Song inspiration for this chapter: Apologize (Timbaland feat. One Republic), When We Were Young (Adele), Sign of the Times (Harry Styles)

Grieving the Past

Winter is coming. The once green leaves of the trees have completely turned into brown, dark foliage that someone has swept up at the base of the many tree trunks. Probably one of the florists. There isn't much else to do in our garden this time of year. Winter hasn't fully arrived yet, but it's already gripping all of nature in its cold, dark claws. Even the gentle, sweet summer air has turned into a whipping wind that fills my nostrils with the smell of loneliness and wet wood. The image of the garden before me blurs as the aroma brings with it a wave of memories.

Two small, laughing children in colorful clothes running across the blooming meadow, which now stretches out dark and lifeless in front of me.

Family and friends gathering for formal but not joyless garden parties under the canopy of the towering beech trees, whose bare trunks and branches now look blacker than brown beneath the cloud cover.

Aurelia, who thinks she's very clever, hiding in the shed at the back of the lake with some boy while my mother chases the servants all over the country house to find her. From the veranda, which wide steps lead down to the garden, I can now barely make out the lake in the darkness.

Even though most days seemed unbearable, I can't help but miss this time. I take a step toward the steps and run my right hand over the polished white quartz of the railing. If I hold my breath, you can hear a bird somewhere in the distance. Otherwise dead silence. Strange considering we are in the middle of the city. The Capitol never sleeps. At least that's how it used to be. Before it lost the war.

"You're not planning on sitting on the steps here, are you?" asks an indignant voice behind me.

I turn my head to the side and pout for a second before I think better of it and force my features into neutrality. Not difficult given the icy air around us. "I toyed with the idea," I admit. "But I think that would be too cold for me."

"Please, Euphemia, stairs are definitely not a place to sit," my mother replies with a snort.

I don't answer, but instead continue to stare at the dark garden. If the moon were at least shining, I could make out more details. Everything has been so dark since I returned. As if everything here had lost its colors. Or maybe I'm just no longer able to see them. "Why did you come here?" I ask instead, tearing my eyes away from the garden to look at her face.

She steps closer to me and shrugs with a smile. Her hand pats my right arm in a comforting gesture. "I thought maybe you could use some company. Am I disturbing you?"

"Of course not," I murmur absently. "I just didn't expect you to come."

"Why? Do you think so little of your mother, Euphemia? My upbringing may have been strict, but for good reason! You don't have to hate me just because I made sure you survived in this world."

"You could have at least said something before I applied for the Hunger Games. Instead, for the first time in my life, you were truly happy and proud for me."

"Proudly, perhaps," my mother replies thoughtfully. "The joy was just a facade. What was I supposed to do? You were never as gullible or impressionable as your sister. How could I have made you understand that you were making the mistake of your life without also having to reveal the truth about everything else to you?"

"You couldn't have known everything," I whisper. "I don't think anyone ever knew the full truth or the full extent."

"Of course not, but the fragments were enough," she says and turns her head to me. With her high heels she is a bit taller than me. A wide smile spreads across her red lips. It's the same smile she's given me all these years, but only now do I realize how similar it is to my own. How forced. "Either you go with the flow and live a rich, luxurious life, or you pay the ultimate price. You could have had it much worse."

"I feel so bad too."

"You live. That's all that matters to me. At least I was able to save one of my children." The anguish in her voice makes me look up.

"If it wasn't for me, she would still be alive today," I hiss and tear myself away from her.

My mother shrugs again and now she's the one staring lostly into the garden. "Caius was part of the government. If things had turned out differently, she might have been executed along with him."

"Things didn't turn out differently." My voice is little more than a small whimper, swallowed by the biting wind around us. "She's dead because of me, just like you and father."

My mother stays silent for a long time. "I knew it would end like this. I told your father, but he didn't want to hear about it. The moment you showed up to our meeting with him, I knew you would survive."

My legs are shaking, but I can't tell if it's from the cold or her presence. I give in to the urge to sit down and immediately regret it. The cold of the porch seems to want to suck every ounce of warmth from my body. Within a few seconds, the trembling in my legs has spread to the rest of my limbs.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't survive." How am I supposed to live with this emptiness in my heart for the rest of my life? The feeling in my chest brings hot tears to my eyes. "I'm alone. All alone. What sense does that make?"

