"What do we do, Haymitch?" I ask him a couple weeks later. I'm still not really allowed to walk on my foot and I've been getting antsy in bed all day. Nana brought me a pair of crutches that have allowed me to move around the house and take walks but it still sucks to not be fully healed.
"Do whatever you can to lay low," he says.
"But-"
He cuts me off. "No. Find something to do. Try to live life like you did before the games."
"Like go to school?" Sawyer frowns.
Haymitch lifts his bottle towards him. "Now that might actually be a good idea my boy!"
"Victors don't go to school," I insist, finding the entire notion absolutely ridiculous.
"How would you know," he deadpans. "You're the first in fifty years."
"Did you?"
"No," he snorts. "But I also wasn't trying to convince the Capitol I'm not causing trouble."
"And you think somehow going to school is going to help that?" Sawyer asks, willing to do anything to protect me and our families.
"How would they even know?" I already know the answer. President Snow would somehow find out. He always seems to when it comes to me.
"You'd be surprised, sweetheart," Haymitch says.
So that's how Sawyer and I somehow ended up back at the school. I don't expect this to last long. While we were both a couple years from graduating, there isn't much use in sitting through classes about how to tolerate the conditions down in the mines, or about the history and generosity of the Capitol after what the two of us have been through. It all seems so meaningless now.
"This is weird, right?" I ask Sawyer when we arrive at the small building. Before the games, Dani and I would walk to school every day. Other kids and some of their parents would stare because they knew about our parents, but now, the staring was for a whole other reason. I don't think anyone expected either of us to ever come back to school and most were still weary being near us because of Thread. "This is a bad idea." I was still on crutches and Sawyer held both of our bags.
"Let's just try one day. If it doesn't work, we never have to come back. Deal?" Sawyer says, holding out his hand.
The fact that he's already thinking up some escape plan for us if this goes south has me grateful for him. "Deal." I clasp his hand but I don't let go.
My cousin Oliver spots me from across the courtyard. He's with a group of friends but he breaks off from them to come up to us. His friends watch, inching closer to get a better glimpse of us.
"Willow! I didn't know you were coming back to school," Oliver says. He's a year older than Dani, Uncle Graham and Aunt Madge's oldest.
I shrug. "Thought we'd give it a try."
He nods, turning to Sawyer with wide eyes, completely starstruck. He's only gotten to see him a couple times, and I don't think they've officially met. "You're Sawyer."
"I am." He glances at me amused.
"I'm Oliver. Willow's cousin. I was rooting for you the whole time."
"Hey!" I reach out to whack his ankle with my crutch.
"Both of you," Oliver corrects, but I'm still scowling at him, and he shrinks back a little friends are right behind him now and one of the girls pokes his shoulder to get his attention. "Oh, right. These are my friends. They wanted to meet you."
"They have," I remind him. Every once in a while when my cousins and Dani and I would all go to the bakery or Uncle Graham's after school, we'd have to wait by the fence until the last of us got out. I've definitely met Oliver's friends before when we were waiting for Dani or Madeleine.
"Well, they want to meet you again," Oliver says, annoyed. He's used to me, but I can tell his friends are getting increasingly uncomfortable.
"Because I'm a Victor now?"
Sawyer wraps his arm around my waist and it makes me remember that I don't have to be so defensive here. "Willow," he softly says.
So even though I never personally found much fascination with past Victors, I give them a quick greeting. "Hi."
That seems to make everything better. One of the girls steps up, her hair in a braid like mine. "Hi, Willow. You were so resourceful in that arena."
Not really, I want to say, but instead I rethink it. "Thanks." I turn to Sawyer for help.
"We should really get to class, but it was great meeting you all," he tells them politely.
"You too!" The girl calls out, the others behind her enthusiastically waving.
I hope things might let up a bit once we're in the classroom. There are only a few classrooms for all the older kids, so almost everyone I grew up going to school with is here too. The teacher seems surprised to see us here despite the fact that she was made aware we were coming.
"Willow, Sawyer, nice to see you here," she smiles, not taking her eyes off of us for a second. She doesn't even blink. "You can take those two seats in the back."
"Well isn't this a delight!" She says, once we've sat down. "Just in time too. We've been covering the role of the Capitol in overseeing the districts this week, and we have two students who have actually been there."
Has she forgotten what it took for us to get there though? We had to be reaped and fight in the games, but of course, most people in the district tend to ignore that part until closer to the reapings and the games every year. And what about all the other students who never made it back?
But what surprises me more is the way that Sawyer stiffens in his seat. I clasp his hand in both of mine and rest it in my lap.
