The night before Elly and someone from Victors' Affairs were due to arrive to tell Diana what to do with the rest of her life, she once again had the dream where she was struggling to climb up a tree but her arms were heavy and leaden and did not move. When she woke up, it was six, fortunately. At least she had gotten enough sleep, even if she felt exhausted nevertheless.
It was silent in the house. Everyone woke up at 6:30 to go to work, so there was still nobody awake, except possibly Sooty. Sooty was an asocial creature who refused to sit on laps or in hands, which infuriated Diana, because she had thought cats would provide you comfort when you were feeling bad and here was Sooty refusing to sit less than two metres away from her.
Diana was surprised by how much she liked Sooty. When she had been little, she and her friends had amused themselves by setting cats' tails on fire or throwing rocks at dogs. But now she liked Sooty and felt bad for her when she got hurt. Even the thought of someone hurting an animal made Diana feel like something was twisting in her chest. When had that begun? Probably when she had decided she was too big for torturing animals, and begun to hang out with the older kids instead.
Diana wanted to continue working on a programming problem she had begun the other evening, but she had no energy. She sat down on her bed and stared at the wall. She wanted to get up and do something, but she didn't. The glowing clock cycled through numbers. Someone's alarm clock rang. Diana sat on the bed.
Why was she so drained? She should have been happy. She had won, she'd get to turn nineteen and get married and live. She should have been triumphant and enjoying life. But instead, she sat around like a potato.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in," she said. It was Michael. Her eldest cousin spent way too much time trying to look over her. "Why are you here? What if you had woken me up? I'm already sleeping terribly."
"You've been waking up early this entire time."
"So what? Maybe I was finally getting a good night's sleep for once." Feeling angry, Diana drew herself into a tight ball. "What do you want?"
"For you to eat breakfast."
Another thing Diana had noticed about herself was that she had no appetite anymore. She drank water all the time and always had a cup on her table, but food just didn't appeal to her. Diana had heard somewhere that going hungry for a while could slow your metabolism, so maybe that had happened to her and she didn't need as much food as before now. Like an energy-efficient machine that could run longer on less. She was certainly spending less energy than ever, now that she didn't have her apprenticeship anymore and spent her time sitting at a desk or carrying Grandpa and Aunt Nelly's bags.
"Fine."
The house had a separate kitchen and dining room on the first floor. Everyone was grabbing whatever they could reach before darting out to work. Diana saw Leonella walk out the door with a small bag on her back and a brand-new bicycle helmet under one arm, off to her summer job. Leonella had always wanted a bike, but they had been never able to afford one. The television was on and showing the morning news. The main news items on the District Channel 1 were updates from the fields, a severe windstorm in the southwest, a milkmaid who had overfulfilled quotas, and a veteran getting their outhouse fixed. Diana watched the village mayor cutting the red ribbon as she sat down.
"Dad, I think we need to call in the pest exterminators again," Dad said to Grandpa as he stirred honey into his tea. Since utilities were automatically covered from Diana's stipend, everyone suddenly had a lot of money for everything else. Diana could have covered that, too, but they didn't want her to spend her money, as if it would run out because of some tea.
"Is it the silverfish? I saw one the other night."
"They're always there." Mom looked up from her sandwich. "I'm sure a couple came along for the ride when we were moving our things."
Diana liked silverfish. They had the tiniest little triangular legs and three tails sticking out in a fan.
"We'll have to do that after the visit." Sarah took a container of leftovers out of the fridge and put it in her bag. Fridges made life so much easier. "Diana, have you heard from your friends yet?"
"I'll write to them today." Diana was going to do no such thing. She had no idea what to say to her old friends. It felt so strange that she was doing nothing while they were working hard. Diana had always looked down on rich people for being idle while she did real work, and it felt weird to be on the other side of that. She had nothing in common with her friends anymore. There was no reason for them to be friends.
But who was she supposed to be friends with now?
"Make sure you do."
Diana started, jolted out of her thoughts. "Look, you don't have to look over my shoulder every day of my life." She took a piece of bread and put some chocolate spread on it with a spoon - she had no idea where the knives were. Was her family afraid she'd stab someone? The chocolate sandwich was tasty, but still felt like chewing sawdust. "I'll do it," she lied and went to get dressed to go outside.
