define: disappointment [sera&flynn]

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

F L Y N N G A R N E R

This year’s leash clipped to me is a tight one. They even have my hands tied; the Capitol expect me to be everywhere at once. A sponsor role, the ten-year anniversary and mentoring. It is their remedy of preventing a breakdown, fill my hours and there will be no time for me to embarrass them. I am all out of tantrums, they’ve squeezed every little drop of caring from me. Ten years later and I am so close to admitting defeat, but I have something to look forwards too when I leave here, and he is the only thing that is keeping me ticking by.

Mentoring barely has any entries in my schedule, I hope Teddy is pulling his weight with that job and Silva, whatever he is supposed to do. My afternoon is blocked out in the Training Centre though, and I really ought to fill time with Carmen and Sera. Wherever they are. Whoever they are. I have learnt nothing about the girls that have been sown into District Six’s graves. Yeah, the optimism this year is high.

May as well keep the mood levels low as they can’t drop any further than what they are, if there’s to be a high it will be some damn lottery luck. Not that Six or I have any luck. (I wasted it all on winning the 87th – and I guess whatever was left on winning Andal).

I’ve not gotten used to the new Training Centre yet, even if it has been two years. It is blessing in disguise that they decided to completely refurbish it, coming back to the same place every year where Nessa and Jimmy died. Yeah, that would’ve really piled on the already heavy trauma. All these years of threats for ‘interfering too much’ from trainers but they still let me in this year, amongst all the tributes. I have pulled the sponsor’s card; I can’t choose who my sponsor prizes are going to by being stood outside. (Even though they already have Carmen and Sera’s name on them).

Standing in the middle of the tediously large room feels awkward as I try and pick out one of the girls, I’ll go to whoever is the closest. It is Sera who I see dawdling first, there’s a group of trainers with their backs turned to her.

There’s only five years between me and Sera, I am not getting the ’I feel so old’ thoughts yet, well until I see the girl from Seven and the kids who are the same age as I was ten years ago, yeah that’s when the chills hit. At least I am not greying like Teddy yet, but I am sure the stress hairs will show themselves soon.

”It doesn’t look like you’re getting up to much. Not playing that disappointment card again are you?” I say, thinking back to our introduction on the train. I look around the overwhelming room filled with apparatus that is so not calling either of our names. My hand flicks round with my eyes, pointing at all the different trainers. ”There must be something in here for you to do or even outside, maybe I can help you?”

ELEGANT

[d6a seraphina keoch [cait]]

but in spite of how you feel

it's not the end of the world

sera

keoch

For some infuriating reason, I can’t breathe.

Maybe it’s the stifling, soul-crashing repetition of being in the Training Centre every day this week with absolutely nothing to show for the monotonous ritual I’m expected to partake in. Or maybe the ventilation system has simply decided to cark it today and we’re all about to die a slow and painful death. Gee, wouldn’t that be tragic.

I know myself. Know I’m the type of girl who despises change, and will try to fold herself into the bleakest of new realities just to avoid the discomfort of the unknown. It’s the only reason I keep coming down here every day: the Training Centre is the common base. Solid ground under my feet where it’s only ever been crumbling soil.

So it’s pretty fucking annoying not being able to breathe, and having no fucking idea why not. Even more irritating when my attempts at Izzy’s meditative breathing rituals of a lifetime ago are interrupted by quite possibly the last person I want anything to do with.

“It doesn’t look like you’re getting up to much. Not playing that disappointment card again are you?”

God, Flynn, I can’t deal with this right now. Not gonna play your game, make you feel like a bigger man, haven’t you noticed that I can’t

fucking

breathe.

“There must be something in here for you to do… maybe I can help you?”

“You can help me by getting me out of here.”

I mean for it to sound unbothered, indifferent, unflappable. But there’s a telltale break in my voice and there’s no hiding the shaky breath I try to stifle when I realise, maybe for the first time, truly, how numbered my days are.

I scoff a little at that. Shake my head to myself, something sad and pitiful, and turn on my heel for the swift escape that I never get to make because there’s a persistent hand grasping my wrist with an iron-tight grip that I fear might never let me go, even long after we leave this room.

But for a moment – for perhaps the first moment in a lifetime – I don’t pull away.

BY CHELSEY

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

F L Y N N G A R N E R

A rulebook with infinite pages has always been smacked across the back of my head, year on year. It doesn’t stop me tearing out the paper or sometimes lighting a match to it. Doesn’t matter though, it always comes back, with fresh ink and new words. Laws and codes sketched in because of someone’s actions the year before. They test me. I test them.

They think this year will be their respite. I think not.

“You can help me by getting me out of here.”

