(A/N: Here's chapter eleven, enjoy!)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Why was he drawing me? Did I trigger the attack? All these questions and more are currently bouncing of the inside of my skull, so rapidly, that I can't even think straight.
I apprehensively glance over my shoulder, through the doorway to the kitchen. My dad, unfortunately, is still trapped in his hijacked world.
How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes? The question was intended to be rhetorical, but my overly active mind answers anyway – too long.
Regret and guilt consumes me, both feelings I don't encounter often. I can't help but blame myself for the previous occurring actions. After all, it was I, who was on that paper, not anybody else. My picture must have done it.
My thoughts are too overwhelming, and only one thing surfaces – I need to go somewhere... alone; and the meadow just may be that perfect somewhere.
Everest tries to embrace me in some brotherly hug, when I quickly slip through his now enclosing arms. I scamper to the front door, fling it open, and dash down the porch steps all before Everest's mouth can even form my name.
The air outside is a lot warmer than earlier and I am already starting to perspire after just a minute or two. Exhaustion overcomes me, but my legs keep moving.
When I finally reach the meadow, my shirt is soaked and I am panting. Blood pounds in my ears as I collapse on top of a bed grass, crushing some innocent daisies in the making. My right ankle throbs with an excruciating pain, still not entirely healed from earlier this week.
I close my eyes and attempt to sort through my severely jumbled thoughts. I slowly start with the easy things to comprehend and then gradually approach the more harder ones. "It was I on my dad's paper, and he did have an episode." I reassure myself out loud, but the one agonizing question keeps bombarding me: Was it I who triggered the attack?
I am suddenly interrupted by a noise. It sounds like human footsteps but almost... fake . Wait, fake.
"Dad?" I ask without even bothering to turn around. There I no reply.
A body wordlessly takes a seat next to me and I can tell out of my peripheral vision that, it is, indeed, my dad. My mother was right, his leg does make a noise when he walks.
We sit there quietly, waiting for the other to start talking, for a good ten minutes.
I finally interrupt the silence. "Why were you drawing me?" I spit out the question, desperate for an answer.
He continues to stare blankly at the woods, before saying, "Did you know, Willow, that when you were younger I wrote down and even sometimes drew a picture of your biggest accomplishments in here." He pulls out the big, brown book that my mother seemed to never let me read, touch, or even look at from behind his back. I shake my head vigorously, answering his question. "Well, I did." He gestures for me to come sit closer to him. I oblige, anxious to finally find out what is hidden upon the pages of that book.
My dad opens the book to a page towards the back. On it lies a hand drawn picture of a laughing infant. "Your first real laugh." he states while grinning at the image.
He turns to the next page. This one consists of a description of what the setting was like when I spoke my first word, – daddy. I am not too shocked that this was the first word spoken by baby Willow, because of the two my dad seemed like the more interactive parent. My mother on the other hand was a bit held back and quiet (or so I am told).
On and on we flip through the pages. My first steps, when I lost my first tooth, the day I shot almost perfectly at the game in the woods. Each event seems almost insignificant to me, but in my parents eyes, they are memories that demand never to be forgotten.
Then we come to the last page which is almost blank except for five words at the top: Willow, when she is twelve.
That's it, I think, that is why he bore my face upon his paper. "You see now?" I nod silently. Not once throughout his presentation have I said anything.
He is about to shut the book when I stop him. "What else is in there?" My dad just smiles at my curiosity and reopens it to the first page. It is the page with the girl and the goat.
"This is your mother's sister or your aunt, Primrose." His words are somber and sullen.
"How did she die?" As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I wish I could take the back.
His answer is solemnly laconic. "A bomb." He turns the page before I can say anything else.
"This is a description of your grandfather's laugh." My eyes skim the paragraph, carefully reading each word written. I examine the picture of him, noting that he looks quite a bit like my mother... just as I expected.
We soon turn to the page with the baby picture. "Who's that?" I ask.
"That would be Everest." I erupt in a fit of laughter. That can't possibly be Everest, he looks so different. Then I remember that it has been twenty-seven years since this was taken. What did I expect? Obvious similarities? Never again am I going to take that man seriously... ever.
My dad waits for my giggling to die down before continuing.
There is not much more in the book that he can explain. Only a bunch (twenty-three years to be exact) of tributes from district twelve that Haymitch had mentored. Since he never really met any of them personally, all he can do is speak their name and turn the page.
When we finish, my dad closes the book and starts to stand up. "You coming?" he asks me. I haven't even realized I am still sitting in the grass of the meadow.
I wordlessly nod while rising. I start to walk along side my dad when my legs suddenly stop abruptly in there tracks. My one question still has not been answered. "What triggered your attack?" I blurt out. My dad who is a few feet in front of me, turns on his heel.
He stares at me, his blue eyes boring into mine, and says, "Willow, I don't really know."
There you go, there's the answer, now move, I tell myself. But I can't. My legs just won't budge. Then, it hits me. It's not that I want to know what triggered the attack, but only that it was not me. So, I ask, "I didn't cause it right?"
"No Willow, it certainly wasn't you." I feel a wave of relief wash over me. I start to walk towards him, glad that I finally have an answer.