While changing, Diana realized that she was bleeding. Where were her pads? Shit. How could she have forgotten about them? Diana stuffed some toilet paper into her underwear, put her clothes back on, and raced downstairs.
"Mom, where did you put my pads?"
Mom looked up from her coffee. "The rags? We threw them out and bought real pads. Let me get you some."
Diana blinked in surprise. She had admired pads in the pharmacy sometimes but they had always been too expensive.
"I can't believe how comfortable real pads are," Aunt Sarah said. "And they don't leak at all!"
"They're a marvel of modern science," Dad agreed.
That sounded too good to be true. At work, the girls were always getting their clothes bloodied (the boys meanwhile had scars from shaving with bad razors or failing at shaving with straight-edge razors).
Mom ran back in and shoved a small cardboard box of pads and a bottle of ibuprofen at her. "This bottle contains-"
"Painkillers, I know, it says so on the bottle."
"Oh, right. Here you go."
Diana took the box and went upstairs. The pads were curved bits of thick, padded cloth that felt soft and smooth to the touch, and they had wings with snaps to secure them in place. This was so much easier than rags (or, God forbid, gauze and cotton wool), and in day-to-day life, reusables were more practical than disposables. Though maybe she should get a pack of disposable pads, in case she ever went on a long foraging trip or something.
Diana put one on and felt perfectly comfortable. Since her uterus was hurting a bit, she took one tablet, as advised on the bottle, and put the box and the pills in her bathroom. Out of curiosity, she went through the pads. They were of different sizes and thicknesses, so that would be convenient for different days of her cycle - Diana had pretty heavy flow on the first day and then progressively lighter bleeding for the next three days. Counting, Diana found that there were more than enough to put on a new one twice a day. Some, like the one she was wearing, were dark-red, but others had different prints. Diana wasn't sure why someone would make galaxy-print pads, but they did look cool. She amused herself with the mental image of galaxy pads clipped to the washline on the balcony before remembering they had a dryer now.
Diana finished dressing to go outside and went back down. "Mom, do I just toss them with the laundry?"
"Yes, it's just like with the rags, but more comfortable."
Nice. It was crazy how much being rich made your life easier. Diana felt guilty that she was wearing a comfy expensive pad and had taken a painkiller for mild discomfort and was reaching for a box of jalebis while all of her friends were rushing off to work fueled by leftovers and with only some old rags for their periods.
Grandpa and Aunt Nelly made her spend the morning walking around the park looking for mushrooms that weren't there. The thick tree cover made her feel, in places, that she was in the middle of a forest. Diana constantly looked around half-expecting to see someone jump out at her or for a flicker of light to turn into a raging inferno. Being with Grandpa and Aunt Nelly was anxiety-inducing, because the thought that they would never be able to run away from danger chewed at her. Being without them was worse, because sometimes she thought she was back in the Arena.
"Do you even know where we are?" Diana asked half-seriously. It was eight, according to the brand-new watch on her wrist. She had to be back by nine, when the visit would be.
"Somewhere or other," Aunt Nelly said evenly. "This place is so isolated. No wonder Young and Popescu have gone round the bend, all alone in here." They were in the middle of a large park, or small forest really, that had used to be on the outskirts of the city. Now, it was surrounded by neighbourhoods of various income levels on all sides. The park itself wasn't being bulldozed for construction because District and city officials went hunting there (Diana could afford hunting licenses and guns now, but she wasn't sure if her family was interested in that). The Village proper had its own territory encircled by a fence of corrugated metal, and there were several gates all family members had the keys to. The other day, Akash had collided with a journalist who had climbed over the fence to take pictures.
"And that's why you're dragging me around everywhere." Diana was irrationally terrified of becoming lost even though Grandpa and Aunt Nelly were excellent at orienteering and had last gotten lost in the woods forty-five years ago.
"Exactly," Grandpa said. He used his cane to push aside a leaf, revealing a destroying angel. Such a beautiful name for something as prosaic as a mushroom that caused liver failure. "Well, that's not good. But yes. We didn't watch your Games, but Aunt Nelly and I - especially Aunt Nelly - remember the Dark Days. Our village saw heavy fighting. The more stability a person had in their life, the more people supporting them, the more likely they were to make a full recovery. Of course, there were always exceptions, many people simply pushed all of their friends and relatives away, but that was the general trend."
