Alma Coin had known him all their lives. Everyone knew everyone that long—it was one of the consequences of the entire district living in the same bunker for decades. When they were young, they barely spoke to each other, two naturally quiet children without much in common. As they grew older, they found similar interests in books, especially historical ones. The two would spend hours of their teen lives talking about stories and legends of the past, wondering about life above the surface.
Alma married him when they finished school. She didn't feel the same about him as he did, but with the population in need of growth and not wanting to get forced into living with someone she actively disliked, he was a good option.
Three years later, their daughter was born. Shortly after, Alma's husband died in a training accident. She raised her daughter on stories: not just those of the distant past, but also those of her father, whom Alma missed dearly even though she had never loved him as more than a friend. If she cried herself to sleep some nights out of loneliness, her daughter was too young to remember.
Her daughter was eleven years old when the pox began to spread. Alma caught it first, though it was a mild version, and she survived, though the doctors claimed she'd be infertile. She didn't mind though; her daughter hadn't come down with anything. They'd be fine.
When her daughter caught a stronger strain a week and a half later, Alma knew she wouldn't make it. The girl, though one of the most intelligent in the district's school and willing to stand up to the kids who tried to push her friends around, had always been small and frail. She held her daughter and told her she loved her until the girl's final breaths were long out of her tiny form. After a night of tears streaming down her cheeks, Alma Coin stood up, drying her eyes and thinking about the times love had and would continue to hurt her, and left the medical ward, swearing she'd never love anyone else.