reinvention | mackenzie, 90th

[umber vivuus 12a 🥀 [dars]]

From where he sat- legs dangling over the edge of the roof- he could see all of the Capitol. To his left, towering over the rest of the cityscape, was the theater where the interviews were held. To his right, separated by the frigid harbor, were the swirling skylights of Saturn City, where all the Capitolites hoped to make their dreams come true some day. And directly ahead, if he squinted, he could make out lights from the residential quarters in the far-off hills.

To someone newer to these parts, the rest of the Capitol looked like a fantastical, beautiful place, with lots of adventure and intrigue waiting to be uncovered. The truth was that it was little more than a cement prison: Towering buildings, ugly clothing, and... parking. Mackenzie was a veteran in these trenches now. Over a decade in the business. Over a decade of crowds calling his name less and less frequently- content to forget about the exception to their rules, content to forget about the boy they'd decided to let live. A lot had changed for Mackenzie Pryce, but as if on cue, the fresh wound in the palm of his hand began to sting. A lot remained painfully the same. He took a hit from his joint and pulled the bandage back with a sigh.

Thank you,
friend.

His therapist sighed with recognition.

"It's been almost a year since you-"

"I know."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Before last night, the scars on his palm had healed down to little more than angry, jagged, thin little white lines which folded and moved so fluidly with the bending of his hand that they easily could've been lost on curious eyes altogether. Now, the wounds were fresh as ever and stung with each close and open of his hand, just as they had the night Wynter had originally written what her voice couldn't find the strength to say.

He still couldn't remember that night. His father still didn't know he existed. His mother was still working herself into an early grave. He hadn't seen Max in over a year. Jaci was still-

"Nothing to talk about. Bad dream."

"Same as before?"

Flashes of an amber-colored cloud, sounds of insects buzzing all around him amplified to eleven, a distant scream. Faline's hand missing his by an inch before she was lost to the tide. His feet refusing to carry him away from Belladonna. His sword cleaning Neela's head from her shoulders. Akira standing over him in the moments before Mackenzie went from tribute to victor.

"Same as before. Like I said, nothing to talk about."

His therapist made a quick note.

"Okay, then what do you want to talk about?"

"I think my relationship is over."

Couldn't even call it a marriage.

His therapist didn't see this one coming. Mackenzie could tell by the look on his face and the quick scribbling of something in his notes, as if there was some precedent to follow here. As if all his clients were survivors of a government-sanctioned death contest, living in such a fucked up world that he had to go visit them on a rooftop in order to get in a good session, lest they lose their fucking minds and go on a murder spree or something.

Mackenzie didn't even like therapy. This was Games sanctioned, given his close proximity to the dying teenagers and the potential triggering of his own ptsd. He'd blown off the first two therapists they tried to set him up with, so they eventually imported the one Mackenzie used back home all the way from Seven. His name was Dr. Elm, which was stupid, but Mackenzie appreciated the familiarity at the very least.

"You're unhappy in your relationship?"

He pulled the bandages back over his palm.

"I'm-"

Broken. Selfish. Scared. Tired. A bad father, destined to repeat the same mistakes and fuck up his five year old beyond repair no matter what he did just like his own father had done to him. This was a tricky subject to talk about, and one he hadn't ever gotten to admit to anyone at any length, due to Jacinta's... family drama, also also his own shame.

If he stayed with Jacinta, he was allowing Violet to become a Salazar. Once bitten, the infection was irreversible. He knew that all too well.

If he left Jacinta, he was breaking Violet's family unit- the only sense of stability in her young life- for his own selfish happiness. And what? Jaci would move back to her place next door? He'd been living in some sort of fantasy land, desperately trying to keep her exposure to that part of her family to a minimum but it was getting to the point of ridiculousness as she grew older and smarter and overheard more conversations and asked more questions he didn't know how to answer honestly.

And also, he did love Jaci. He couldn't help himself from it. But he couldn't stop himself from feeling like it wasn't enough anymore.

"Well, I know I'm unhappy with something. And I can tell she is too. Has been for a while."

They hadn't exactly been perfect at any point in their relationship. And it was fair to say that, were their circumstances different, Jaci and Mackenzie would've been content to live the boring, completely normal, PG life they'd been portraying to the Capitol for the better part of a decade now. But the reality was so far removed from the fantasy at this point that they seemed to live on separate planets within Mackenzie's mind. But there were a lot of factors making them unhappy, and it was unfair for him to ever say she was the lone source of his general discontent with life. He'd refused to play ball as well, in his own ways: did things, said things quietly when he needed to scream them, let the world convince him he was small and broken and insignificant, closed himself off. Changed for the worse, according to Max.

"And you think your relationship is making things worse, not better?"

He couldn't bring himself to just say the word yes, so he shrugged.

"Have you talked to her about this?"

"I've tried. It's like-" For all the time he'd been waiting to talk about this, he sure was having a difficult time expressing it.

"It's like she's... a ghost. Or we're on autopilot. She says what she thinks I want to hear, I say what I think she wants to hear, but neither of us is being honest with the other and I think the truth is that when Violet came, we convinced ourselves we could be something we can't ever really be and... and we both love her, and we both want the best for her, so the rest just stopped mattering."

He could feel his nerves swelling within him so he took another hit to stave off the guilt.

"And now it matters again?"

He decidedly regretted bringing this up at all, because he clearly hadn't sorted through his thoughts nearly enough to make any sort of legible sense to his therapist, but he was trying.

"I guess. Or, it feels like it should. Shouldn't it?"

The therapist leaned forward toward him.

"If you think it should be important, it should be."

Mackenzie didn't know what to say. He glared out at the cityscape with hatred and resentment and a thousand hateful thoughts for all the damage those living here had caused to him and the ones he loved. He didn't know what came next, but he knew he didn't want to feel stuck anymore.

"You said you were both trying to become something you couldn't ever be. What can't you be?"

Mackenzie flicked the end of his joint over the edge, watched as the tiny red light was lost in the sea of colors below. He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets, and fixed his stare on the horizon.

"Happy."

He felt a knot in his throat and despite his best efforts, he couldn't swallow it down.

"Mackenzie, you can be happy. You deserve happiness just like everyone else. Do you think there's any possibility you can find it with Jaci?"

He'd asked himself that very same question a thousand times.

Slowly, and with shame-filled eyes, he met his therapist's gaze.

"I don't think so."

"Then I think you need to have a talk."