"That makes sense."
"We also arranged for you to speak to a therapist," Aunt Nelly said.
"When?" Diana was angry that everyone was just deciding her life for her, as if she was a puppet being yanked around.
"Day after tomorrow."
Diana wasn't sure how much a therapist could help her. And what were they even supposed to help her with? Maybe they would figure out a way to have her dreams stop? Diana was still upset about not being told, but it now definitely seemed like a good idea.
"Diana, how are you feeling?" Grandpa asked. "Does your stomach hurt? We can take a little break if you need."
"No, I'm fine. The painkiller's working."
"That's nice. It's so strange to think about the things well-off people can afford. Why is basic hygiene a luxury? My new razor is so much easier to shave with, and the soap doesn't irritate my skin." Listening to men talk about shaving, Diana was glad she only had to deal with the occasional uterine hemorrhaging. Having to scrape at your face every day sounded so annoying, maintaining neat facial hair was apparently even worse, and if you didn't do it, you looked like a hobo and people kicked you out of everywhere.
"It is what it is," Aunt Nelly sighed.
They walked around for a while, finding exactly nothing, Grandpa and Aunt Nelly constantly chattering about this or that. They got home a bit early. Diana knew that the guests would be late. Everyone always thought she was weird for arriving on time. But what was the point of setting a schedule when you weren't going to follow it?
"Why don't we go visit your Mentors?" Grandpa offered.
"Sure."
Diana still couldn't shake off the strangeness of the Victors' Village. They were the only people standing on the road that encircled the houses and led to one of the gates. The single-lane road was unpaved but very smooth and free of major potholes, and from where she was standing, Diana couldn't see where it went, because it made a turn soon after leaving the Village. The other gates were accessible by foot, with some of the paths smooth enough for bicycles. It felt like a ghost town. Despite the total emptiness, being outside at night was terrifying. The rest of the houses were completely bare. Her cousins had broken into one yesterday and discovered that it was all bare walls, floors, and some dust. The houses were so empty, there wasn't much of an opportunity for dust to gather.
The two on her left were different. Like with the empty ones, the yards at the front were a messy tangle of plants someone came by once in a while to mow, unlike Diana's, where they were pulling up the weeds so that they could have a vegetable garden and lots of pretty flowers. In Diana's opinion it was rather silly to play 'middle-class people summering at their cottage' when they were now in the richest 0.1 percent of the country, but it gave her something to do outside.
Blake and Maria didn't garden, so the three of them had to walk over weeds twenty centimetres tall to get to Blake's front door. Aunt Nelly knocked. Nothing. The other Victors had given her copies of their keys (as had she with them, but Aunt Sarah was terrified of them and always deadbolted the door, so it was a moot point), so she unlocked the door. They didn't take their shoes off, not wanting to step on a needle.
Inside, it was very empty and a little bit dirty. Cleaners came around once a month, and they must have done their job while the occupants had been in the Capitol, so there had not been much time to get it dirty again. The kitchen had a bunch of empty takeout containers lying around, and in the living room, Blake was lying on a couch on his side. He was wearing shoes and his face was unshaven, and he didn't even open his eyes.
"What a mess," Grandpa said. "Doesn't he have anyone to live with him?"
Diana was very curious to know what his family was doing. Blake was only in his fifties and had come from a middle-class family, his parents could have very easily been alive, but all of the programs about their Victors never said a word about his family. With Maria, Diana at least knew that her family were domestic servants on a latifundia somewhere, but that still left the question of why weren't they here. Maybe Maria had pushed them away and they had gone home. Diana's old neighbourhood hadn't been too bad, but she knew that she'd have rather worked sixteen hours a day scrubbing floors than lived with someone addicted to opioids.
"I guess not."
"I don't think he's waking up any time soon," Aunt Nelly said. "Let's go to the other one."
Maria's house was just as messy, but Maria herself was awake and painting halfheartedly. "Why are you here?" she demanded.
"The visit is today. I thought I'd remind you to get ready."
