head up in that sunlight // d7 train.
Jun 9, 2024 18:47:11 GMT -5
Post by ✨ zozo. on Jun 9, 2024 18:47:11 GMT -5
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Mom left her basket of baked goods in here. By accident, I think. She looked shell-shocked. Setting it down so absent-mindedly I thought she might not be here at all. I had to squeeze her tight in an effort to get her to feel right. An embrace usually so warm and second-nature now felt like I was hugging a mother made of pine and nails - not flesh and bone and love.
I told them it was fine. That I'd be fine. Smiling - bit in disbelief, I think. But still smiling. For them, more than me. I'm a take every day as it comes kind of person. I've still got loads of days left until... you know.
That.
Dad kept it together until they left. I could hear him breaking down from the other side of the door. A beat later and I blinked, eyes caught on the wicker basket- "Wait, you forgot-!"
She brings them every year for the families in the justice building. Most of those kids were her students, once. Now it's her daughter. Such a cruel twist of fate to punish her for a little show of kindness.
So I'm left here with a basket in my arms, nudging it forward in offering to everyone I see.
"Scone?" I ask the two Keepers who arrive to escort me. They look at each other for a moment, baffled, before politely plucking two jam scones from the bundle.
This might be the first time a Keeper has ever thanked a tribute in 97 years. I'll take it.
"Scone?" I ask the driver of our carriage to the station, smile to boot. "Pastry?" I ask the conductor. "Baked good? They're fresh!" a photographer, a passer-by, a doorman. They all take one, just as bemused as the next. Someone at the station says I should keep them for when we get to the Capitol, but... I don't know. I think Mom would have wanted them to go to the people here. Our people, yknow?
Someone else cracks a joke about The Hunger Games, I laugh to be polite. Then it's me and Junie, tiny - tiny. The Mackenzie Pryce, capital T. Two scones left, butter and cream and jam.
"Scone?" I offer with a nudge, eyebrows raised in encouragement at the two of them as the train lurches to life and I leave this world behind with the clothes on my back, a basket, and a red tartan hand towel dusted with crumbs.
"Not allergic, are you?"
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