Warm air rushes over me as I step into my house, but it's futile in lifting my spirits. What little enthusiasm I had left after Hera embarrassed me in front of Flint has long since been sapped by the cold. At least my lip's stopped bleeding by this point; whether that's due to the blood coagulating or simply freezing is anyone's guess.
A lapping orange fire licks at the bricks of the fireplace as I take off my boots. I toss them by the door and leave my snow-soaked socks hanging off their sides in frustration. My feet are cold, wet, and have skin that looks like a giant pink raisin, rendered as strange beasts that explore the rough wooden floor. My dad looks up from one of two high-backed, plush, olive chairs near the fireplace, but his initial expression of contentment dies after one glance at my face. The flickering light of the fire makes the lines of his face look all the more pronounced. It's not as if my dad's old, either – he's only forty.
"Summer, what's wrong?" He says a second after making eye contact. Unlike my mom, my dad has an acute ability to immediately figure out when all's not right with the world.
"Nothing," I lie. "I'm fine, daddy."
I can't even admit my shortcomings to my dad. What's wrong with me?
"What happened to your lip?"
So many questions! "I…slipped and fell on ice. I'm fine."
My dad steps out of his chair, putting something down on a table and coming over. I turn away as he puts an arm around one of my shoulders, pulling me into his chest. He's always a lot bigger up close; my dad's by no means tall, but he's strong. I don't have any doubts on how he was able to survive in the Hunger Games back during darker times.
"Your mom used that same excuse once, when we were younger," my dad tells me, his voice soft and careful not to upset me. "Said she slipped on a patch of ice and hurt herself. Turns out she instead nearly broke her foot trying to jump over the old fence on the edge of the district. Summer, you can tell me things, alright? Is everything okay?"
It's these little things that give my dad such power with his words. I'm always hesitant to talk about myself, but how am I supposed to stay silent when he's crushing me with kindness? I have no defense.
"Um, a girl…pushed me," I stumble over the words I don't want to say. "We had a disagreement."
"Are you hurt?"
"No. I'm fine. Please don't tell mom."
My dad gives me an odd look. "Alright. It's our secret…but if I can ask, is everything fine between you and your mother?"
Gah, I shouldn't have said that. I'm just digging a deeper hole for myself – and now I've got to bail out all the suspicion. "Nothing's wrong, daddy – really. Don't worry about me."
"Alright," he gives up, but I can see something new enter his eyes – so much like mine. It's not anger, or happiness or any stirring emotion. It's hurt – pain that he's losing his own daughter to the recesses of her mind. And it hurts me back to know that I'm responsible for 100% of that.
My dad lets me go, returning to his chair before calling me over: "Come on over, Summer. I've just been looking through all these memories."
Feeling guilty, I walk slowly over to him and rest a weary arm on the chair back. I've seen this book before – an old, frayed tome of pictures, writings, and the occasional photo of people, places, things. My parents wrote it up just after the rebellion had ended, when my mom was feeling despondent and left behind by a rebuilding world. I don't recognize most of the stuff inside of it – it's primarily people they knew, many of whom were killed off in the fighting, others still around but far from District 12.
"Do you remember Finnick and Annie?" my dad turns to a page with a photo of a young man and woman, looking lost in love with their green eyes shining. It's an expression I've seen with my parents – but not while they're looking after me. "Gosh, it was…six years ago that we last saw them. Their youngest son, Drake; he's your age, should be turning sixteen soon. Wish we had a picture of the whole family in here. Do you remember when we visited District 4 when you were young?"
"Yeah," I reply, although I only barely hold on to the memories. I was five at the time; most of the flashbacks to the faraway land are things I've certainly distorted over time. Water, the smell of salty sea, the cries of birds – every standard "ocean" trope crammed into one hazy memory.
"I think you'd get along well with Annie," my dad goes on, losing himself in his own little world. "She's a lot like you. Quiet, but contemplative. There's a lot going on upstairs in her brain; she just holds it close."
According to my mom, Annie Cresta (now Odair) was apparently a psychologically-crippled nutty girl during the rebellion. Thanks for the parallel, dad.
And just in time, I hear the door open again behind me and the heavy tread of boots on the floor. My mom pulls a thick braid of hair out from her coat's hood, chucking a filled bag of dead animal on the floor. I know where she's been within seconds of her entering, apart from the forest collecting game – there's whiskey on her breath. My dad explained to me once that my mom coped with the pain of all her memories by hunting and drinking with Haymitch – and today, it seems she's been doing both.
Must be some bad memories.
"Just in time, babe," my dad gets up, leaving me alone in the chair. "I brought home some – "
"I need to sit down," my mom interrupts him, kicking the game bag towards the wall and plopping in the vacant chair. She looks right at me as she does so, immediately noticing what's different: "What'd you do to your face?"
I would say that's Haymitch wearing off on her, but it's been that way for a long time now. My dad always says I look like my mom, but as I appraise her now, I realize I really don't. She has a rough face with clearly-defined features, worn out by years of rebellion and hunting and offering fake smiles for blinking cameras intruding in all our lives. It's a face hewn by struggle; one of toughness and power – two things I know I'll never have.