Maria sighed and put down her brush. She was sitting on a couch and painting her Arena on a small canvas. "The camera crews aren't going to be interested in Blake and I."
"If you say so." Diana awkwardly perched on the arm of a couch. "I also wanted to ask you for advice."
"We'll get going now," Grandpa said. "Gotta manage all the preparations."
Once they left, Maria picked up her brush and resumed painting. "What advice do you want?"
"I was just thinking. There's this, and then there's the Tour, and then there's the next Games. So-"
"You're seriously planning ahead?"
"I want to know what's going to happen so that I can prepare for it and not accidentally do something wrong."
That got Maria's attention. She looked up now, face twisted in an unreadable grimace. "Do you always sound like you're reading from a book?"
"Yes." When Diana had been fourteen, her cousins had stolen a love letter one of their friends had written to someone and had her read it out loud to their entire group of friends. Apparently that had been the most hilarious thing ever.
"Well, you're going to be popular." That was obviously sarcasm. "Look. I was not kidding before. The worst part is only starting."
Seriously? She was calling it the worst part when she had sent her and Rafael into the Arena without a word of advice? Rabbi Miller had helped her more and he hadn't even had to do it!
"Is that why you and Blake are like this?" Diana asked more charitably than she thought. "Because you have to take responsibility for two Tributes every year and then watch them die?"
"Not only that. The memories from the Arena - do you have nightmares?"
Diana shrugged. "I wouldn't call them nightmares. They're just weird dreams. I'm always trying to get away from something but I'm too slow."
"When I go to bed sober, I dream of killing them. Over and over. My family turned away from me before I was even home. They refused to have anything to do with a murderer. Why didn't yours?" There were tears in Maria's eyes.
"But it's not murder. At least no more than killing an enemy in war. And my family didn't watch the Games."
"That's just what they tell you to make you feel better," Maria said in a tone that brokered no argument. Diana didn't believe her. She now knew her family were masters at going behind her back, but that just seemed like too much effort.
"Even if they did, so what?"
"Come on, Diana. You told that boy you wouldn't hurt him only to stab him in the back."
"So what? That's the Games. Why should they be affected by that?"
Maria stared at her wide-eyed. "You seriously think so?"
"Of course!" Diana practically shouted. She leapt to her feet, twisting her hands together. "Only one of us could get out! There was no other way for me to go home! And they know it!"
Maria drew a streak of blue on the canvas. "What's even the point of surviving if you lose yourself in the process?" she said quietly.
"To survive?"
"Do you seriously think it was worth it?"
"Of course. I want to live."
"And if that life isn't a life at all?"
"I'm breathing. That makes it life."
Maria rinsed off her brush in a cup of grey water and set it aside. "You seriously don't regret anything you did in the Arena?"
"No. I wish I hadn't had to do it, but I had to. There was no other option. Come on, Maria, it's not morally wrong if it's committed under duress, like in war."
"Duress is no reason to lose your humanity. Which we all do. Nobody really survives the Arena."
Diana felt like they were having two separate conversations. Thank God her family was normal, unlike Maria's. "Whatever. Is there any other advice you want to give me?"
"Starting with the end of the Victory Tour, your old sponsors and just rich Capitolites will have sex with you. You cannot refuse."
What? "For how long?"
"Theoretically speaking for forever, but they'll lose interest in you eventually. You just don't have the kind of personality that draws them in."
"And that happened to you and Blake, too?"
"For Blake, not for a while. Informally it began in the thirties, but it really got formalized under Snow."
"Oh. Um, do these people use protection?"
Maria threw her hands in the air. "Seriously? I just told you you're going to be repeatedly violated for years on end, and you stand there like nothing's amiss and ask about protection? Are you even human?"
"If being human means sitting around getting high every day of my life I'd rather not be one," Diana spat and left the house, still worried about protection. Someone in her old neighbourhood had been sent to prison after he botched his wife's abortion and nearly killed her. On the plus side, nobody was ever arrested for doing an abortion on herself.
The delegation arrived half an hour late, which by the standards of everyone except Diana was on time. There was a small camera crew that filmed her for a few minutes even though she was wearing a tracksuit and hadn't combed her hair in the morning.
