A/N: Apologies for the huge delay/hiatus. Been coordinating a collaborative story, and between that and work…yeah, busy month. I'll try to up the pace here; be assured, I have plenty planned for this one. I promise the action will be ramping up sooner rather than later, too…
For those of you who follow my other series, I'll be re-starting my current "Sea of Dreams" story due to…complications. Just FYI.
Springtime brings rebirth to District 12 – but not to me.
Don't get me wrong. It's lovely here in the spring, when all the birds have come out and flowers begin to bloom. The woods are adorned in beautiful shades of pink and white bulbs, inviting me to take a stroll among the thick trees. It's nice to be alone here; lost with me and my thoughts, I feel at peace – or at least, as close as I can get to it. I didn't invite Flint here with me. He's a great guy, and I haven't quite figured out how I feel about him…but sometimes, being alone is the best remedy.
It also invites a number of unwanted questions.
I sit down on a fallen oak trunk, letting my legs flutter off the side as I stare into a sunken gully. Cold water runs down its rocky crevice, sparked by the last of the melting snow somewhere north of here. I flick a pebble off the log into the creek as a mockingjay begins to sing above me. It's some tune I don't recognize, but nonetheless, I start to feel less at peace and more in flux.
Why am I like this? I'm the daughter of two of the most recognized people in Panem. It's not like I'm starving as some do. According to my dad, things were really bad back before they launched their rebellion, with the majority of the district in poverty and in dire need of food. The time after the rebellion supposedly brought about a few years where very few suffered – guess that didn't last too long.
So why do I feel incomplete? I'm not hungry, I'm not crippled or diseased or poor – yet something's missing. I pick at the hem of my beige blouse as I consider things, pulling out a strand of fabric and sliding it under the tip of my fingernail.
I start to regret not inviting Flint with me.
Is that it? Am I just another stupid girl, desperate to fall in love so I'm not stuck around my parents all day after school? It's not like I really have friends anyway, but something to get me out of this rut would be nice.
A snap of a twig startles me. I turn my head fast, catching sight of a blonde-haired girl stomping through the fresh grass. I know her – but for once, it's somebody I don't need to retreat from.
Vesta is sixteen, almost exactly a year older than me – our birthdays actually fall two days apart. We've known each other for some time, but she's certainly one of the nicest girls at school I know. She's not the model of pretty with a homely, round face and average figure that could afford to lose a few pounds, but maybe the pretty ones are the nastiest. Hera's a pretty good example for that theory.
"Thought I'd find you out here," Vesta speaks up in her usual optimistic tone. I don't think she actually has a bad thing to say about anyone. "You really like it here in the woods."
"Guess it's my mom wearing off on me," I offer a halfhearted smile. "How was school?"
"I missed you there," Vesta looks at me with an overly exaggerated disapproving frown as she sits on the log. "I, um, heard Hera saying some not-so-nice things about you. Were you just skipping?"
"No," I lie. "Well, yeah. Hera and I had a fun little talk yesterday."
"Well, if it was fun, why – "
"I was being sarcastic, Vesta." Sometimes the closest person I have to a friend can be entirely too trusting.
"Oh," she replies as if dismayed. "Also…I heard your mom talking with mine when I got home."
"Was she trying to shoot me?" I ask idly. Our parents are friends by the roughest use of the terminology; apparently Vesta's mother had helped to calm my dad after he'd been rescued by District 13 during the rebellion. Given how much my mom seems to care about herself, however, I can't at all see how they'd be compatible.
"No, of course not," Vesta responds, smoothing out her wrinkled blue skirt. "She said your family was going to the Capitol soon?"
Shoot – I forgot all about that! Every other year my mom and dad drag Reed and I off to a remembrance the Capitol holds for the rebellion, honoring the war dead and the tributes who died in past Hunger Games. Since my parents are celebrities and whatnot, apparently the vain people of the Capitol have to see how they're doing on a constant basis. They actually go every year, but only make us go every two. Usually the date jumps up on me, but this one seems even more dramatic.