"Stop making these absurd comments, Euphemia," my mother chides, but puts an arm on my shoulder. Time passes again before she speaks. "And stop sulking. That's not appropriate for a lady. Besides, Aurelia would have wanted you to smile. At least today."

"I would have wanted her to still be alive," I reply, almost feeling bad about presenting my suffering to her so directly. I never did that. "It makes no difference whether I smile or sulk or even cry."

"It makes a difference, Euphemia," my mother replies, and the way she says my name makes me look up. So gentle, so sad, so remorseful. "Today is her birthday. Aurelia would have wanted you to be happy that day."

My body twitches and I fall through the darkness. I want to stretch out my arms for something to hold on to, but there is nothing. Just a long black tunnel. My throat is raw and hoarse, but I push the searing scream through anyway. Then my back hits the mattress and I jerk again and sit sideways, my fingers gripping the edge of the bed.

I blink. Once. Twice. The shock makes my heart race and only when my breathing has calmed down somewhat, my pupils manage to push aside the layers of darkness that hover in front of my eyes. The bathroom light is on, as always. I lie in my bed, safe and far from the Capitol and my parents' abandoned country house. Far away from Aurelia. Aurelia. Tears well up in my eyes and I feel like I'm suffocating.

I turn my head and want to fall back into my pillows when I meet Haymitch's gaze. He's lying in his own bed and has turned on his side to look at me. His hair falls over his forehead as he frees his body from the blanket and props himself up on his elbow. "I wasn't sure if you were having a nightmare or just having a restless sleep," he says quietly, swinging his legs out of bed.

"It was nothing," I say before Haymitch can get up and trot over to me. "What time is it?"

"Four," Haymitch replies in a mechanical voice. "The look on your face says otherwise, sweetheart. Are you sure everything is okay?"

I nod and slip back under the covers before he gets the wrong idea and possibly tries to reassure me. "I'm just really tired," I explain and turn away from him. For a second I feel guilty, but I push it away. Any more words would only cause me to choke on the grief.

Haymitch remains motionless as if he's waiting for me to change my mind. Only after several minutes does he go back to sleep. If he slept at all. I know that nightmares haunt him too, even though I hardly notice them. I have no idea how he can function at all during the day, given the few hours he even closes his eyes at night.

I won't go back to sleep. I lie on my side and wait for the hours to pass. Haymitch doesn't move any more than I do in the other bed, but my instinct tells me that he's just as awake as I am. Not because he cares about me, but because he just doesn't want to sleep. At some point his alarm goes off, which he switches off with such a quick movement that probably wouldn't have been possible for a sleepy person.

Haymitch gets up and slowly walks, shuffling steps, into the bathroom. I pull the blanket over my head and try to disappear into thin air. The discomfort that my dream brought with it still clings to my limbs and I have a feeling it won't go away any time soon. This day is going to be hell, I can already feel it deep in my stomach, where the core of my fears are.

"Don't you want to get up?" Haymitch asks at that moment and I jump in shock. I didn't notice him getting out of the bathroom.

I roll onto my back and pull the blanket down to my chin so that my behavior doesn't seem any more suspicious to him than it probably already does. A strange mix of worry and confusion is reflected in Haymitch's eyes. He furrows his eyebrows in that typical gesture that makes clear he's thinking. It's dark in the room, he didn't bother to turn on the light. Nevertheless, I know that he's thinking about the situation in the night and is trying to derive an explanation for my current behavior. His analytical skills make it hard to exclude him from things because he's so good at drawing the right conclusions.

"It's my day off," I answer, and in an attempt to keep the sorrow out of my voice, I overshoot the mark. Too happy. Too fake.

Haymitch tilts his head. "Didn't you have your free day just the day before yesterday?" The skepticism is unmistakable. He doesn't believe me.

A blush rises to my cheeks because I'm about to get lost in such a simple lie. I can't think clearly. Half of my brain is still processing the images from the dream; the things my mother said to me. I knew it would end like this. Why did she know? I didn't know it. It's completely pointless to worry about it because it's nothing but a dream and so my mother never actually said those words. But I can't help it.

"I'm not the only one who got a day off," I reply in a more even tone, shrugging my shoulders under the covers. "Some machines in our sector have broken down. The mechanics will take care of it today."