"Nothing," I mutter. Maybe I could let out the details to my dad, but not to her.
"At least clean it up. That looks disgusting and bloody," she replies without even hearing me, getting out of her seat and heading for our well-stocked kitchen. "Stay there. I'll do it."
My mom is not a practicing nurse by any means. She lacks any of the grace of medicinal art that my aunt Prim has, and it shows as she dumps a copious amount of a clear solution on a rag. I hunch up against the chair, wishing for anyone else but her to be doing this. Didn't I say it was fine?
"Hold still," my mom says brusquely, jamming the rag against my lip with a sting. I clench my jaw reflexively, ignoring that the action will only frustrate her more. I mentally promise myself that I'll never try alcohol.
"Katniss…" my dad starts, looking on helplessly.
"Hold on, Peeta. Why do you make such a mess, Summer?" she asks, removing the rag and blotting up the stinging solution on my face with all the delicacy of a frenzied bull. "Your brother never got in trouble."
"And I'm not out with some floozy girl like him," I reply angrily, wriggling my way out of the chair and away from her grasp.
I storm upstairs as fast as I can go, speeding away before my mom has any chance to lash out at me. To my surprise, she doesn't follow. I do hear the conversation between my parents downstairs as I leave, though – and while I can't make out many of the words, I do quite clearly hear my mom's line, "What's her problem?"
My sparse room upstairs provides my only sanctuary. Besides my small bed and a closet with my clothes, I don't own much. It's dim and dark in here during the winter months; in the twilight of this evening, barely any light even comes through the square window of my far wall. I don't bother to turn on my lamp, opting instead to push aside my stuffed rabbit that's been my best friend since I was a baby. I cram my face into my lone pillow on my bed, languishing in the dim darkness and wishing things could be different.
What's my problem? Maybe everything around me is my problem! Maybe I don't belong in this stupid district that farms crops and makes medicine and bakes bread. Maybe I don't belong in Panem, where the Capitol thinks it's so great that it's cracking down again just twenty-odd years after the rebellion that was supposed to make things all equal. Maybe it's not even that – maybe it's just the people. Maybe they're the ones getting to me; maybe I'm tired of the ridicule and gawking mouths.
I hear a certain eccentrically-dressed man from the Capitol who visits my parents with the nosy cameras – his name's Plutarch Heavensbee – talk about "the way things once were." He expends minutes and hours on what he's gleaned from the world before Panem; when "billions of people" supposedly had plenty and took little things for granted. When people didn't even need to value life, but felt entitled to it. As hard as it is to believe his stories, maybe I belonged in that kind of era.
At least I could get some privacy with billions of people, right?
I don't even hear my mom come up the stairs a few hours later. No doubt I've missed dinner by smashing my face into my bed in a vain attempt to tune out the world. As she opens my door, I flop over on my side and turn away. I don't need her crocodile tears.
"Summer?" she speaks up, her voice restrained from its earlier bluntness.
"No," I respond, too worn-out to even tell her to go away.
"I was a little rash when I came home," she continues anyway, sitting down next to my bed and putting a hand on my shoulder. I shudder involuntarily at the touch. "I'm sorry. I'm just going through some stuff right now."
"Like what?" I grunt, more out of frustration than actual interest.
"Some old things…and people," my mom says, careful not to spill the details. "Your father said you had a bad day."
A thought comes to my mind as I stare at my dark wall. I haven't tried being open and honest with my mom for a long time. Is she really trying to get to know me better? Does she deserve a chance to make up for whatever slights I carry against her? I suppose I'd be hypocritical not to give her a chance.
Before my pessimistic side tells me not to do so, I slip up: "A girl hit me. She won't stop picking on me for…for I don't know what. I'm tired of it. I just want her and the others with her to stop, but I don't have anybody to help me. I just feel alone."
"Sometimes we just have to be tough," my mom replies. "Be strong, Summer. You don't have to let them weigh you down."
Experiment results: Summer 0, mom's typical blunt and unwavering attitude 1. The "anyone can be tough at any time" line doesn't work for me. Pessimistic me wins again. My mom doesn't understand what I feel. She never will. No point in giving her a chance; every time I do, she just reminds me that I'm not her. I'm not rebellion mockingjay. I'm no Girl on Fire. I'm just a girl.
I curl up tighter on my bed in a silent reply. My mom takes it as a sign to leave after several quiet minutes, returning me to the solitude of the darkness. My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't eaten – but I can't gather the strength to get up and show my face to my parents. No doubt they'll be talking about me again, wondering how their stupid daughter went wrong.
Outside my window, a bright flare shoots across the starry night sky. It's probably a shooting star, coming here from whatever's far above in the night sky. I wonder why it would come here when there's clearly so much else out there – so much more to explore and to find interest in, and the star decides to visit this cold, alien land in District 12.
I'd gladly trade spaces.