☆ CHAPTER NINE! ☆
009. Mother figures

|| NOT TODAY ||
❝There she goes, in
front of me,take my
life, set me free again,
we'll make a memory
out of it.❞

➳➳

DEATH WAS THE largest misconception about the Hunger Games.

When the Titan name's were first picked, the sheer force of death was so strong that a part of me couldn't remember what it felt like to breathe without it- without the constant fear that hung around my neck as if even the thought of it was enough to kill me if I pushed too hard. Like a noose has been etched into my skin so that it couldn't ever be removed, no matter how much I pulled
the coarse rope, or like the last crumbling stone that was about to fall away to cause my untimely death.

No matter how I described that feeling, or the one that filled me from that moment until the last cannon sounded, it always ended in death. Every analogy, every example that I could pluck from my small amount of life experience could be twisted into something threatening- because that was what the Hunger Games was supposed to be.

Threatening, but over swiftly.

But then I lived, which was something that nobody could ever really be ready for. The misconception came in the fantasy that after you survive, that noose would somehow untangle itself from around your neck, and the stone would suddenly find a way to glue itself onto the perfect bridge. I thought that the weight would be lifted as soon as I knew that death wasn't a hold of me anymore; when it didn't, that was almost as shocking as the moment my name echoed around the square.

Instead, everything got impossibly tighter, until I had the choice to learn how to lift the weight forever or to let it crush me for good.

That was the only thing that I could think about; Evelyn was the one reminder I had that there was a world outside of my dreadful feelings as she hovered outside of my room's door. She didn't talk at first, when she was too stunned by the small amount she had heard to even bother to wade through the tense air's imaginary quicksand, but I knew she was there because of the shadows that danced under the door every time I glanced away from one of the white walls. I watched them dance from my king-sized bed every now and then as time passed as fast as one of the Capitol trains when they needed fixing. I hated the bed, it was too big for just one person to sleep in; why would the Victors need such a big bed when they knew we would all be alone?

It became apparent quite quickly that the Capitol didn't really think about the little things like that, or maybe they did, and it was a cruel form of mental torture just to poke fun at how alone we had all become. Like another embodiment of my Victor's home- just something overly large that couldn't ever fill the space of something small and real.

Although, it was obvious that this room wasn't like my District 5 home. In my real room I could feel a sense of comfort in the art on the walls that were beautiful enough to distract a wandering eye, and I could feel that little bit safer knowing that Lillian was just next door.

At the beginning, she used to come into my room when she had a nightmare about my Hunger Games in seek of comfort that Remy couldn't give- it was a funny way the world laughed at me I supposed. Together we would sit, a mountain of pillows and blankets around us, until the sun rose and I found that she had finally fallen back to sleep in my arms. Back then I couldn't say a word to her; the start of her realising that I wasn't the same, which would slowly break my heart into thousands of pieces.

No, this room was a fake and hollow replacement that the Capitol threw at me. This room was colder than my room. My room was the smallest in the large house, and yet it was still too big for me when I really wanted to feel the familiarity of being somewhere so small.

I hadn't felt the tiny nature of my first home here that would of brought me comfort, or the bright art that would distract me from the worst of thoughts. I had nothing to make me feel better at all- nothing to stop not only Finnick's words but my own horrid thoughts from swirling around my brain until I had created a whirlpool.

And still, only one thing stood out. Was Finnick right?

Of course not. I first had convinced myself that what he said was a product of anger and hurt, not from the impact I've had on the people around me. I was so sure that I even managed to convince my mind to see invisible flames within his eyes that had sparked out of his fury when I played the conversation back- until I had to really think about what that would do to his ocean-like eyes. Would they be bluer? I couldn't bring myself to see the full picture, because it wasn't really there, which could also of been said for the many fake reasons I had piled onto a stack in my head about why he had been angry in the first place.

My confidence fell away so quickly that it left me totally exposed to the toxic opinions that flew at me next- so much so that there was no possible way to stop it from seaping through my skin.

