Chapter 26 As I rise up to the stage in the same way I rose up to the arena, my stomach begins doing flips. My heart beats faster and louder until it's in my ears, pounding so hard to get out. There's a moment of darkness where I'm rising through the construction of the stage, but once my eyes can see the crowd, everything goes wrong. The roaring of the people deafens me and the studio lights are too bright, baking the stage to an uncomfortable heat. I look directly into one of the lights and my heart drops as I'm transported back to the arena, almost twenty days ago, counting down the minute to the Bloodbath. Wind and the smell of fall air whips past my face and I start to truly believe the Capitol has sent me back in time to the start of the Games. Then, the gong rings and I can nearly feel myself run off the platform to the Cornucopia, but I realize my legs have just given way and I'm about to fall of the pedestal in front of millions of people. Before I can manage to look like a klutz, Caesar catches my arm. "Oh!" he hoots as I take a wobbly step off the pedestal. "A little bit of stage fright I see?" I decide to take this cover he's given me. "Yeah," I say to him while regaining my balance. "It's been a while." The crowd laughs even though I didn't mean to be funny. Caesar laughs with them all and then guides me to a crème colored chair that sits adjacent to an identical crème colored chair. I flatten my dress out from underneath me and the crowd settles down. I put on a big smile for the occasion. I also notice that my prep team and Charlie and Rootina are gone, and I assume Caesar shooed them off during the commercial. "Now, Atala," Caesar begins, causing every noise in the room to cease. "Today's the day we review some of the key moments in this year's Games. How are you feeling about the footage we got, are you excited, are you nervous?" I look at the expectant audience and come up with the tackiest response I can think of. "Well to be honest, I'm just hoping I looked good the entire time." This line is a real crowd pleaser. I'm sure it will end up on shirts and posters within the next day or two. "Well, let's find out. This is: The Seventy-First Annual Hunger Games!" Caesar shouts as he waves a hand to the giant screen behind us. Instantly, the screen starts playing am hour and a half long recap of the Games, all from my perspective. The film opens with a fade in on me rising up to the arena. We watch the full minute of the tributes standing on their pedestals even though everyone knows what's going to happen. When the gong rings I feel a sharp pain in my chest, but I pass it and continue watching, trying to look the happiest I can be. While everyone watches on the screen behind Caesar and me, the two of us get to watch on a screen that hovers above the audience the whole time so we don't strain our necks. Every so often, Caesar will point out a detail in the Games or a facial expression I made and I'll either agree with what he says or elaborate on what I was thinking in that moment. As I talk to Caesar and the audience about my thoughts during the Games, it becomes monotonous. "I was nervous" "I was scared" "I just wanted to survive." I sound like some innocent girl, and innocence isn't what the crowd wants. They want something entertaining, so entertainment is what they'll get. We're about a half hour through the footage when they introduce Delly and Jack. It's hard to look at Delly and Jack, who are both laughing and smiling when I know they're both dead. But, I try to make it a comedy show for the crowd. "When you were sitting there, contemplating whether or not to take Delly and Jack as your allies, what was going through your head?" It's the same question I've been asked about every situation. Nothing went around my head, really. I knew I needed allies, and I wasn't about to get killed by them on the sixth day. So, I decide to lie to make my thoughts sound more interesting. "Well my first thought was… go and kill them!" I say with a laugh. The crowd laughs with me. "But then I realized I only had this tiny knife to work with, and I wasn't about to go kill two kids who had better weapons than me. It only made sense to form an alliance." I continue this lying game for another half hour. I tell partial truths and partial lies, and the more lies I tell, the worse I feel about telling them. I grow nauseous with the thought of making up things about my dead friends. It's not right; it's not ethical. I want Caesar to cut to a commercial but for whatever reason, this is a continuous thing. I can't leave the stage now that I'm on it. I try telling myself that I only have half an hour more, but that's when they highlight Delly's death. I start to lose it. My eyes are so focused on the TV screen that sometimes I think I'm actually back in the Games, crying for hours about Delly leaving me. The heavy breathing returns. The fast heart beat, the sharp pains in my chest. Then, I have a panic attack. "Cae—" I start. I want to tell Caesar that I need to go, but the words aren't coming out and he doesn't seem to notice me struggling to say words. "Caesar?" I manage to say. He still doesn't notice. "Caesar!" I say to him, a little louder. I don't mind shouting on stage because my mike is off for the time being and the volume of the recap is way too loud. I tap him on the shoulder and say his name one more time. He turns to look at me but then gives me a strange yet worried look. I must look green or something. An overwhelming feeling of seasickness fills me and I babble out, "Caesar I need to—I need to go." As I stand up, the world spins and I just collapse onto the stage floor. I lay there, gasping for air and screaming for help. The crowd starts looking concerned, but the backstage people draw some sort of curtain across the stage so nobody sees what's gong on. Caesar leans over to help me, but his face transforms into Portia's and I start swatting at him and backing away from him, screaming. I look around and all these people trying to help me are dressed as tributes and the backstage area has trees and a forest floor. I'm back in the arena again. I can feel my face turn bright red and I start to sweat more