Day 27- Return Home
It has been just about a month since the reaping, though I think more has happened in those thirty-odd days than in the rest of my eighteen years put together. My life will never be the same again, but it doesn't have to be over. As I travel back towards District 8 on the train I feel a warm swell inside me. I'm going to see my family again. Whoever thought that would happen when I was reaped- despite all my family's reassuring words at the time I am that they were as sure I was going to die as I was. Twenty-three other teenagers weren't so lucky.
It's still not easy to shake the thought that being a victor isn't really winning at all, but just a different type of losing. Instead of paying with my life, I pay with freedom, happiness, any hope at normality. I also have to deal with the sickening acting I had to put on during my post-games interview, and will have to again for the Victory Tour.
My thoughts for the remainder of the train journey are as negative as they have been for the most part since the Games ended, but that all changes when I pull into district 8. Hurrying off the train, I raise a genuine smile as I see my family waiting for me and hurry into their arms.
Whenever I have tried to imagine their faces recently, all I've been able to see are the faces of the victims of the Games, but actually seeing them, being able to speak to them, touch them, forces everything else from my mind. Kay breaks down into hysterical tears, which don't stop until we've reached the Victor's village. My parents say little, but little is needed. The serious stuff will keep for a short while at least. For now all I hear is "We love you", and I say it back, so many times.
Mum, dad and Kay have already moved into the Victor's Village that morning. I can't help but smile as I enter, there are benefits to winning and this is certainly one. Kay is so happy that I can't help but join her when she smiles.
We eat well, and mum and dad do brilliantly at finding stuff to talk about without letting the conversation drift to the Games, telling me all the mundane happenings in the district, which I have never been happier to hear.
Eventually Kay is sent off to bed, and I decide to put an end to the furtive glances my parents keep shooting me. I sit them down and we talk about the Games. It helps, which surprises me, but it really does. They are proud of me, not for winning, or killing, or even surviving, but for the way I've handled the trauma and especially for the promises I made to Fern.