"What I've brought you here to tell you is that…" Helga inhales nervously, catching her breath "Is that…is that I have decided to volunteer."
I stare at my girlfriend, perplexed. Not two years ago her brother, Meeti, had been brutally killed in the games, taking a dagger in his spine in order to protect the piles of supplies the career pack had gathered. How the hell could the same thing happening to her bring anything but disgust and repulsion? Had she gone completely crazy? Because there was no way she'd make it out alive, she's nowhere near suspicious enough, nor physically able in combat or weaponry, did how on earth the idea of could even crossed her…
"Cato, Clove? Say something…" She pauses, then chokes. "Please…" I remember then than I am not alone is carrying the weight of this confession. I allow my eyes to wander from her to Clove, who sits with her back fitted in to a crook carved in to the broken tree, seemingly unfazed.
"Why?" I demand, more viciously than I intend to. Helga jumps at my tone, almost tripping over her own feet and tumbling headfirst in to the plush grass, and would have if my able arms hadn't been on hand to rescue her. When she is steadied again, she meets my eyes for what seemed like the first time in months. They are duller than they used to be, sadder. They seem to have been drained of all the sparkle and beauty that made them once so magnificent. Nobody could not help but notice Helga this time two years ago, with her permanent smile and mane of gold, but now she simply seemed to blend into the background. She sighs sombrely, and takes my hands in her own. I want to pull away, not just because they are as icy cold as her eyes have come to be, but because I feel as though she is pitying me, and being pitied is something I resent more than anything. But I stay put, because I need an answer.
"It's hard to explain, but I want to him proud. And my father. He didn't manage to make it home, but maybe, with the right training, I can. I can finish what he couldn't and return to two victorious, break pa from his sadness and make everything right and…"
"Are you crazy?" I yell. "You're always stuck in a god damn fairy world, I swear to God you are Helga! Look at you, you can't even throw a knife more than a couple of meters, your aim is atrocious and you're far too naïve to survive one night in that arena…"
"You shut up!" She screams right back at me. "I'm in the training school, just like you, I've been preparing for years, just like you! You're no better than me, what makes you think you're so much better than me, Cato?" She's right up in my face now, molecules of spit fly from her rosebud mouth and on to my neckline. I had always been significantly taller than her.
"I never said I was better than you." I sigh, already growing tiresome of the drama.
"That doesn't mean you don't think it, and you obviously always have." She protests. "You think you're better than anyone else and so did Meeti and look where his arrogance got him." In the corner of my vision, I see Clove roll her eyes.
"What do you think about all this?" I ask Clove, who has become so bored with the scene that she has begun to start sharpening her wide array of knifes.
"I think she's being stupid, and I don't think she'll go through with it." Clove begins, not once diverting her vision from her knives. "But if she does, then that's her decision, and it's neither of our places to stop her." I turn to Helga, her expression is just a bewildered as mine. After seven years of friendship, is that all she can say? Helga has practically just announced that she has decided to get herself killed, and Clove is behaving as though she is simply contemplating whether or not to skip school tomorrow.
"See, Clove understands." Helga says, failing to hide her uncertainty. "I have to do this, Cato. You've seen how low I've been these past months since…well, you know." Her face falls, her features crumpling in an effort to keep in the tears. "This is the only way I can make things right." She straightens herself out and looks right at me, her unfamiliar glare sending chills through my spine. "If you really loved me, you'd accept that." After delivering that last sentence, she turns to walk away, behaviour so extraordinary for the ever confrontational Helga that I begin to question if this strange new being was ever once the beautiful, sunny girl that I had been so in love with for as long as I could remember.
Clove stares up at me, her chin propped just above the blades of the handful of knives she is still clutching. "What?" I grumble, frustrated at her for not backing me up.
"She's right, you know." She mumbles, returning to her knives.
"About what? That killing herself is the only way to make things right?" I let out a sarcastic laugh. "Somehow I think not…"
"Not about that, for god's sake, Cato. You never were any good at reading between the lines, were you?" She is proceeding to lunge the knives towards a neighbouring tree by this point, still snuggled in to the crook of the broken tree, her dark eyes focused, deadly.
"What do you…" I begin.
"There's nothing you can do to stop her. Nothing. If she wants to do it, she will. You should be grateful she had the decency to let you know beforehand." Not half an ounce of sympathy of compassion oozes from her tone. That is what has always appealed to me about her, her ability to push aside emotion and her sense of brutal honesty. I find it refreshing to have someone so frank, so straight forward, in one's life. It isn't half aggravating at times such as this though.
"I can't believe how calm you are about all this, it's as if you already knew…"
"Trust me, I was taken just as off guard as you, but as I have just said, there's no point speculating about it. With things like this, there is no in-between. You're either going to go do it, or you're not." Clove explains.
"And you think she's not?" I ask.
"I have no idea."