Haymitch nods, some of the mistrust disappearing from his face. But not everything. He senses that I'm not telling him the truth, but he can't do anything else without insisting. He nods briefly and a half grin spreads across his lips. "Lucky you. Then have fun with Johanna later."

Since I almost always spend my days off with Johanna, he has every reason to assume that today will be no different. For a moment he stands swaying between the door and my bed as if he were thinking about something, then he leans down and plants a quick kiss on my lips before he leaves. I immediately feel bad for lying to him.

I expected today to take a toll on me and had the foresight to decide to sleep in my own bed. The right decision, as it turns out. If I had woken up in Haymitch's arms, I wouldn't have been able to control myself. My body needs the distance to mourn. I don't want to involve him. It doesn't feel right. There's so much that Haymitch already has to worry about. Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, the war itself ... Furthermore, I feel obliged to spend this day in silent remembrance.

Today is her birthday. Aurelia would have wanted you to be happy that day. How am I supposed to be happy when I don't even know if she's alive? How can I think of her without feeling guilt? Without me, my parents would still be alive and if Aurelia is actually dead too, then the same goes for her too.

Now that Haymitch is gone, I can let the tears flow. I sob into the sheets and let my body shake, pulling out and letting my subconscious take control. My mind hides somewhere inside me and waits for my body to vent. But it doesn't. Instead, it conjures up a sequence of images that I thought I had long since forgotten.

Childhood memories, holidays, birthdays. Aurelia loved her birthday. Not because she liked being the center of attention, as my mother made sure of that in her later years anyway, but because it was rare for the entire family to sit at the same table. This wasn't often the case in our house. My father was too busy most of the time and my mother didn't think much of the traditional term family unless there were visitors who needed to be impressed. On those days she behaved like the mother in the children's book.

If it weren't for the war, Aurelia would probably turn her birthday into a huge spectacle. She loves parties of all kinds. She loves being surrounded by her crowd of friends, her husband Caius and presenting herself in the best light in front of his work colleagues and playing the perfect hostess. My mother would have introduced me to every wealthy bachelor at the party and been pleased with herself, while my father and I would have exchanged knowing glances and chuckled behind her back.

You were never as gullible or impressionable as your sister. It's true. Transforming Aurelia into the person she is today – respected model in high-society, wife of a powerful politician, perfect citizen of the Capitol – was so easy that it may have been her destiny from the start. Aurelia would never harm a fly, she is politeness personified and would never say a bad word about anyone. She is the woman every man wants by his side. Aurelia is smart. She was at university like me, even though in my mother's eyes she chose a more feminine course of study than I did. She just never had the chance to look behind the facade. She doesn't know the truth. She is trapped in the golden cage of money and comfort that my mother created for her when we were children. This cage has made her blind over the years. Where there used to be shyness, there is now pride. Where there used to be satisfaction, there is now enjoyment. There's nothing wrong with that. When I think about it now, I would have saved myself a lot of suffering if I hadn't stepped out of line so often.

My mother wanted to raise us to be perfect ladies. But where Aurelia endured criticism and allowed herself to be shaped without resistance, I withdrew. Every comment about my appearance, my figure or my behavior drove me further away from my mother because it hurt my feelings. I couldn't take it like my sister. Now I wonder if they would still be alive if I had been stronger back then.

Either you go with the flow and live a rich, luxurious life or you pay the ultimate price. Maybe she really just wanted to protect us all these years. Maybe she knew more than she let on. It's a vague guess, but I still believe it. Not because it would make remembering her any easier. She was a terrible mother, even though I still loved her. I believe this because of that brief moment before her execution when she spotted me behind the window. Because of the sudden, so gentle smile on her lips, which is burned into my brain for all eternity. Because of the words that formed on her lips before it was too late. I love you. If she had been the woman, she had pretended to be all these years – without consideration, compassion or morals – she would have been angry, furious. Instead, she dropped her mask for one final moment. Like she wanted me to see this part of her before it was too late.

My relationship with my family has always been complicated. I think a lot of people in the Capitol feel that way. Nevertheless, the hole of pain, guilt and sadness refuses to close. Like a bottomless pit. There are no words that would accurately describe this feeling inside me. There is nothing worse than this feeling of powerlessness. Knowing that they are all dead forever, that their memories will be buried with them forever, that their existence will be forgotten with my own death. Knowing that nothing in the world can bring back their souls and minds, that everything is lost forever, as if they had not felt, had not lived. It's driving me crazy. To understand death, even though it has come to me so many times over the years, so many times, is impossible.

