Day Twenty-Eight: Can't Return Home

"Please, I." "No." The door's slammed in my face, and I sink to the floor. It's all I can do not to break down in fat, wet tears on the marble floor. The girls walking past, some only a month my junior, eye me with a bowl of concern. Not that that does any good, not when by all accounts I'm their superior. The door opens for each of them, closes again. All save two are blonde, all save one are porcelain-pale, all are gorgeously beautiful. It's a sight for sore eyes, but having returned home just hours earlier I'm of no mind to be sentimental.

"Please!" I'm receiving confused glances, I really am, but I just want to go home. Not to where they say is home, not to some fat room in the Victor's Village, but to the dorms. The dorms where my former compatriots are waiting, the dorms where I'd slept (admittedly in different ones) for ten years. The dorms where I'd shared my first laugh among friends, my first kiss. My first girl.

And now I was locked out. Waiting, I continue to knock, and every time the woman at the door, the Dorm Mother, says I'm not allowed in until I'm reduced to sobbing and knocking. It takes hours before Lapis approaches, stamping her boot against the ground and looking down at me like a lost pup. "Opal." Her eyes contain no warmth, and I stand, dress now hanging down rather than pooling around my legs. "I just." "You just what? Wanted to go back to your dorm? You're a Victor, now." I can hear a sigh from Lapis, and she helps me over to a polished marble bench, sitting me down. "You're not allowed back there." "Why?" "Because you're a Victor. You'd be a bad influence. Tiara's got to go off and bodyguard some Capitol brat of eighteen with more money than sense, poor girl. Mila's off to Trumla, in Five, to guide tours around the museum eight hours a day. Anissia has the Silk Belt to look forward to. You're a Victor, you have to be removed or you'll make them all question whether this is wrong."

"But it is wrong." The words burst from my lips, and I sigh with the knowledge she'll condemn this. "It is wrong. Our graduates, our perfect graduates should be able to choose where or where not to go. Instead they're shopped off like products. Like you were shipped off as a product." I see a shake of her head with this surprising statement, and Jasper's eyeing me, unspeaking, from a corner. I feel emotion rippling out from inside me, and it's getting harder "But, we're here to watch. We're Victors. We're rich. We have money. We're teachers, not politicians. We handle this all. Sorry."

I nod, and I want to cry. It's not fair, lots of things. I wish I could go. But, for now, it's not fair that I'm not allowed to go back and see everyone else. So I'm crying, after the ripples of roiling emotion come out. Lapis is embracing me, and I'm still feeling those hotly wet tears pour down my cheeks while she holds me up. "Hey, hey." The voice has taken on a certain softness now, and my head is resting on her shoulder, smelling her perfume. One strand of her hair, one of the blue highlights, can be felt on my cheek, and I sink into her.

"I just... home?" Her grip tightens a little, and she sighs. "Opal. Opal. Your home is in the village, with me, Jasper, Ruby. Everyone else. You're not a student any more."

Knowing that, of course I should be nodding and smiling and accepting I need to get to sleep on my own. But I can't. They've tried everything, but, well. First it was the dorms, because I'd spent every night for ten years in the company of twenty-three other girls. Then it was the Pre-Games, where after the first night Petra was coming over to ours every night, and Silver would head out to Two's floor. Then the Games themselves, Petra and me sharing a sleeping bag when we set up camp in the frigid forests of our river valley arena. It was far colder than summer has every right to be.

So getting to sleep alone is hard. I want someone, some people with me so I'm not all alone. So I know, even if I don't need one, that there's watches. That nobody's going to steal into the room to try anything, that nobody's going to attack in the night, that if I need it I can talk to someone. But that won't fly as an excuse. Instead, I ask a question.

"What if I want to see them again?" A pat to my hand, Lapis nodding. "You can. You can see them a lot. Maybe when you go to the Capitol, I know Tiara's boy has wanted to Sponsor One for a while. Met the spoilt brat back a while ago. And, um, and." She's scrambling, settling on. "You could hire one. Domestic staff. Less costs for the Capitol, they're fine with one."

"Could you... let me sleep in the dorms? Just for tonight?" "No...-" Lapis trails off, stopping when she sees my expression. "Tell Jasper and Nutmeg we'll need their help."

So, that night, I get to sleep in 'my' bedroom in the Village. I don't get to return home, but with the help of Jasper, Lapis, Nutmeg I was able to get enough mattresses and bedspreads set up for my friends. For Tiara and Anissia and Mila, and two others, to come and stay over in a room far too big for just me. And then, only amongst six sleeping friends, am I able to fall asleep.

And maybe it feels a little more like home now