"And you don't care?" I enquire, anger brewing in the pit of my stomach. Clove shrugs.
"I guess, but I'm equipped to cope with my emotions, unlike some people." She mocks, managing to pierce the neighbouring tree so deep that one of its branches begins to falter and swing in the wind.
I lose it then. I didn't know how she could be so relaxed, so unconcerned by the fact her best, and let's face it, only friend had just given herself a death sentence. It enraged me, and although I am enraged on a regular basis, I don't often feel as blinded by anger as I do in this particular moment. No, rage like this is saved for special occasions. Within seconds, I have swiped a knife from Clove's grasp and I am holding her against the trunk of the broken tree with it, its gleaming blade skimming the top of her collarbone. I have never been so close to her before.
"Get the fuck off me, Cato!" She does not yell, but this is no indication that she is frightened, or even a little intimidated. She keeps her glare trained on me, her glance not faltering for a second.
"Start taking this fucking seriously then, for god's sake." I lower the knife from her neck, causing her to uncharatiscally loose her balance and trip over the crook of the broken and tree and face first on to the ground. Her hands break her fall, but this does not erase the same projected from her face, as she brushes off her grass stained hands on her pants. I cannot help but smirk.
"Bastard." She hisses as she recomposes herself.
"So, are you going to help me talk her out of it or not?" I ask. Clove gives a casual shrug, propping herself back up against the broken tree.
"Maybe, but I mean, as I've already said about thousand times already, there's not much either of us can really do…"
Suddenly, an idea hits me like a wave that had been oncoming since this conversation had started. Clove could do something. She could volunteer before Helga did. Despite being small, she is by far one of the most skilled in her year at the training school, and is a genius with any sort of blade. Her aim is outstanding, and her nature fierce and callous, exactly the traits that make up a successful tribute, and possibly a victor. I would be upset to loose Clove, she has been a loyal friend for many years, after all, but her chances of returning victorious were significantly higher than sweet Helga's, and she had often mentioned that one day she would be keen to sacrifice herself…
"Volunteer before she does." I blurt out. For the first time ever I think I see a look of bewilderment take her face.
"What…you can't be serious…" Clove begins.
"I am." I sigh. "You've always said you'd be up for volunteering at some point and you've got the…"
"I meant when I was seventeen or eighteen for goodness sake! You're always the one who says people who volunteer before the age of sixteen are fools!" She growls, who tone growing more infuriated with each word. "I can't even believe you'd suggest this…"
"Well, I am suggesting this." I say frankly. "You have the skill, the brains, the tough skin and the determination to win, everybody says so!"
"I don't care what everyone says!" Clove is yelling now, her face blotched with crimson and her eyes wild. "If I volunteer, I want to be ready. I'm not ready! I've only just turned fifteen for heaven's sake…I can't even…"
"I can help you train. We still have ten days before the reaping, if we meet up at least every other night think about how much I could teach you!" Clove scoffs at this.
"Thanks for offering me such a privilege, but I'll think I'll pass…"
"Stop being so god damn selfish, Clove!" I find myself shouting at her. "Think about how proud your grandfather would be, to see you following in his wife's footsteps! Think about how grateful Helga's pa would be, knowing that you prevented him from losing the only person he has left…" I usually hate using bribery as a tactic of persuasion, I find it tragic and pathetic, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
"No! Give it up already!" Clove screams back at me. "I'm not doing it!"
She is still standing just a few centimetres away from me, her small frame fitted into the broken tree, wearing an expression full of fire and hate. I step towards her, my footsteps slow and menacing, so I my face is only inches from her own, so close that I can feel her steady breaths tickle my cheeks.
"Why not?" I hiss. "It's not like anybody would miss you. Your daddy left you, your mama and grandmother choked it and everybody knows the only reason your grandfather keeps you is because someday he wishes for you to bring him back to his house in the victors village…I mean, why else would he bother?" I see something strange in Clove's eyes then. Something I have only ever seen before in the eyes of the vulnerable, the needy and weak. Pain. A wicked hurt from within that not even the strongest of medicines could banish. I'd of never of thought such an ache could be reflected in the eyes of a being as strong as her, but there was no mistaking it.
Before I can utter another word, Clove has darted around me and is beginning to race away, back towards the opening of the field and into the valley.
"Clove, wait!" I yell, but she does not turn to me. "Clove!"
This time she stops, and slowly turns herself to look at me. Somehow, for the first time, I notice how complete she had become. Her once level chest has blossomed in to a shaping bosom, and her hips, previously so narrow her stomach barley managed to fit between them, have enlarged significantly. Even from afar, her skin seems softer, like delicate petals plucked from an ivory bud.
"I'll do it, okay?" She shouts over the fierce wind.
"Clove…I…"
"Meet me back here this time tomorrow" She instructs, before letting the wind sweep her up again, leaving me stood there, to watch her fade away.