Leilani "Lei" Tareyn, Female, District 9, Age 17

"What'd you just say, sorry, Lili, wasn't paying attention." Lili rolled her eyes fondly, a small smile prominent on her face. Lili was small for her age, seventeen like Leilani. While Leilani was most definitely not. Short, that is. She was tall with thick blonde hair and foggy brown eyes, Lili was short, red-headed with thousands of freckles dotting her face and arms. Leilani often had to look down a little while speaking to her, really she was that short, or perhaps Leilani was that tall. She wasn't exactly sure.

Lili, let out a yawn, "I asked you if you were tired yet, I sure am." I laughed, before turning around to face her. Her red-hair spread out on the grass. We were both currently lying down on our backs in Lili's backyard. My blonde hair was tangled in the grass, but I didn't feel like it was worth the bother to untangle it.

Lili and I had been friends for six years, five months and four days (Lili kept count). We had met at school, before the war, but only by a year. I'm tough, in a way. Bullying, when Lili's and I's friendship is brought up, that's the first word that comes to mind. I've always taken pity on victims of bullying, always. She was just a little eleven year-old, and I felt bad. So yes, I took a few punches for it and maybe my wrist was sprained in the process. But in the end, I was rewarded with a friend, something, which I will never admit, was lacking in.

In school I had been labeled as "Sharp", "Hostile". One look and most know to shut up. Most, Some dimwits were just too dense to understand that fact. Poor souls.

I'm ardopted, raised in a family of five. My parents of course, my adoptive older brother, Paris, who was two years older than me and my little brother Vaylin, who's six years younger than me.

I looked at Lili, who was giving me a bemused look. I smiled at her sheepishly, before answering her question, "Sorry, got lost in thought. And no, not tired yet. Give me another ten minutes." She gave me a toothy grin, I sent a crooked one back. "You sure are thinking a lot today, Lei, 'bout what? Oooh, is it a boy?"

I was just settling back into my comfortable position of staring at the sky was she asked the question. "Boys! Have you even met me?" She shrugged, before propping herself onto her elbows, in turn I got up, struggling slightly because of my tangled hair, and sat crossed-legged on the grass. The blades of green tickling my bare legs, currently wearing shorts. "Just thought I'd ask." She grinned sheepishly in my direction, and then letting her elbows drop, so that she was back onto her back.

Her red hair like fire against the green.

"But seriously though, Lei, what is it?" She asked, concern lacing through her much more serious tone. My foggy brown orbs, blinked twice before surrendering to her questions. She would find out in the end anyways, she always did. "Mom." She gave me a knowing look, a look of pure pity strewn across her face. It was sympathetic. I didn't like pity, but from Lili, there seemed to be exceptions from every rule.

"Oh, Lei, it's Ok, it'll get better. Promise." Don't make promises you can't keep. Is exactly what I wanted to say, instead all that came out was a pathetic sob, a hitch in my throat, followed then by a slow sob, and soon a tear fell.

And internally I cursed myself for being so weak. By then tears were running down my face, they weren't really wet, but instead they were more sticky. Instead of actually falling, they clouded up my vision and obscured my eyesight. And it was so pathetic.

Lili had quickly got up for her position on the grass, to comfort me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, and I hurried my head into the crook of her neck. I tried to muffle the sobs, to help my situation, to try and pretend I wasn't as weak as I was currently displaying.

I didn't cry, or rarely did. I was tough, stubborn and opinionated. But all that seemed to fly out the window as I cried, a horrible, pathetic wailing sound which resonated off Lili and back into my throat. The tears were slowly wetting Lili, and the collar of her shirt. But she didn't seem to care. She was always there for me in times lik these, she would always say when I brought this up, "Just like you were there for me when I was about they beaten to a pulp by Donkey-faced, Janice Yavery."

Point being, I didn't cry, but sometimes so much emotions build up, that you just cry. And other times a certain subject will forever move you go tears.

Mine was the subject of my mom.

When I was ten, my mom became mentally sick. It was terrifying, I was young and in the middle of the night I would wake to my mother screaming, these horrible sounds of pure fear. Of monsters, beast, she would scream and scream. Constant nightmares haunted her, she was paranoid, too scared to even close her eyes.

The monsters might come out.

And it scarred me for life, I was a child, and it as horrifying. Vaylin was too young at that point, Paris slept most of the time at friends' houses. Because he couldn't take the screams, the horrible sounds which e hoed through the whole house and shattered his very heart when hearing them. He just couldn't take the pain.