"Good morning," Elly said brightly. He looked much the same as always. Diana wondered how he kept his beard dyed that way, but all of a sudden, the only thing she could think about was Rafael in the chariot complaining about being shaved.
"Good morning." Thinking about that made her feel upset for some reason. That was the only thing she knew about Rafael - that he hadn't liked being shaved. Was this going to be what she thought about when she saw a bearded man for the rest of her life?
"Well, then. Let's go in?"
With Elly was a tall middle-aged woman with brown skin and curly red hair. She introduced herself as Diana Kirji, the just-promoted head of the department of Victors' Affairs.
"We have the same first name," Diana realized.
"We do," Kirji said, looking down on Aunt Nelly either because she thought she was better than her or because she was a metre sixty-five tall to Aunt Nelly's metre fifty (she claimed she was a metre fifty-one, but that was because she really wanted to be taller than Grandpa). "Now, why don't you reunite with your escort while I go freshen up?"
The first thing Diana said to Elly was "You should shave your beard." She instantly regretted it. You couldn't just go around telling people what to do with their hair.
"If I may ask - why?" They sat down in the living room, now empty of everyone except the ever-distant Sooty perched on a windowsill.
Diana shrugged. "Rafael had a beard, so now that's all I can think about." She felt about to cry.
"Oh. Well, I was thinking of shaving it anyway - I want to get a tattoo on my neck. If you want, I can do it now."
"No, no, it's okay." She couldn't go around being upset every time she saw a beard or she'd always be upset. "I can't be going around telling people what to do with their bodies."
"Seriously, it's alright. I was told new Victors can be odd at times."
"So, why are you here?"
"To introduce you to the duties of being a Victor."
"Like what?" Diana asked, thinking of Maria's words.
"Let's start with what's in my jurisdiction while Kirji's away. For a few years at least, you will be expected to put in television appearances. For the past, oh, ten years or so we've been having Victors show off skills they have. It's so that you can be more easily associated with something."
"Right. I think I saw Brown doing embroidery on television a few times last year." John Brown was from Eleven. He had won last year's Games by joining the Career pack and then winning the final fight, as he was from a middle-class family and had done martial arts since he was a small child.
"Exactly. It would be preferable if you picked something…un-martial, for lack of a better word. Nothing related to violence or the potential of it. Is there anything you're good at?"
"How good do I have to be at it?" Diana asked uneasily. "I was apprenticing as a boilermaker before, but I don't think that counts, and I guess I like to sing, but you heard me singing at the interview, I'm not good enough to be a professional." Diana seldom sang out loud now, because Akash complained that it hurt his ears.
"Is there any kind of craft or skill you were known in your circle of friends and family for doing?"
"No. I can mend and make clothes, but my grandfather and great-aunt are the real masters."
"That's alright. What is it you like to do? That's the important thing. You can improve with time."
Diana thought about it. There wasn't really anything she liked to do. She did chores around the house but even getting to play around with expensive ingredients wasn't any fun at all. "Well, I guess I've been getting into computer programming?" There, she had the satisfaction of figuring out problems, at least.
"That's perfect! Have you considered going to university?"
At that moment, Kirji came back. She also turned out to approve of computer programming as her 'thing'.
"But I only have six grades of school," Diana said.
"That's no problem - we'll send you materials so you can get your GED."
Kirji then explained a bunch about her duties, but said nothing about what Maria had mentioned. Diana decided to keep quiet until it came to it. What she would have to do until November and the Victory Tour was one giant nothing, punctuated by the odd television appearance and talking to schoolchildren.
"We'll tell you more about the Tour when it gets closer to it."
She was also instructed on how to behave. Diana had never been one to get shitfaced at the club and everyone had always rolled their eyes at her ideas of what a romantic date looked like, so she certainly wasn't going to fall afoul of anyone there. In public, she was to remember that everything she did reflected on the Games as an institution.
"Remember that this year, you will always be photographed."
"Oh, really? But only this year?"
"The public interest is fickle. Most people will stop caring about you once there's a new Victor."
"That's good," Diana said, relieved.
Kirji smiled. "We're going to have so much fun working together. I can tell."