There's a knock on the door and my body jumps. My mind, which has been hiding somewhere in my chest, far from the hole in my stomach, comes back to the surface. My head turns to the door. My eyes focus. Hiding my pain is impossible. I don't even have a clue how much time has passed. Minutes? Hours? Is the day already over?

The door opens and Johanna struts in. I see the confusion flash in her brown eyes as she encounters the darkness. Her hand slams against the light switch and then her eyes find me. Curled up in bed with the blanket up to my nose. Relief floods through me. Johanna understands me. I don't need to hide my feelings. Not that it's any different with Haymitch, but with him it's more difficult.

"I knew there's something fishy going on," Johanna says, narrowing her eyes. She prowls around my bed like a watchful cat, eyes me skeptically and then plops down on the mattress next to me. I have to move out of the way so she doesn't crush my legs.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. My voice sounds raspy with a note of hysteria in it. Like I had a crying fit just now. I suppress my resigned sigh and lie on my back to look Johanna in the face.

Johanna giggles as if she didn't even notice my tone. "Haymitch just came by," she explains amused, her brown eyes sparkling in the neon light. "They moved Katniss to my room because they think we could both use the company. He was wondering where you were because it's your day off today and you usually hang out at my place then."

Johanna stares at me and waits for an answer. She's still laughing as if she finds the whole thing incredibly funny. I stare back emotionlessly and press my lips together. At some point she loses her patience. "Day off?! My ass! This is District Thirteen. The doctors here declare you healthy even if you had a heart attack yesterday!"

"Now you're exaggerating," I murmur and roll my eyes.

Johanna snorts again. "True. You'll probably have to die to get an extra day off in this dump!"

"Okay, you caught me lying, are you happy now?" I hiss and pull the blanket back over my head.

"Maybe a little bit. Did you call in sick at all? You know you can get in trouble otherwise." Johanna grabs the blanket and pulls it away from me so that I have no choice but to look at her.

"Yes, I did," I lie, reaching my hands toward the blanket. Like a child. I sigh. "What are you doing here, Johanna?"

"First and foremost, I was just running away from Katniss and Haymitch," she murmurs resignedly and lies on her back on the mattress so that her head is facing the ceiling. A mirthless laugh escapes her lips. "Those damn doctors didn't even ask if that brat could move in with me. Bastards, all of them."

"So Haymitch didn't send you here to spy on me?" I ask carefully, trying not to sound suspicious.

Johanna gives me a serious sideways glance. "Since when do I do what Haymitch tells me to do? Now really …"

I sigh again, close my eyes, open them again and wonder what I must look like from the outside. I can feel the dried tears on my skin. It's like I've smeared a thin layer of glue across my face, forcing the muscles in my cheeks to move in a certain direction. It must be the salt.

"I don't want to burden Haymitch with this," I then explain and now have to press my eyelids harder together because I feel my emotions being washed up to the surface. Saying it makes it more real. "He has enough problems, I don't want to step out of line too. Now that I hear that he organized Katniss's move, I'm glad I didn't tell him."

"Wait, did you know she was moving in with me?" Johanna asks now, turning onto her shoulder so she can look at me. Her brows are furrowed in irritation, but otherwise she looks almost healthy. As if she has actually overcome the addiction. Most of her symptoms have disappeared over the last few days, but her angry outbursts have remained, although not as often. However, they could also simply be part of her personality.

I raise my hands placatingly, successfully distracted from the pain in my chest for a moment. "He told me that she could be transferred to another ward soon, but he didn't mention you. He could probably imagine that I would tell you about it straight away."

"That's right," she scoffs and lies back on her back. "We have to stick together. It's still the two of us and not the two of us and Haymitch or you and Haymitch, just because you and him are now ... at a new level in your disgusting relationship."

"That won't change," I say, and it's the truth. Of course Haymitch means the world to me, but that's not what Johanna means. It's the things I wouldn't be able to articulate in front of him. Things I can only talk about to her because she's been through it herself. Just like he can't talk to me about his arena. It's a different kind of connection. Like a secret that we keep, that no one else is allowed to know.

