My name is not in the bowl because of what my mother said to the Capitol 25 years ago. I don't know what she said or why she said it. All I know is the President wants nothing to do with the Farley-Crestas. Other than my parents being mentors, we are to go under the radar. They don't want me in their games.
The fact that I'm still not sure why makes me want to stab something.
Instead I stand in front of the mirror and slowly braid my wet hair until it is hanging over my shoulder, leaving behind a small circle of water on the side of my dress. My dress is long and baby blue and strapless. I look more like I'm supposed to be going to a ball than to a reaping. Orders of the president, my mother said. I am the daughter of a victor and I had better dress like one. It feels as if I am just flaunting my wealth, throwing it in the faces of those who are not as fortunate. At least I did not have to buy the dress new and drag it through the square for everyone to see. It was my great-grandmother, Aubrey Treehart's.
"You look beautiful."
I glance in the mirror at my father, who is fidgeting uncomfortably in a black-and-white suit.
"Excited?" I ask, aware of the morbidity in my question.
"You are like your mother," is all he says, flicking his bow tie out of the way. "Rebellious. Risky."
I touch the tube of lipstick to my lip, watching as it begins to stain them a deep red.
"I don't know why it's risky," I point out. "You won't tell me."
Red steps into the room, knocking his head against the door jamb. I resist the urge to laugh at such a typical action of my father.
"Shay, you have to understand that we can't. It's for your safety, as well as ours, and even Panem's."
I scowl at him in the mirror, but it's hard to stay mad when he's blinking those humorous brown eyes.
"Help me with this annoying...thing, will you?" he asks, making a face down at his bow tie. I turn away from the mirror and straighten it for him, so the edge is no longer tickling his chin.
"There," I say, letting myself smile just a bit.
"Ah, much better. It would have bothered me the entire time."
I shake my head at him, amused. Only Red Cresta would sit through an entire reaping without figuring out how to straighten a tie on his own.
"Is your little friend going to be there?" he asks as I turn back to the mirror. "What's her name? Poppy?"
Poppy is a little 10-year-old girl who shares my ability to tell is someone is lying. I was there for her birth and have been there ever since. I read to her every Saturday when her mom is working. She has a big collection of books she's found over the years, and although some pages are missing, she cherishes them more than anything else.
"No, she's too young," I respond, choking back the emotions inside of me. A little girl named Poppy will be forced to enter the reaping in two years, but I, a sixteen-year-old who sometimes wishes she could go to the games, isn't even entered. It's not right.
"Okay," he says, turning around and once again knocking his head into the top of the frame. "We need to get your door fixed. It's too short," he grumbles, eyeing it warily. I chuckle and follow him out of the house. My mother waits on the sidewalk, her eyes hard and shielded.
"You'll be staying with Jersey while we're gone," she says to me as I step outside. She looks beautiful in a long-sleeved lilac dress. It is the color of the sky at dawn. "I know," I assure her. "Just like every year." She nods, looking distracted.
"Come on," Red says, taking his wife by the hand. "Let's go."
The square is already full when we arrive. I see all the children with soot on their faces and calluses covering their bare feet. My parents continue to the stage, only pausing once to glance back at me.
Three weeks and they'll be back, I assure myself. Then I'll get answers. The games will be over and everyone will relax a little. They'll tell me everything. They'll have to.
"This way," a peacekeeper barks, herding me into the square sectioned off for sixteen-year-old females. A few of the other girls stare at me blankly. One narrows her eyes into a reproachful glare. Every single one of them knows who I am, and I bet they know I won't be picked today.
But I could volunteer. The realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I could raise my hand and shout the words and no one would tell me I couldn't. If they did that, they'd be revealed. The problem is, I'd be volunteering to prove them wrong. For my own selfish reasons, I would give my life. Not to save another life or to prove that I am kinder than most people believe. I would do it because I'm angry. And that's the worst reason of them all.
"Welcome," our mayor says, his voice booming out of the speakers. "The time has come again to reap two brave young souls for the 26th Annual Hunger Games." I grab the hem of my dress and hold on tight. The justice building stands tall, looming over me. The escort, Clemencia, a beautiful woman with soft chocolate skin, hops up to the podium, pulling on the sleeves of her one-size-too-small snake-skin suit.
"As always. Females first," she chirps, wiggling her perfect nails at us. And then she's sticking her hand into the bowl of names and everyone around me is as still as a statue and my lips want to form the worse "I volunteer." The piece of paper she picks is folded neatly and I can just see the ink printed carefully on the inside.
"Brett Donohue," Clemencia calls across the square. The girls on either side of me part to reveal a tall girl with long dark hair tied up in a ponytail and a scar running across one of her silver eyes. Her lips press together into a hard line and she begins to walk towards the stage. I could save Brett Donohue's life, but I shouldn't. Not if it's because I want to throw something in my parent's faces.
Brett holds the railing as she climbs the steps, knowing each one takes her closer to her demise. She steps up to the microphone and it's my last chance. I imagine the relief in her eyes, the surprise in everyone else's.
And then it's over. Clemencia is wobbling over to the boy's bowl and Brett's eyes have hardened as she composed herself and it's too late.
I continue to watch her as Clemencia digs her hand into the boy's pull and plucks out a slip from the dead center. I want to see a chance in Brett's expression. I am waiting to see the pain or the shock. Anything to show that she is human. I can't bear the thought of us all being robots, unable to cry even after they have handed us our death on a silver platter.