When Diana told her family that she was going to get a GED and go to university, Aunt Sarah's eyes lit up. "That's great!" she said. "In fact, I was thinking just now - why don't we all go to school? After all, we don't pay rent or for utilities, so that frees up a lot of money."
The cousins sighed. Michael, Akash, and Mina had identical expressions on their faces. "Mom, we don't have infinite time," Akash said. "And in case you forgot, Diana and Leonella are the only ones who can read and write."
"Exactly," Grandpa said. "School - what a splendid idea! We have to take the opportunity if it presents itself to us. Oh, maybe we could even go to college, or even university! Wouldn't that be great? Sarah, I always did tell you to send the kids to school."
Oh God, this again.
"Mina's a welder," Sarah shot back. Their home town didn't have any trade schools, people learned trades by informal apprenticeships. So Mina could fix just about anything made from metal but couldn't write her name.
"And the boys?"
"Uncle, we were in debt from Quentin's hospital bills, I needed them to be working, not behind a desk." Quentin was her late husband.
"And once that was paid off?"
"Uncle, why don't you try to make Michael and Akash do something they don't want? They were long employed by then."
Michael and Akash, both unskilled construction workers, stared at the table.
"Well, maybe if they had better-paying jobs, you wouldn't have been stuck living in that communal apartment with those drunks-"
"Whatever!" Sarah exclaimed. "We're here now, we can move on."
"I wouldn't be so optimistic," Mom said. "Living here is a nightmare. We're all alone here except for two junkies, we need to drive to get to the grocery store, and need to buy a permit to visit everyone back home. You can't make up for it with free kitchen appliances." Someone in that field had sponsored Diana with the promise of free appliances in perpetuity if she won, which she had. Grandpa had already dubbed the stand mixer 'Old Abe' and jokingly declared that he wanted to be buried with it.
"But that's exactly what I mean," Sarah said. "Yes, this is a nightmare. Yes, we've all been uprooted. But we might as well take the opportunity and do something we would have never had a chance to do before."
"It just feels unfair," Michael said.
"You think it's fair your cousin had her name drawn out of that bowl?"
And that was not fair at all, but that was that and they had to live with it. In the end, the money aspect of it worked out, though they would have to be careful. So that was how Diana spent the next few weeks. The adults all studied together, but she found it more comfortable to be alone in her room. Grandpa took to attending synagogue every day, and Diana went with him on Saturdays. She said her daily prayers without fail, less out of belief but because the community had saved her life so she felt bad about not even paying lip service to their faith. When the adults went to work, she did chores with Grandpa and Aunt Nelly and tried out various sports in an attempt to decrease the fatigue her therapist explained was a symptom of her depression.
The therapist was an absolute lifesaver. Diana asked Blake and Maria about why they didn't go to one and got very sad answers - Blake (who had kicked out his family after they had tried to get him help) didn't see the point when it was the same shit every year all over again and Maria had tried but had given up after a year or so. According to the therapist, Diana had PTSD and anxiety, which was why she constantly had those dreams, was terrified of open flames, always felt as if she would need to run away soon, hated being in the park, reacted so strongly to beards, and never actually talked about herself in the Games, using vague words like 'back then' instead. He told her that given that she would never need to work a day in her life, she needed to fill her time with something she found meaningful.
It was hard to see meaning in a life of idle luxury. Sure, she'd become a programmer, and then what? Maybe by then she'd be so obscure that she'd go to work in some research institute and nobody would notice. But before then, all she would do wouldn't bring her a cent, which felt completely wrong after years of work. It was very difficult to be like the therapist said and see meaning in any kind of reaching for a goal.
Since the District's only actual gym was nothing like the couple of gyms in the Capitol, Diana settled for grappling, lifting weights, running, and climbing trees (with ropes, because she was terrified of falling off). They helped her with that constant feeling of vulnerability - instead of wondering if she'd be able to run away, now she was actually running and didn't have that thought, and learning how to fight got rid of some of the anxiety about being attacked. According to the therapist, that was only a partial solution, but it was something.
Climbing trees was even better than running in that regard. After just a few weeks, her dreams about the tree changed to her effortlessly flinging herself through the branches using just her hands as if gravity didn't exist and then stopped entirely. Her nightmares were now muddled blurs of colour and emotion she could never describe when she woke up but which made her feel sticky and gross inside.