Has it been too long? Had I gotten myself so stuck in grief that there wasn't anything left around me to look for, or for others to grasp at? I hadn't been anything but sad- no horrified- when I thought of anything that was real or long lasting, maybe that wasn't because Snow had forced Remy's body to haunt me, maybe it was because I refused to really truly move on.

And yet I couldn't shake the underlining feeling that I was right to act this way, that my way of doing it was the correct one.

Out of everyone, I expected Finnick Odair to see just how far I had come from my former self- how much different I had become because of it all. At the beginning he was the one that guided it, he was the one that spent days crafting a recovery plan so that he could talk to me one more time. When he met me, he told me crystal clearly that he would make it his job to help me go home, and yet when I finally did I couldn't help but see the disdained looks that he tried not to paint all over his face.

The Capitol can't keep you here if we prove to them that you're stable.

With no distraction it was too easy for me to hear his voice in my ears, and the earnest way he tried to prove to me that his plan could come true. That might've been why I considered what he said- that might've been the reason that his words cut deeper than the scars that somehow acted as a thick, tougher version of my skin's armour.

"I swear to God Lorna!" Evelyn's voice was loud, but not angry, as she collided with the door once more. The hinge shook, but other than that the door remained unaffected as I failed to notice how many times she'd called for me to open my room to her. "You need to get up and out here, the scores will be announced any second!"

With the next hit, a great shake made it's way through the walls and floor that kept me afloat. It was enough to catch my interest, but it wasn't until her shadow grew larger and larger as she sighed in defeat that I crawled from the bed to join her. When I let my exposed spine lean itself against the oal wood door, a part of me could imagine Eveyln sitting in the same way on the other side of the door- only without her knees so close to her chest.

I could hear her ragged breaths from the amount of time she had spent outside of my door; the rhythm of it relaxed the tense rods thay were sticking to my shoulders ever so slowly.

"I'm sorry Eve." I apologised with the door still firmly between us. For a moment I couldn't hear her reply, but then it came floating through the cracks just as elegantly as her shadow's dancing.

"What happened?"

"Did you want to look after Lillian?" I replied with my own question, one that made me close my eyes so that I could really concentrate on each stumble in her answer. I didn't know what I wanted to hear, or whether it would even help at all as I thought about each decision, but I still waited anxiously. My head was tilted up towards the ceiling when my eyes were closed, so the only light that I saw was the pink hue from my eyelids.

"I never wanted a kid." Was her immediate reply, but she did see the need to elaborate.

"Not because I didn't love them- I loved children too much to watch them go through something as horrible as life- especially the small ones that would remind me of myself. So I never had any, and for a few years I regretted it."

She sighed again. I could imagine her eyes closed as tentatively as mine while she imagined what a small version of her would look like. The same deep chocolate eyes that were shaped like stretched almonds, and hair that would remind anyone of the most plentiful soil that could grow the most delicious crops in the whole of Panem.

"But, I guess it was fate's way of preparing me for you two. I consider Lillian a daughter of mine Lorna, the one that I was too scared to have myself- I consider you one too. So no, I didn't want to look after Lillian, I wanted to look after you to the best of my abilities. She was just something that came along with it."

There was so much of Eve that reminded me of my mother. Just the gentle tone in her voice as she coaxed a reply reminded me so much of when I was small, and yet I couldn't bring myself to imagine her as a parent in any way. I hadn't been close to her, I hadn't gone out of my way to bond with her unless Lillian was distinctly in the picture. However, that might of been why I accepted her so easily in the end, because you can't work hard to acquire something that reminded you of family. It always just appeared.

"You didn't have to."

"I wanted to."

There was a short silence as we both tried to change the horrible situation we had found ourselves in. I had forgotten that it wasn't just the Victor's that got picked that would be ripped apart by these games. Most of us got the chance of death, the mercy that would finally end the constant pain that ricocheted off every possible experience, but this years mentors would have to life with it forever.