and more. Tears stream down my face and all I can think of is how much I want my mother. I'm in desperate need of a hug. I'm dizzy and confused and disoriented and I need a hug. Someone puts their two hands on my shoulders and I immediately react to them, swatting and pushing away from the person behind me just as I did with Caesar. This person is too strong, though, and they pull me up, keeping me in a firm hold. I start kicking and screaming until I focus on the person's face. It's Garry. He puts his forehead against mine and repeats to me in a whisper. "You're okay, you're okay. Everything's alright." More tears come down my face. I look around and the backstage isn't a forest instead but a backstage. The people around me are no longer in tribute clothes but wear tech clothes instead. I nuzzle my head into Garry's shoulder and just cry. He hugs me and holds me and I feel safe. "I can't do it." I say to him in that ugly, half mumbling way you talk when you cry a lot. "I can't go back out there." Before Garry can respond, I hear a woman's voice, shouting at the top of her lungs. "What the hell is going on back here?!" I open my right eye a little and see a woman dressed in black jeans and a black tank top strut over, headphones still in her ears, to Garry and me. She somehow manages to grab Garry's shirt collar and shove him to the side. Then, she lifts me up and slaps me across the face. "You might think it's difficult for you out there but think about me," she sneers at me. I can't even pretend it's more difficult for her than for me. How many people has she killed? "I have to keep this whole show running, so I can't have you freaking out and falling off the stage." She yells at me, her voice rising with each word louder than the one before. "I never fell off the stage." "YOU LISTEN TO ME!" she screams. Garry cuts her off before she can say much more. "SHUT UP!" he shouts to her. The room falls silent. The woman lets go of my grip and pushes me, causing me to fall to the floor. "Do you have any idea what the hell she's been through?" Garry asks her. "I have to—" "I don't care what you have to do, you haven't spent seventeen days locked away killing the people you love." Compared to what Garry was saying to me before, it seems like he understands me a whole lot better now. "You know what," the woman says, seemingly out of breath for no reason. "You're not worth my time," she says, pointing a bony finger to both Garry and me. She looks around at her stagehands and shouts: "Back to work, all of you! Someone tell Caesar we're back on in five!" She storms away again. All of the workers scuttle around trying to get things back in order. Garry offers a hand to pick me up. I refuse it but he helps anyway. "I'm sorry." "Don't be. You didn't deserve any of that. Is your face okay?" He asks, putting a hand on the area that woman slapped me. For some reason I have a flashback to Billee before our interviews, so I jerk my head back when Garry's hand makes contact with my face. "Does it hurt?" He's worried now. "No… no, I—I'm sorry. I…" my voice trails off. I don't know what to say to him. Suddenly, the woman is shouting again from the other side of the stage. "WE HAVE ONE MINUTE, PEOPLE, ONE MINUTE!" "Are you sure you're ready to go back?" Garry asks me, ignoring the stuttering fest I had only a few seconds ago. Of course I'm not ready to go back, but I have to finish it. If I want to cry, I can just wait for when I get back to my room tonight. "Yeah, I'll be fine." I lie to him. He fixes my hair and then walks away. A stagehand leads me back to my crème colored chair where Caesar is waiting. "Are you okay, Atala?" Caesar asks me. "I'm fine, really." I tell him. He gives me an unsure look. "I'll let off with all the questions during the recap," he says to me. "I shouldn't have tried to bring up so many emotions from you in the first place." Caesar's theme song begins playing, signaling the show's return from a commercial. "No it's okay, you're just doing your job." I tell him. He either doesn't hear me or pretends not to listen, but he does let up on the question asking during the remainder of the show. This is only a goo thing because it gives me time to space out and ignore what I can of the recap. I try my best not to focus on the last few deaths they show, and I end the recap interview on a good note. My whole crew and I return to the Training Center building and travel up to the fifth floor. It's strange to think that not so long ago, this whole building had people using each floor. Now, the only floor in occupation is the fifth one. I go to my room without dinner. The Avox girl with the straight black hair from my hospital room is my bedroom attendant, so I ask her for water and she brings it back promptly. After I gulp down the cup she gives me, the Avox leaves and then returns with a whole pitcher of water. She tries to pour me some but I stop her. "It's fine." I tell her. "You can leave now. Thank you." She leaves and before I get the chance to sit down, Garry walks in. "Garry, what are you doing here?" I ask. "You weren't okay, were you?" he asks me, ignoring the first question of the conversation. "When? Back at the show?" "Yeah." "Why does it even matter, I'm fine now." "No, you're not fine now. And I should've told them to let you stay off the show after you had your panic attack." He's right about both these things. I don't say anything because I'm not sure how to respond. After a minute, he starts the conversation up again. "I care about you, Atala." "I care about you"? What does that even mean? "I care about you, too." I say to him indifferently. "No, Atala, I really care about you and I don't like seeing you get hurt." I must sound like a bitch when I ask: "Why are you here, Garry?" He crosses the room staring straight into my eyes. Then, he kisses me. Right on the lips. No warning or anything. Is this my first kiss? It must be, because I don't remember ever feeling this way. After we kiss, Garry walks out and shuts the door behind him. I stand there in silence for a good five minutes unsure of what to feel. Of course, I don't go to bed the whole night because I'm still thinking of what just happened.