Diana also tried to get back into dating, but it was hard, with how most people at least knew of her. Even people who said it didn't matter to them acted weird around her and it didn't work out for long. And Diana's emotions were still not back at normal, which made it even more difficult. She had never felt very strong emotions in any case, but now joy, hatred, or anger were beyond her ability. The most she could pull off was a whiny irritation that annoyed everyone and made them not want to spend time with her. They still did, but Diana could tell just how taxing it was for her family to keep on supporting her. But she still couldn't stop being an asshole to them.
"I don't know how to explain it," Diana said. "It's like something is broken in my mind. I feel fine, but then I open my mouth, and I say something I shouldn't." With shaking hands, she made a few stitches. She always crocheted in therapy, because sitting still was impossible. Adam knitted. He did it to make her feel more comfortable, like they were friends in a knitting circle.
"Do you feel any different just before that happens?" Adam asked. He came highly recommended, his clients were very rich people.
Diana scratched her head. "No. But sometimes I remember things, and my mood changes."
"What sort of things?"
"Killing." That unpleasant sensation in her chest was back, and she tried to explain it as best as she could, Adam nodding along as if it made perfect sense. "I don't know, I - it's like, I remember I did what cannot be undone. And it feels wrong. I feel guilty. Even though I know I shouldn't."
"Why shouldn't you feel guilty?"
"Well, because it's the Hunger Games."
"But you still feel bad about taking lives." Diana nodded. "Diana, this means that you have empathy, no more and no less. Our society makes exceptions for the general prohibition on killing - self-defense, war, the Hunger Games. But for a normal person, to take a life is not something that can be done lightly. Did your veteran relatives talk about killing?"
"No. Never."
"But they were still glad on some level that they defended their country."
"Yes."
"Here is the paradox. On one hand, it is a glorious thing you did. But on the other, it is unnatural to go up to a person and kill them. Diana, it is okay to feel guilty, to wish you had never been put in a position where you had to take lives. Yes, it hurts to know your hands ended lives. But you must believe me when I say you did nothing wrong."
"I did nothing wrong, but I still feel bad about it." Diana adjusted her grip on the yarn. "Like with war. A veteran can say, I wish the Dark Days never happened. Like I can say, I wish there were no Hunger Games. But they had - have - to happen. So you do what you have to, because there's no other choice."
"Well-put."
"But I keep on wishing I had never been chosen."
"But you were. And now you are here. What you need to do is come to terms with the past and focus on what you will do with the present and future."
"But how?"
"Well, that's why I'm here. It might take months, years, you might never truly be free of your feelings of guilt, but I promise you, the rest of your life will not be spent dwelling on two weeks of it."
That sounded nice, but Diana couldn't believe it. Not when that feeling was back, and she could feel the knife in her left hand even though it held only yarn. "Um, what do you want to discuss now?" she asked.
A/N: The main reason Diana thought animal abuse was funny as a child was because violence was normalized in her day-to-day life, but her diminished empathy did play a part, as did the fact that in her neighbourhood, stray animals were a danger children were taught to be wary of. I've been afraid of dogs ever since one attacked me when I was little, and that makes it impossible for me to care about them or feel sorry for them when they're hurt.
'Energy-saving model' does sound much nicer than 'I have a slow metabolism and only require 1300 calories daily, Grandma, stop putting food on my plate, I'll just have to throw it out.'
Back in the USSR, there were no pads, so girls and women had to use whatever they had - cloth, gauze, cotton wool. My mother winced when I told her about reusable pads, because in her mind, cloth pads are one of those childhood traumas that ought to remain in the past together with the Young Pioneers (the two are linked in her mind because they began around the same time for her). I had to explain to her that modern reusable pads are way more comfortable and effective than a literal piece of cloth.
Experiments with rats show that if you put a rat into a little cage with nothing and offer it opioids, it'll take them to the point of ignoring food, but if you put it into a spacious cage with plenty of friends, it'll try them once but have no interest in trying them again. Diana's family is doing the right thing by making sure that she never feels lonely or isolated.
I have too much fun writing about neurodivergent families. 'What do you mean, my child's not normal? She's just like me!' - my mother