They would plan the funerals, they would have to move on.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

"Do you want me to answer that as a mentor, or someone else?" She asked, half asking another question entirely. I guessed that this was her shot, a moment that we got the decide what is was that I wanted her to be in my life after so much help. I thought back to my sister then, and how much she loved the woman on the other side of this door.

"Like a mother."

"Well." She began, but this time I could almost hear the small content smile that she had placed on her face. I didn't think it was fair, I had so little time to be free with a woman that could of become so much closer.

"I think a mother figure would tell you to listen to your heart. I would miss you dearly, I don't want you to die Lorna, but you aren't living now. That smile I caught when you were with Finnick was the first time you'd been even close to happy in two years, properly I mean. That's all I want for you, to be happy, and if that will come when you die in that arena so that your friends can live, then that's what you should do."

I opened my eyes then, and truly remembered all the nights that Finnick spent in my room, slowly but surely teaching me how I could fool the world and go home. He worked so hard making me better, and I couldn't even begin to repay that favour.

"Finnick makes me happy." I thought out loud, almost impossibly quieter than before. "I don't know how he does it, but I don't think I could ever be truely happy knowing that Johanna and him were dead."

"Ok." Evelyn agreed after another short pause; she cleared her throat and stood up from her side of the door afterwards when she realised that my part in the conversation was over. It had been the most I had spoken to her in months- she knew more than anyone else when it was time to quit.

"The scores will be announced any minute. You should come and watch them."

➳➳

Alec sat on one of the velvet sofas in the living room when I finally crept out, his prep team and stylist Carlos had created a protective circle around him like lions would in the time I had been away. To them, I looked like a timid gazelle that was simply trying to pass by unharmed while I crossed the overly large room so that I could take a seat beside my own stylist- who had taken the opportunity to dye her hair another colour.

This one was more natural, it was a honey blonde that fit with her beautifully angular face shape more than anything else I had ever seen on her. It looked like she was born to wear that colour; when I sat down it occured to me that maybe that was exactly why she picked it. Carmella had always said she would show me her natural hair colour one day, perhaps that one day was pushed forward by the threat of death.

With that thought, I tried my hardest to really smile at her when she gently took my hand in her own for comfort. After another moment, Evelyn came and sat down on the other side of me.

"I like this one the most." I whispered to Carmella as she absently drew circles on my hand, something that made her white teeth make a rather shy appearance between her pink lips.

Ceaser Flickerman appeared on the screen as the Capitol anthem once again took control of the room's sound, something that didn't only made her smile drop fromher face, but it made Evelyn grip my other hand stiffly.

With each name that passed by, and each rather large score that got plastered on the TV's fancy screen the grips on my fingers got rougher. To begin with it was because of the Careers high scores (Enobaria was the only one that got an eleven, but that didn't mean that the other three tens weren't enough to make the room that much more uncomfortable) but then it was because of something completely different.

When Finnick was shown, I noticed both girls beside me watch my reaction. As if I would leave again because of the smirk that only grew on his animated face, even when I was internally stubborn enough to not even blink.

With him and Mags finally done- the latter having a score that made the entire room's lips plummet to the floor- the image on the screen morphed into a taller, more robust Alec Reymon.

"Alec Reymon." Ceaser Flickerman announced on the screen joyously as his stylist's held their breath. "District 5 with a score of...... ten."

Alex sat back in his seat. His stylist team applauded for him and I did the same; Zena seemed the most thrilled as she hit her long artificial nails together and made sure to ruffle up the shaven sides of his mousey brown hair. His eyes found mine in the split second that the score was on the screen, anticipation swimming in his eyes while I imagine some kind of relief was in mine. Hidden beneath the usual grey colour that he had seen too many times before.

"And now." The host baited again, only he took a little extra time it seemed to wait for the whole of the Capitol to let out a breath. With each passing second, the grips on me got that much tighter.

"Lorna Titan, District 5 with a score of-"

••••••••••••
3033 words.

Happy New year y'all.
I'm not sure I'm ready for
another one yet, especially
ome that is supposed to
be really stressful.