spilled milk, chanel.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

in the year following
the 94th hunger games;




chanel sato,
 spilled milk.

"Are you taking that?" That sense of weightlessness leaves me, dread sinking back in where I'd finally freed myself of it. The girl has a cell phone tucked between her cheek and her shoulder. My nose turns up, and the first thought that crosses my mind is of all the nasty shit that was probably on her hands. My eyes drift to the baby sitting upright in her shopping cart. Some Capitol study a few years back found that one in six of all our everyday surfaces are contaminated with fecal matter. Her phone is probably dirtier than the toilet seat she sits on while she wipes her ass. And she's got her hands all over the loaf of bread I'd been about to reach for. I don't say anything, and she makes a sort of face, twisted up as if to apologize before she shuffles closer to me. "I'm just gonna—'" she doesn't bother to finish the thought before turning back to her cart, dropping the loaf atop a small bag of green apples. Phone still tucked between her shoulder and her face, she uses her hands to go over the list she's written out on a bit of paper. "Anyway, Mom, you still there?" she spoke into the receiver end. "What was I saying? Oh, right—can you believe Brad said that to me?" Like a toddler with a gold star, I listen to her complain while she moves about the rest of the bakery and produce section. It doesn't seem to occur to her as strange, or maybe she just doesn't notice when I slowly trail behind her. Ghost to a flame, this woman and her mother exchange stories back and forth. I shock myself by wishing my own mother might call.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

chanel sato,
 gods on tv.

I start going to Hollow Grove, often. It starts because they like to air Theo's tour after lunchtime, plaster his face across the television screens with highlights from his time in the arena. Those blossoms start to follow me into my dreams, fluttering across my vision while I sleep. Pink and purple watercolor, candy floss clouds I dance in until I look down and see I'm standing on a pile of children's bodies. Gone skeletal, blood crusted and turned to dust blown away on a warm breeze. Hume wouldn't let me come back to work, said that he was worried about me and wanted me to take some time to focus on myself. With Beck gone, the only noise in the apartment anymore are the voices that come from the mandatory viewings on the TV. I'd hadn't left in six days when I'd stumbled out of my apartment, that cursed place that always feels so empty, so quiet, so— That first hit of fresh autumn air. It'd felt better than any drug ever had. Every day since, I'd found myself sitting on a park bench here at some point or another. I ruin the place, slump on my side and drink brown liquor out of a paper bag sometimes, leave cigarette butts behind others. Today, it's by telling Emi I'm here. "For God's sake," offhand, I barely consider the words. "I'm fine—" "God's on the TV and they say celebrations are in order." She holds out her phone to me, shows me the livestream. The High Councillors, announcing some new record low rates for the Rose Plague. "Time to live a little." "Pass," I try. "Ugh, Nel," she makes a face, as if looking around for something. Maybe she won't notice the empty bottle under the bench. "I can smell you." Her and her gaggle of girls she pretends are friends had shown up on roller blades a few minutes earlier, and had brought the rain with them. One of them tipped her head back, letting a raindrop splash on her tongue while Emi took both my hands in hers and pulled me to my feet. "C'mon, I totally saw some Keepers patrolling earlier. Momma will be so upset if she has to pay off another public intoxication citation of yours." In terms of options, I can only come up with a few that actually seem viable. Sit here in the rain, right where I was so comfortably just a few moments earlier. You can still see the dry patch on the bench where I'd been protecting it from the rain. This option is not particularly appealing, if mostly because I've run out of booze. Other option, go back home, get drunk there. Alone, with god on the TV. Find a bar where they don't care who I am, get drunk there. The girls all cheer when I take Emi's hand and go with them. I try not to grimace around the mouth of the orange-flavored vodka Emi shares. It tastes like her glittering raspberry lipgloss.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

chanel sato,
 bug. [ cw; nsfw ]