"Then spit it out, Trinket. What's up? I don't have all day." In contrast to her words, her voice is calm and reserved. She really cares what upsets me; she doesn't just ask so that the topic can be ticked off.

I stare up at the lamp, which glows a bright white down on us, and force myself not to close my eyes. It seems disrespectful. As if I wanted to hide from it. I don't have the right to pretend it's not true. As if it wasn't my fault. So I take a deep breath and open my mouth. "I think I've told you about my sister before," I begin, feeling the warm tears gathering in the corners of my eyelids. "Aurelia."

Johanna nods silently, but doesn't look over at me. It's possible she has a premonition. It's not the first time I've talked about her or my family, so she should be able to roughly understand my feelings.

"It's her birthday today," I continue, peering sideways at her face because I want to know if something is going on there. Johanna knows that I think Aurelia is dead. Her expression actually changes. Now that she doesn't think she's being watched, she looks pained. As if she knows exactly what I'm feeling. She twists her mouth and bites her bottom lip. I don't often see such emotions from her, so I quickly avert my eyes, feeling like an intruder who has overheard something forbidden.

"She loves her birthday," I manage through a half-sob, but I can't stop the hint of amusement in my voice. "Not knowing if she's alive breaks my heart. She could be alive, stuck in a cell that looks like my own, not knowing what day it is. But would she feel like celebrating today if she were free? She was part of the elite, right at the end. Will she still have friends when her entire family is gone? I can't stop thinking about it."

"You feel guilty," Johanna sums up and pushes herself into a sitting position. She leans her back against the metal frame of my bed. Something sparkles in her pine-brown eyes, which she doesn't focus at me but instead lowers to the blanket in front of her. "You wonder if things would have turned out differently if you had done that one thing differently."

I nod silently as my lips begin to quiver. Johanna takes a frayed end of the bedsheet between her long, spindly fingers and scratches at it. "It's possible they would still be alive. But what decision would you have made differently? There are so many things that influence our lives. Maybe it was just meant to happen."

I laugh bitterly and pull the blanket from her fingers to hide under it again. In the meantime I have also propped myself up and am leaning against the wall, directly opposite Johanna. "Since when do you believe in fate?"

"I don't," Johanna replies and grins slightly, just as unamused as I am. "But if you have a lot of time to think, the most unrealistic scenarios will eventually seem plausible. You should stop looking at it from that perspective, although my words certainly won't stop you from continuing to think that way. Didn't stop me either."

We are similar, she and I. Not too much, because she was hit worse than me and I wonder how she can still be standing here today. I know I wouldn't be here if I had led her life. If you were in my shoes, you probably would have thrown yourself off the nearest skyscraper by now because you wouldn't have been able to cope with the load. Haymitch's words. In a dispute that happened far too many years ago. He was right, like with most of the claims he made about me back then.

"If I had never become part of the Hunger Games, everything would be fine now."

"Perhaps. But maybe not." Johanna shrugs her shoulders. "Maybe then there wouldn't have been a rebellion at all because you never would have drawn Prim's name. Who knows? You would probably still think that the Capitol is the greatest place on earth. You would never have met Haymitch."

The words sound wrong. As if I wished to undo the one good thing I have accomplished in my career as District 12's escort: never drawing Katniss's sister's name. Everything started rolling at this point. The rebellion, the war ... But if you think like that, I could justify the same scenario at any other point in time. If Katniss hadn't pulled out the berries in her first arena, the rest wouldn't have happened either. There's no point in thinking about things like that. It just frustrates.

I'm not one step further. I still don't know what to do with myself.

Johanna's stomach growls as if on cue. She gives me a demanding look and, for the first time, smiles a smile that doesn't seem frustrating or crushing. "You can't change what happened and it's not your place to have such thoughts. You didn't follow the command. You weren't holding the gun. It's not your fault. The people who are truly at fault are probably enjoying other things right now, while you are blaming yourself for their sins."

"Or they tremble because they know their sins will soon be punished."

Johanna's grin widens and her white teeth shine through. "Yeah, that's more likely considering we're putting a lot of fire under their asses." She jumps off the bed and turns to me. "You've moped enough, Trinket. Let's go to dinner before they run out of food. We're already way too late."

oOo

Johanna stuffs the food into her mouth as if she hasn't eaten in days. Her high spirits make me skeptical. Although 13 now receives food from the other Districts, it still doesn't agree too much with me. I've gotten used to it since a long time ago, just like I got used to meals in prison. I grew up with luxury and always ate the finest of the finest. Possible that there's just no point of return; that nothing will ever taste the way things tasted before in the Capitol.