Recently the Capitol hasn't been the glitzy, glamorous place my dad described it as during the height of the Hunger Games. Sometimes I wonder if those weren't the better days for the center of Panem's power – the days before roving bands of security police marched everywhere "for our protection and safety." In the needs of trying to make us feel safe, it seems the people who run this country have turned us all into zoo animals.
"Oh, yeah," I try to dismiss Vesta's concern with a wave of my hand and a look off into the woods. "That's in a week. Reed and I have to look nice and everything...it's kind of a hassle."
Vesta's quiet for a while as she stews over something in her head. Before I get around to breaking the silence, she speaks up: "Summer, is everything okay with you?"
"What?" I ask, giving her a puzzled look.
"It's just," Vesta looks at her pale hands, trying not to make eye contact. "That guy who likes you…Flint…"
"He what?"
"C'mon Summer, you have to know by now."
Not as fact, truth be told. It was impossible to miss his signs, but Flint had never actually told me of his intentions or feelings. Our relationship had always been one of friends; something stable, something I could actually feel safe about. It had never been some dangerous jump off a cliff into that feeling known as love.
Hypocrite, I tell myself. Just a minute ago you were asking yourself if you were just looking for live, and now you vehemently deny it?
Vesta goes on, drawing me away from the nauseous feeling rising in my gut: "He said you two were talking the other day and that you sounded…well, he said it sounded different."
No way did he use that phrase: "Different?"
"It's…well," Vesta stumbles over telling me what I want to hear or concealing Flint's words. "He said you sounded kind of depressed. Not in like a kill-me way, but…"
"He doesn't know!" I say virulently before I can control myself, feeling heat rise to my face. "He doesn't have to live with all this…these expectations of trying to be what everyone wants! I'm sick of trying to stick to what everyone wants to see out of me, and how I can't just –"
I stop mid-sentence. Inadvertently, I've proven Flint right. Here I am in front of Vesta, spewing hatred against my family for no other reason than the feeling of being trapped.
Shoot, maybe I am depressed.
"Summer, I don't want to see you sad," Vesta gives me a pitiable look. "I know you're under a lot of pressure…with your mom and dad being who they are."
I know Vesta's trying to help me, but I just don't want to hear it. I've been judged by enough people, whether it's with crocodile tears like with Vesta or with the harsh dagger of Hera and her posse. There's a reason I like to be alone – out here in the woods by myself, only I can judge me.
"Look," I push my hands against the log. "I gotta go, Vesta…I have to talk to my brother about this Capitol stuff."
"Oh, of course," Vesta perks up instantly as if the prior conversation never happened. "I'll come with you."
No. "I…I want to be alone."
"Oh…okay," Vesta's face falls as she gets off the log, taking a step back away from me. "Okay…Summer, just…take care, okay?"
"Yeah," I answer, instantly feeling guilty. "You too."
As soon as Vesta's gone I start beating myself up. Great, one of the only people on this planet who cares about you and you tell her to get lost? That'll do wonders for making friends. This is why you're such a messed-up girl, Summer!
A mockingjay sings a mournful tune in the branches as I walk through the creek, unaware of the water that splashes against my boots. A week from now, I'll be on a train to the Capitol with my family – in front of hundreds of cameras again, eager to please their brain-dead audiences in District 1 and the Capitol. Not only am I going to have to present a happy face, but I'll have to try my hardest to pretend like I enjoy it all. All the attention…all the questions that don't want my answers, all the flashes of lights eager to dive into my deepest secrets.
My mom will tell me to suck it up. My dad will tell me it's something that'll make us stronger. Neither of them are right.
It's just one more thing of many that I want to cast out of my life.
I take a seat on a rock and let my left boot trail in the water. The creek fills in the space between shoe and foot, soaking my wool sock's every thread. I can barely even feel the cold, the wet – like so many things, I feel numb.
One time my mom – in one of her moments of clarity – told me she'd had the thought of running away from District 12 with some childhood friend of hers, a "Gale." At the time, I thought she was crazy. Who'd want to run off from warmth and clothes and security into the woods?
In times like now, however, I can't help but wonder if she should've taken that chance.