my room by Postumius and put into a car alongside Shuttle and Woven. Shuttle ignores me, choosing to stare straight ahead instead.
"I'm sorry," I say into the increasing tension.
"Alright," Shuttle says, and leaves it at that. After our fight today, I sense a shift in my usually gentle and even-tempered mentor. I can peer through her cracks and see the tribute in her, the tribute who fought and killed and became who she is now, the victor.
It frightens me, too, that I could have changed that much. I'm certainly not the same Terra as before; will I turn into a Shuttle, whose true feelings are buried and only emerge when everything is too much, seeping through the cracks like hot lava?
There's so much Shuttle hasn't told me, and I'm not sure I want to know what she's keeping inside.
Royal pretends nothing happened earlier, shaking my hand like he's never met me before when he greets us. "Come, you'll love the supper we have prepared," he says.
"I'm sure I will," I say, getting back into my formal speech for the cameras. I have to at least try to recover after earlier. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Shuttle putting on her own cheerful mask, with a smile on her face and elegant manners. I notice her eyes, though, and see how blank they appear tonight.
Woven on the other hand, is steady at my side, with her dark blue eyes that look at everything critically. It occurs to me that she's more stable because she won her Games over twenty years ago, and Shuttle won hers only five years ago.
Maybe this all settles down in time, and Shuttle and I haven't had enough time yet. She's not that much older than me, after all.
Silver Bellcreek greets us as soon as we walk through the dining room door. Garnet holds back, a scowl on his face. The two Capitol men push their cameras closer to my face, and I smile at them like I'm supposed to. All in all, the supper goes by without anything happening, with everyone present cordial to each other, even Postumius.
At the end of the evening, Silver says her goodbyes to me.
"I'll see you in July, no doubt. Good luck, Terra."
"Thank you," I say, then I'm led out of the dining room, into the car and back onto the train.
And we take off for the Capitol.