The teacher goes on and on about the Capitol and its functions, the governing system, and its contribution to Panem. It's all things we've heard before told through the Capitol's narrative. All throughout, it feels like Sawyer has stopped breathing next to me.
"Would you like to tell us what it was like at the Capitol?" Our teacher asks towards the end of class.
"No," I answer for the both of us. I don't care that I'm being rude. It's making Sawyer upset.
"Oh come on, Mellark," one of the other merchant boys, I think his name is Declan, says. "Now that you're a Victor you're too good to tell us about it? We had to watch it all happen, you know. You and Hawthorne never even acknowledged each other before."
"I think it's romantic. It's what got them out," another girl sighs.
Sawyer's hand trembles in mine and it only makes me angrier. "Well, we're the ones that had to live it so fuck off."
But that doesn't deter Declan. "We just want to know. I mean, they always show them having all the food and stuff in the world. That must have been great."
"Yeah," I snap."It was so great watching Etheria get dragged away by Peacekeepers to god knows where and watch Sawyer almost die from blood poisoning and not be able to do anything about it. It was so wonderful!"
The classroom is silent at my outburst, and Declan at least has the decency to seem a bit ashamed.
"Did Hops enjoy it?" A small voice in the corner asks. That's when I notice the boy with blonde hair, looking like almost a replica of his older brother. On the smaller side, but their faces were nearly identical. I feel Sawyer squeeze my hand even harder. I couldn't recall Hop's little brother's name though. "The Capitol. It wasn't all bad for him, was it?"
"No of course not." I'm quick to assure him the way I would hope someone would have done for Dani should the circumstances have been different. "The first day on the train he ate so much food, hot chocolate, pastries, lamb stew, every fruit you can imagine. He was so excited. And then he got sick because he didn't want to pace himself. Said he had to try it all so he could tell his siblings all about it," I say, recalling a tidbit I had almost forgotten about from our first day.
"That sounds like him," he smiles, and for a moment, I feel like I've done something good before I remember everything that came after.
Luckily the bell dismisses us for lunch but I'm honestly ready to go home at this point. The other kids leave to eat lunch at the area outside where there are tables with splintering wood, but Sawyer stays rooted in his seat.
"Hawthorne?" I reach out to touch my hand against his cheek and that seems to snap him out of his thoughts. He faces me, his eyes panicked, much like mine when I wake up from a nightmare.
"It's easy to try to forget about the other tributes because you don't see things that are tied to them here. But with Hops… It could have just as easily been him sitting here instead of me," he says. He's often the rational one, having to calm me down when I'm lost in my head, so it unnerved me to see him like this. But he's always there for me, no matter what, and I wasn't going to do anything different.
"His brother…his sister. His family. He should be here," Sawyer rambles.
"You stop that right now, Sawyer Hawthorne," I scold, pulling him into me. His arms come around my waist and he squeezes, almost too tight, but I don't care. He buries his face into my neck but he doesn't cry, only trembling as he whispers about how unfair this all is.
"None of this has ever been fair. Even if Hops had been chosen, there's no guarantee that he would have made the out. We shouldn't have made it out. You know that. Snow knows that. But you can't keep thinking about the what-ifs. It will eat you alive and quite frankly I need you very much alive."
I'm not great with words but it still works and Sawyer snorts, his body no longer trembling. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I ask.
He shrugs and I kiss his cheek. I know he has a harder time letting me be there for him while I selfishly can't seem to give him up.
"It's you and me, Hawthorne. Remember? If you're always going to be there for me, you have to let me return the favor."
He nods, looking down at his lap. "Can we leave?"
"Yeah. We can go to the bakery. I'll make you some cinnamon rolls," I offer.
Sawyer smiles but it feels forced. "Well how can I say no to that?"
We walk outside, well, he walks, and I hobble and the entire school is eating lunch outside. Their eyes follow us, but I'm only looking for one in particular. Dani spots me right away, and she waves. When I gesture for her to come over, she happily skips towards us.
"How was it?" She asked. She was particularly excited when we mentioned we would try coming back to school because she missed walking over together. I hated that I was going to disappoint her, but I just couldn't do it.
"It was okay," I lie. "But I think we're going to go home. Sawyers not feeling great."
"Is it because everyone's staring?" She says. She's always been really smart for her age. "I wouldn't want to be here either."
I touch her chin and she giggles. "Thanks for understanding, little duck. Are you okay to walk to the bakery alone after school?"
She nods before giving the boy next to me a hug. "I hope you feel better, Sawyer."
"Thanks, Dani," he smiles, patting her head.
Dani throws her arms around me next, being careful not to knock me off balance. "I'll see you later."
I kiss the top of her head. "Course you will."