Beck has been gone nine weeks. I've been counting them on my calendar with ugly, frowning faces. I put x's where the eyes belong, decorating every seventh day. They didn't let him stay long, Ren Tanaka saw to that. I don't know if I expected them to. Not everyone wants to pull the strings like the Moreau's do, finesse the system so that an oppressed might become an oppressor. I wonder what Beck thinks about my opinion of his friend Nico Thorne. I wonder if he thinks about me. Bug came to me in a fever dream when a fly wouldn't leave me alone one stray Thursday morning. Imagine, nearly 4 o'clock in the morning, when the sun starts breaking through the dark but it's all still grey—a fly, buzzing all around my head, I can't help it when I "AHHH!" I swatted the damn thing, or tried to; insufferable damn pest, I couldn't believe when all was said and done I got so upset about a bug.  I went to Duke's right after. I don't know. "Did you..?" Trash behind me says against the ridge of my ear thirty minutes later. I hate the roast beef I can still smell on his breath. "Did you, baby?" I just nod and roll my eyes, grateful he can't see. His hands are suddenly everywhere instead of clinging to my hipbones for dear life, shuffling under my shirt and all along my stomach. Ugly, calloused hands push my hair off my neck and then his tongue is in my ear. I remember thinking he'd looked lonely when he sauntered up to me at the bar, the pathetic way sadness clung to him. Now nothing feels like enough. I don't sleep well that night. I tell myself I am going to go home after, the moon hiding behind late autumn clouds when I walk out the front door. Someone shuts down the lights, and the red neon of the bar lights flicker out, leaving the pavement shimmering in the darkness. Mist clings to the pavement as I walk home, cold air mingling with road warmed by all the streetlights. Pure oxygen, I ignite, lose my mind—home is ruined. Home is clean out of pure air, everything there feels heavy. I stand on my front stoop, and the world feels so heavy. The trees welcome me when I walk through the familiar paths of my second home, their boughs bending to hold me in. I lay on the cedar bench there, labeled in honor of someone whose name I've never bothered to learn.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

emi tanaka,
sunny side up.

Routine. That's what Emi has grown used to. A few weeks of freedom, very often less as long as things were going well at work for Mama. Every few months, a stray problem might catch, but an extinguisher was never far from sight. Tanaka Holdings had never met a flame they couldn't stomp out, forest fire or not. Emi got used to expecting the fevers after such stresses; she loved when Mama got her new pajamas anyway, and she was much gentler with the braids even since Emi had lobbed off her dark lengths of hair. Chanel was distinctly not part a part of the routine. Nel was a part of freedom. When Mama had told Emi her elder sister would be joining them for brunch that morning, her first reaction had been to surge with glee. She'd decorated her cheeks with a broad smile and leaped towards Mama, flung her arms around her narrow shoulders. The stiffness she was met with was only to be expected, but Mama did her best to wilt, soften her posture and return the gesture. An hour later, Emi danced down the sweeping staircase, trailing her finger along the iron bannister. "Well, look what the cat dragged in," she said with a sing-song lilt. Chanel responded with a grimance, tucking her hands into the front pocket of her jeans. Her jeans. Emi scrunched her nose at the sight of them. How very... Something. After a couple more jabs, Emi gave up trying to get a reaction out of her older sister, unable to get anything with words. It made her want to just snap in front of her face, make her jump, do something, do anything; this shell was boring. Emi was so sick of this. She slunk away like a hungry cat, denied affection from the one it relies on for care. Her mother found her later in the kitchen after she set of the smoke detector trying to make sunny side up eggs, never mind the spread of pastries from their favorite patisserie in the other room. A charred mess of the pan, oil splattered all over the stainless steel.  Chanel had gotten up and gone into the kitchen only when they realized Emi was in the kitchen, in fact the one responsible for the small fire. Something about the look in her elder sister's eyes made Emi's bottom lip wobble.  When discovered, all Mama had to say was "at least you're wearing an apron." Emi had burst into tears then, streams immediately catching on her cheeks and falling in rivulets to form small puddles in her collarbones. She had this horrible feeling deep in her stomach, like a rancid peach pit rotting away at her guts. She just desperately wanted someone to keep looking at her. Mirror image, deja vu, something spins when Emi flings her arms around her mother's shoulders the same way she'd slung them around her a short ahile ago. "Do you still love me?" Emi whispered into her mother's shoulder. "You idiot," a disentangling, and she was gone.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

chanel sato,
 i only smoke to feel bad.