The only me who could keep her in line was my father. He would comfort her in bed and when she called herself a monster for driving away her son, he'd tell everything she needed to hear. He'd protect against her monsters, the ones formed inside her head and subconscious.

When he was executed for 'Volatile Speech' my mother fell. He called the president sadistic, sick, cruel. And he was killed for it. She fell deep into her own mind, her monsters, and she hadn't had any hand to grab onto to help. So instead she fell into the bottomless pit of her own mind, still falling to this very day. The bottom, the escape, the only real one being the single matter they would forever refuse to consider.

I became mother to Vaylin and caretaker for our mother. Paris had gone to study to become a Psychiatrist. We couldn't afford one ourselves, so he took it up himself to become one. Mom needed help and he was going to do anything to help her do just that.

I'll help mom, you'll see. I promise to help her.

He was currently in the Capitol, and in her own odd way I was proud. Things were getting better, during his breaks he would help, apply what he learned to our mother. Try and help with the nightmares. Now her screams are getting slightly better, only when he's around though.

Whenever he leaves there as gut-wrenching as the last. Poor Vaylin is now old enough to finally hear them for what they are. Pure pain. Each night he comes to my room asking if he can sleep in the my bed. I say yes, as his big sister I am responsible. I pretend not to notice the small sniffles and hitched sobs coming from beside me during night. And when she screams I try to shield his ears from the worst of them.

I quit school. I had to support my family and it was just how life was going to have to work. I'd practically forgot ho to read, barely at a passing level before and now it was barely anything. I used to complain about school, but I longed for it more than anything. Even just a shrivel of my old life back would have been greatly appreciated. But I knew that there was no point mulling over Yesterday, when the Today was so hard to survive on its own.

I close my eyes, trying not to let anymore tears spill through. My vision is still foggy, I furiously wipe away my tears and tear away from Lili's grip. "I'm fine." Lili just nods, she understands, one of the many reasons that I keep her around. "Wanna head back inside for some tea? Chamomile?" She gestures to behind her, to the small brown house behind the both of us. I nod, "Thanks, Lili." She smiles a me, it's sad and sympathetic. But I just smile back. "What're friends for? Hmm?" I laugh, though it comes out as slightly strained and hoarse. I try to cover it up by coughing, she seems to notice but not comment. Nothing gets by her does it?

She gets up, and I follow suite, managing to catch up to be beside her as she walks. We don't speak. "How's Paris, doing well in his studies?" Her red hair is blowing behind her in the wind, and at one point I swear a strand flicks my ear. "Well, he's super stressed though, or was last time I checked in with him." I state automatically, the words tumbling out of my mouth as the mandatory response to the question.

"When was his last visit?" She inquires, forcing herself to make conversation. I shrug, thinking back on it, I really didn't know when he had last visited. Days and days seemed to either fly by or go unnecessarily slow. Without our clock (had stopped working weeks ago) our time has just been to survive one day after the other.

I worked at the wheat fields, along with most of out District, to help pay for my mother, Vaylin and I. He always wants to help, and he does, just not quite with jobs quite as difficult. Not that it really was, just a leftover age restriction on jobs from before the rebellion.

I shivered, just the sound of it made me cold with strange irrational fear. Because I knew that no one had walked out of that the same. I, for example, was colder, more closed off. And Lili seemed to want to cherish every moment they spent together, always. It had been endearing the first few times, now it was just plain Obnoxious. But the war had changed the for better or worse, I wasn't going to be able to change anything.

Lili opened the door to the house, her flame hair falling lightly down her back into small waves. The interior was cozy. A small space. Lili's brother was sitting at the table, reading something of some sort. I felt an irrational pang of jealousy fly through me. I could barely read anymore, lost hat ability long ago. And the sight of Lili's red-headed, curly haired brother reading a book make my blood boil. And slowly, I pushed it down. It was stupid, getting jealous. He was twenty-two.

"Gettng tea for Lei." Lili explained to him when he had set his book down an cocked a questioning brow in their general direction. Lil started walking to the Abington. I had been over so many times that I knew where most was, we moved like a team she got the kettle I the cups. I saw Lili's brother Mark, go back to his reading. And suddenly I felt it again that nagging voice at the back of my head screaming. How unfair it was.

And no matter how much I argued my mother and I were nothing alike, maybe just sometimes I, Leilani, knew how she felt. With her late night spasm of hysteria and internal battles. Sometimes I knew exactly how she felt.

Sorry this took so long. Gods, one word school.