"I want more," Johanna moans and looks down at her empty bowl dissatisfied. Theoretically speaking, there no longer is any need for rationing. Of course, the President orders it anyway. I push my almost untouched food over to her without batting an eyelid and a smile spreads across her face. She looks up at me and winks. "Your depression does have its advantages."

"Depression?" Haymitch stares between Johanna and me, looking for signs of truth in her words.

"Thank you very much, Johanna." I'm about to pull my tray back towards me when she quickly grabs the bowl and inhales the contents as if it were air. She's crazy. Where does this hunger come from? "He won't leave me alone for a week until I can make it clear to him that it was just one of your stupid jokes."

In the canteen we came across Haymitch, Finnick and Annie. If you look at it strictly, they actually came across us because we were already sitting at our usual table. Haymitch is giving me strange sideway glances ever since. He knows I lied about being with Johanna. But he doesn't ask. Not here, in front of everyone else.

"Then you should bug Jo for the next week like he'll be bugging you." Finnick giggles and pats Johanna's shoulder comfortingly, then leans over to us and starts laughing all over again, as if he just thought of something hilarious. "Jo, remember how much she could talk? She chased Haymitch around from morning to night, giving him one tirade after another. By the time she was done talking, even the parties in the Capitol were over."

Johanna snorts as if this is nothing new. "How could I ever forget this? She wasn't even in charge of my District and yet she felt the need to constantly tell me what to do."

"She did that to everyone," Finnick clarifies, looking over at me with a grin.

"Can you please stop talking about me in third person? That's impolite."

"Oh and her voice," Johanna blurts out, grimacing as if the memory alone is scary. "Just as bad today as it was then. How I hated it. I swear, Trinket, if I had ever run amok, you would have been one of the first to become acquainted with my axe."

"Haymitch, you can't drink the alcohol straight from the fountain, where are your manners?" Finnick's attempt to imitate my voice causes Johanna to splutter with laughter. She has to put her hand over her mouth to keep from spitting water right into my face.

"Haymitch, for Panem's sake, please put your pants back on before the tributes see you like that," Johanna imitates, putting on a stern face. Did I really look like that back then? Probably not, but Finnick opens his mouth to laugh anyway.

"What a strange relationship dynamic," Annie murmurs, tilting her head in wonder as her eyes dart between me and Haymitch. Finnick and Johanna can't stop giggling like idiots. Haymitch and I watch them unimpressed, as if we missed the joke.

Finnick raises his hand as if he wants to say something, but he can't breathe because he's laughing so hard. "Can you even remember all this stuff?" he asks in Haymitch's direction.

Haymitch takes his time to answer and finally rolls his eyes. "Not much," he admits, giving me a half-grinning, half-apologetic look. "And hearing all that, I'm actually quite glad that I don't."

"I bet you are," I remark and press my lips together in mock resignation. Haymitch's hand moves to my leg and lingers there. His fingers trace circles on the fabric of my pants.

Johanna and Finnick continue to imitate my voice and tell stories about how Haymitch made my life miserable for so many years. Haymitch and I listen, smile every now and then, but don't comment on anything. Sometimes he looks at me questioningly, searching for my confirmation, as if he really can't believe he acted like that in front of cameras or hundreds of people. At some point my hand finds his.

I'm doing a little better. Not good, but better. I still think about Aurelia, still feel guilty. But I know there's nothing I could do about it because it's out of my hands. The past cannot be undone. Not even those who are responsible for all the suffering can undo it. I have made many decisions in my life and many of them were certainly not the right ones. But I can say with certainty that I never had any evil in mind. I have never chosen an option to harm anyone. My parents and possibly Aurelia are not dead because I chose the Hunger Games. They are dead because others decided they had to die. It's not my fault, although I'll probably feel guilty for the rest of my life, like I do for many other things.

Regardless, I'm glad I'm still alive myself. I'm grateful for Haymitch, for Johanna and Finnick and also for Annie. My first family may no longer be here and I will always mourn them and the thought will always pain me. But I'm not alone because you can have more than just one family. And these people here are my family.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments! :)