Doesn't Brett Donohue want to scream in rage and throw her fists into the air? That's what it means to be human, after all. To fight for the ones that are good and refuse the others when they try to extinguish your light.
"Cedar Moore," Clemencia says, clearing her throat after as if she hasn't said the one thing that has the power to ruin me. My head turns, ever so slowly, until I am looking straight at the boy with the hazel eyes standing as still as a statue. "No," I whisper. If I had volunteered it would have been him and I. Cedar Moore and Shay Cresta, the tributes from District four.
But I didn't. So it's just my best friend standing on that stage, his hair pushed back by the wind, staring back at me.
I assumed we were going to grow old together. I wished. I wondered. I hoped. And now all I can do is stare. I should be fighting for him, but I'm not. I'm just staring.
I should be fighting.
It's not so easy being human, is it?
One time, when I was little, It was my mother's and Jersey's turn to mentor the games, and I stayed with my father. It was a fun two weeks, but I felt uncomfortable the entire time. He was always biting his nails and glancing at the television and I wasn't sure why. I would wander outside in the cold and imagine that my mom was simply on vacation and would be back to play with me soon. Still, it was never quite reassuring enough and I eagerly awaited when I would get to see her at the train station.
That is how I feel now. I don't belong in this skin. I am restless, too eager for the time when I will see his face. I need to escape and take him somewhere safe. But I can't do that, especially since I am Shay Farley Cresta. Up until today I thought that name was powerful. Now it only restrains me.
The peacekeeper leads me to Cedar's door in the Justice Building, and I am fidgeting all the while, unable to calm my mind.
"You've got five minutes," the man grumbles, turning the key so the door creaks open. I slide in quickly, pushing it closed behind me, and find him with my eyes. His hands drum against the windowpane, his cheeks unmarked by the tears I know are straining to fall.
"You should be crying," I say flatly. I want to say something more, I need to say something more, but I don't know what there is to say. "Or screaming. Or hitting things."
He stands up slowly, stretching his back, looking me up and down carefully as if he's searching for something in particular. And then he must decide he doesn't care what it is because he crosses the distance between us in three easy strides and suddenly I am in his arms. I hold him close, squeezing my eyes shut as his rattled breaths drum against my ribs. I can't be much for him, but I can be there. I can hold him and let him know there is someone rooting for him.
"I'll take care of your family. I will. And my parents, they'll get you out, Cedar. You have to believe they will."
He pulls back slightly, his eyes searching mine.
"You," he breathes. "Shay Farley Cresta. You are the kindest person Panem has ever seen. The world is brighter with you in it. I'm sorry I can't share that light with heaven. It will be dark there without you." I am not kind. I am not bright. But if Cedar believes so, of course I will let him. Especially now, when I have no right to tell him what the difference between right and wrong is. I don't even know it myself. No one does. I've just been told that he won't like heaven because I'm not there. I have no right to say much of anything.
My body doesn't have time to register the shock I feel from his acceptance of death before he's holding my face between his hands and pressing his lips to mine. I can tell he tries to kiss me gently, to hold me at a distance, but in a matter of seconds it becomes too much to bear. My chest arches against him and he's backing me up into a wall, pressing the small of my back lightly to the bamboo.
Cedar's hands tangle in my hair as his kisses become deeper. Heat radiates from us like the sun in the middle of summer.
It's my first kiss, and it is with tears streaming down my face because it screams of being my last.
The door opens and another girl walks in, one with olive skin and frizzy black hair. Cedar's grip on me tightens and his kisses grow more passionate, more desperate.
"Uh excuse me," the girl says, as if we are not in the middle of something. "Cedar, I came to say goodbye." Cedar breaks away with a sigh and glances at the girl.
"Can you not see I'm busy?" he asks. Without waiting for a response, he turns back to me and cups my face in his callused hands. The girl mumbles something and exits back through the door.
"You can't leave me now," I whisper against his lips. "Not after this."
He presses his lips to my forehead lightly.
"I have no choice," he whispers.
Tears are rolling down my cheeks now, although he should be the one crying. I can't help it.
"Take this," I whisper, pulling out the small scrap of wood I carry everywhere. On it are my initials, S.F.C. and his, C.E.M. We carved them there when we were twelve, before our first reaping.
He takes it from my hand and gasps silently in suprise when he sees what it is.
"You still have this?" he asks quietly.
"Of course," I respond.
His hands wrap once more around my waist and he pulls me against him so I can feel his heartbeating. For how long will it continue, steady and paced?
"You are special, Shay. And I'm going to try. You remember that. I have a 1 in 24 chance of winning."
I nod, muffling the sob building up in my throat.
"And you," I gulp. "You don't let them take your light away, you hear me? You don't belong to them, Cedar. You belong to yourself."
He kisses me once more, a quick brush of our lips, and then his hands are breaking away from my hips and only a small tingling sensation is left behind.
"I belong to myself," he repeats. I nod, smiling at him through my tears, and then my hand is closing around the handle and the door is slamming shut behind me. I stare at the wood, the Cedar for which he was named. "Yourself," I whisper, pressing my hand to the door. I try to imagine that on the other side he is doing the same and we are only seperated by a measly slab of wood.
Five seconds, I think to myself. That's how long I have.
One. Cedar Moore kissed me. Two. I liked it. Three. Do I love him? Four. He's going to die. Five. I break my hand away from the door and run out of the Justice building as fast as I can. I'm watching the games this year, for the first time. I will find out why we are put through this torture, and I will avenge Cedar. There has to be some way to show Panem that the Capitol is wrong.
They say they're just games, after all, so it's my turn to play.