I tell Doc I don't believe in God anymore and she asks me did you ever? You know what, she's got me there. The session was Mom's idea. She couldn't last ten minutes without commenting on the dark circles bruising my eyes, which left me feeling desperate for the feeling of being grown. I can still feel her thumb, pressed against the corner of my left eye. A ringing starts in my ears. "Tell me about Bug." "What's the matter with it?" Combative, fidgety, I shift out of my skin and slip back into it a second later. I tug on the neckline of shirt, pull on the collar. "Insufferable." An eyebrow can say a thousand words. "Why do you want to talk about the book?" "Why don't you?" "I'm supposed to talk to you about improving my sleep habits." My hand slips into the beast pocket of my jacket. Doc always keeps the windows open, even though the cold October air sends a stiff breeze in. I swear I can almost see my breath on the air when I exhale. From my pocket I pull a loose cigarette, if you can even call it that. Emi had swapped it when I was at the house, left me with these unknown herbal concoctions. God bless the teenager that rolled it. Olympic effort. I have a box of matches to go with the thing; at least she spared me this one small favor. The things seem to lack nicotine, as far as the buzz seemed to suggest earlier, but it soothes the habit all the same. Muscle memory, or something. "You can't smoke in here." I stand, go and push the window open further and sit on the casement ledge. I knock a couple papers off in the process of getting up, and a book or two for good measure, but that's not my business. "Emi tricked me into her secret blend. Stole my cigarettes." I flick the match against that rust colored strip on the back of the sachet. When the flame goes out, the scent of sandalwood lingers, continuing to burn like a stick of incense. "And swapped our matches." "You know, Chanel. It seems like you're avoiding my question." Doc is right, of course, because she usually is, but she's usually better at letting me beat around the bush. I can't explain why I don't want to talk about Bug. I don't think it's about what I keep telling myself it's about. Of course the team at the publishing house had showered me with offers. The plied me with offers of advances, ideas shadow writers had pitched that they wanted to attach my name to. Some people just wanted my illustrations, gothic fantasy suddenly again trending after some footage of the Plastics goes viral again ahead of Halloween. "I only smoke to feel bad. I think she forgets that." "Did you learn that on your night out with Emi?" "Deep cut, Doc."  "You're the one who won't talk about Bug." "I met this girl named Winter the other day. Think she's supposed to be named after the Wynter, but she thinks it's the season. Wonder when her parents will clarify, or if she'll just decide one day. Maybe she'll wake up and think Wynter Rochelle was a scene stealing bitch and change her name to Chanel. Shit, I'd be honored." "You would hate that." "Yeah," spineless, I cave immediately. "I'd probably consider setting her curtains on fire." "Is she one of the bugs plaguing you?" Air quotes. Doc actually uses air quotes. "God, you really suck the air from the room." "Say more about that." We have a very long stare off after this, in which I halfway finish my cigarette which really just tastes like weed and lavender, but there's worse things in the world. Naturally, I fold first. "This annoying fly was buzzing around my head one morning, and it was super annoying. End of story." "And yet, as someone who has read the book—which is beautiful, for the record—I'm fairly certain you hada metaphor in mind. I don't know many self-important mosquitos." "God, would you look at the time?" I gesture to a watch that doesn't exist and mime checking it before stamping the faux cigarette out on the external brick of the building. I just toss it back in my pocket haphazardly, which will make the jacket stick for weeks, but sacrifices must be made in the name of a fast exit. "Wouldn't it be better if I wasn't here?" "Slow down. Sunday, same time, Chanel. Can you just pause and confirm with Amelia so she can put it in the calendar?" "No, actually I really need to cry, so I'm gonna go now." I walk backwards out of her office, giving a salute to the young brunette who sits just outside it. Usually I see her going though files, and I wonder what she could possibly be doing. Mostly, I figure she's just a nosy bitch. I give her a three finger salute, then flee to the elevator. "See you round, Doc."

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

chanel sato,
 dirty dishes.

Chanel meets Trinity on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon. The attendant at her favorite corner shop didn't ask questions when she swung around looking for a fifth of the good stuff from Ten. He'd only grimaced having to tell her it was out of stock; historically she'd proved a cunt about the subject, but she, far too tired at 9AM to ask questions, just accepted the second rate option and settled into a familiar sort of disappointment. "What'd you put in that?" Whipping towards the sound, Chanel starts at the young, feminine voice. Tipping the amber liquid into her to-go cup, she hadn't expected anyone, least of all this girl wearing her best Sunday dress, a blue scalloped number with embroidery that'd likely put Ren Tanaka's quilter to shame. The thought gives rise to a smile on Chanel's cheeks, and she wonders distantly if the girl knows Emi; similarly aged, they probably attended Sunday classes together if her family is worth their religious salt. The lace trim peeking over her Mary Jane's speaks miles. "Has service ended?" "You didn't answer my question," her eyes have wide blue irises that remind Chanel of the photo's Beck's shown her of the ocean. The analogy catches on the underside of her ribs. A sip to soothe the pain. Flicking her eyes towards the iron cathedral doors, Chanel can see the still full pews through open archway. Static figures, like cardboard cutouts of people rather than actual souls. Chanel would swear she's never seen the church she grew up in any livelier. The only figure that moves a bit is the priest standing up at his altar, wearing vestments like custom couture. "Good luck." "With what?" "That's what I put in here. No other way to get through a Sunday." "Funny," a twist of her mouth—"I didn't know luck could be bottled in a flask." There's no hesitation when the girl drops down onto the bench beside Chanel, conspicuously tucking her hands underneath her thighs to push her dress beneath them and protect her legs from the bare bench. She fidgets with the hem, adjusting it intentionally, making Chanel grimace and look away instinctively. A thing tightens in her stomach, and she avoids looking at the girl next to her for fear of finding a mirror staring back. She still remembers doing the same, sticky leather couches stuck to the backs of her thighs. A lone shadow in the empty archway, Emi looks on with a fire in her eyes. Chanel hadn't then recognized the feeling as it stirred in the pit of her stomach, but with time she learned to recognize fear when it settled in.

[nolan goode 10m / kaitlin.]

chanel sato,
 never wanna know.

Fall comes. It gets cold again, melting ice in the morning filling the gutters along the streets. Morning mist obscures the view of Hollow Grove outside my window, a storm cloud staining the light piss-yellow. Thirty feels like twenty-nine did, only worse, because my sun patch is empty, and the coffee maker has molding residue in the pot. Emi comes around at some unholy hour of the morning, isn’t even gracious enough to wake me or drag me off the couch before she begins collecting the empty glass bottles into a plastic bag she could have only pulled from god knows where. Waking to the sound of shattering glass sets the rest of the morning on edge, but there’s a silver lining somewhere. As an example, the whiskey dumped in the to-go cup Emi abandoned on the kitchen table works wonders to make the whole thing seem at least partially worth witnessing. Less so when Emi comes prowling in from the living room, plastic gloves on and trash bag knotted before going to drop it in the wastebasket. Already near overflowing, but the thought to care is lost anyway as she watches me neatly screw shut the lid to the bottle of whiskey. Not a habit, but Emi calls for extra precautions. “What are we drinking?” she asks conspiratorially, half-shoving the bag into the bin, half-abandoning the project, leaving it hanging partially over the side. “We are not.” “Boo, that’s boring, Nel! C’mon,” she slips the gloves off and they make an ugly snapping sound where they rip. “It’s your birthday. Let me celebrate you.” I remember standing in the doorway, dragging my heels and refusing. I’m good, I’m fine, I’m not going out with you. None made the difference, and I have to applaud Ren Tanaka this: she taught Emi how to stand her goddamned ground when she feels like it. I let her deliver me around, and pretend I don’t notice when she takes covert slugs from the coffee cup when I’m not paying attention at breakfast. She’s on her ridiculous little portable phone half the morning, feverishly checking for messages or tapping violently against the glass with her nails. She showed me off to a few of her friends later, and dragged me through a park near the church on our way to meet them. My hand hurts still from the way she’d been gripping it as we walked past an area cordoned off by police tape. My journalist senses tensed in reaction, feeling the urge to ask questions start bubbling in the pit of my stomach, but then I got a glimpse of Emi from the corner of my vision, looking on while trying to pretend she wasn’t. The light of autumn turns on her, revealing the all too curious glint in them before she keeps trailing on. She waits to say something at least until we get to the opposite gate in the park and make our way over the crosswalk. “Did you see the girl? What do you think happened to her?” “Something she didn’t deserve.” Somehow, she’d seemed put out by this response, her mouth twisting before she turned away from me as if to hide her face. She smiles again when she finds her friends, her hand still holding my own with a death grip until she frees it to fling her arms around her friends shoulders. As with every time I’ve ever met them, she makes a point somehow to never tell me their names, but that’s okay. I never want to know anyway. We spent some time wandering down side streets, seemingly aimlessly, before she abruptly bid them a goodbye (see you later!) and dragged me, surprisingly, back home to my mother’s. The roses in the front yard have begun to die back, the garden littered with their petals, withered and browning. Something about that makes me smile, my mothers precious roses, reduced to rotting with the worms. I’m glad when Emi cuts across the mulch, and we squish some of them beneath our shoes, but I’m surprised when it’s my old bedroom she slips into when we hit the top of the staircase, pulling the door closed behind her. For no good reason, I held my breath crossing the threshold. It only comes out with a shudder when Emi pushes me down onto the bed, pulling the tray off my old vanity table before crawling up beside me onto the comforter. Her hair is getting longer again. I’m running a boar bristle brush through it, just watching the way the light makes it shine, when we hear a cry from downstairs. The blood hits my face first, my arms and legs going slack at the recognition. Bitter or weary, it’s hard to say what holds me back, but it’s Emi who makes me move, who makes me witness. She opens the bedroom door with practiced care, leaps across the floorboards to avoid the ones that creak and applies enough counter pressure to avoid the rust on the hinges. Together, we peer through the dark wooden banister posts, watch as Ren puts both her hands on the man's white uniformed arms. The man was white all over, stark white hair over a pair of ghostly gray eyes. Emi convinces me to stay after that, then gives me up to Ren a few hours into the sleepover. I roll my eyes and abandon her for awhile, but I find I can't summon the courage to fully leave. The sound of Ren crying out keeps ringing, a struck chord echoing into itself. I used to have a nightmare about her feeding me cherries, pre-pitted but still pernicious, somehow, someway, so when she comes to sit beside me on the porch later that night, bowl of cherries in hand, it feels a lot like dying. Slow and sweet. I pop one between my lips, then another, until the bowl is empty. The dark red juice stains the bottom of it, pooling like blood. "Come," she says, gentle and a command. "Lets tuck you in."