Out of this sweat box and to where? The sixth floor, the dining hall…They’re the only places that I can take a tribute. There’s the roof too but I am pretty sure that has been sectioned off this year.

Or I can just slam shut the rulebook and smuggle her the fuck out of here. Out of this hellscape of a building that will never change, no matter how many renovations it has. It will always be the nightmare pit where tributes have their last best meal, some might be lucky to have their last best nights sleep in here too.

”Okay, fine.” I say, looking towards the exit that is not too far away. Nobody should suspect anything, a mentor and a mentee going about their business. Where is far enough away from here that doesn’t reek of the Hunger Games? There’s a diner just outside the Games quarter, it is nothing like Dale’s but its ice cream and milkshake is top tier.

”Come on, lets get out of here then.” I stretch out my hand to her but it’ll look weird the pair of us rushing out hand in hand. I drop my arm to my side and instead turn my back and lead the way. ”Quickly! Before anyone notices.” Once we’re outside the training hall and in the corridor, I pull off the red hooded jacket that I have been wearing. ”Wear this, they don’t let tributes outside the building but I know a way out of here.” Walking out through the main lobby is not the plan but there’s a back exit where the catering staff take deliveries, it’ll be the only way I can smuggle a tribute out of here.

”I hope you like ice cream so this is worth it…” I hold open doors down the long corridors that I am sure Sera hasn’t seen yet, making sure I am first so that nobody spots her. There are definitely surveillance cameras recording every step we take but when someone sees the footage, it’ll be an hour too late.

It is all so sudden and quite exciting. An exhilarating feeling possesses me, I am thirteen again with my friends taking on every adventure in Six that comes at us. I am not just doing this to free Sera from their crushing grip but for me too.

ELEGANT

[d6a seraphina keoch [cait]]

but in spite of how you feel

it's not the end of the world

sera

keoch

I’d really only meant to get out of the Training Centre. If anything, I was mostly just trying to be a good mentee in asking permission to slink back to my room to sulk in the comfort of my bedsheets. But just when I think I have Flynn Garner all figured out, he surprises me yet again: “Let’s get out of here then.”

“Huh?” Something like a daze, I’m spurred into action by the exclamation that follows – “Quickly!” – trying to discretely make my way out of the Training Centre. But when your heart is hammering in your chest at a million miles an hour and, reminder, you still can’t breathe, it’s hard to regulate your senses. I’m coiled and high on nervous energy and wanting to run as soon as we hit the open hallway, but some supernatural force holds my hand, holds me steady. Arms thrust into the holes of the most garish red sweater I’ve ever seen and I have half a moment to berate myself for wishing it was pastel, of all things, before the doors are parting and I’m blinking in the sunshine, cringing at its artificial glow.

And only then do we run.

Don’t really know how long we run for, but it doesn’t matter to me. The thrill of something new and different in its infantile stages is alive in my veins. Every time Flynn glances back to look at me and check I’m keeping up, I try to wipe the feeling of freedom from the planes of my face. But the smile lines on my cheeks ache long enough for me to know I’m not fooling anyone.

“Aren’t you, like, a doctor? How are you so fast?” I gasp out. Because yeah, I’m like, out of breath almost immediately. Embarrassing really. I guess digging graves and hauling bodies halfway across town doesn’t count for cardio as much as I thought it did.

Luckily Flynn is merciful, and I’m only forced to endure a few short minutes of physical labour before we’re stopped in front of a flashy looking diner, complete with retro red-and-white painted walls and a flashing neon sign out the front. Much to my horror, the place is not empty; I’m suddenly aware of how many pairs of eyes and potential captors are waiting for us on the other side of the door.

“Are we going in?”

And then – mostly to shake the unease out of my voice and attempt to build my crumbling walls back up: “Do you treat all your mentees to ice-cream before abandoning them?”

BY CHELSEY

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

F L Y N N G A R N E R

Beep. Beep. Beep. I have only carried the dreaded pager a handful of times at the hospital, mostly on a night shift. Without fail, the code blues would come through at least twice and they would always be on a ward in the furthest part of the hospital. Then comes the sprint across corridors, up and down stairs and even across different buildings. I never look at who I pass, sometimes back at the nurse who’s behind me on the same call. Always ahead to he destination. Like the shiny rammed diner that has people bursting from the doors – it is much busier than I anticipated.

Yeah, I just compared running across the Capitol to a burger place and running across a hospital to a cardiac arrest. It is just how life is now. ”I am just naturally fast – keep up!”

Sera asks if we’re going in, I push open the door, holding it open for her to step in first. ”Keep that hood up, everyone will want to see who I have brought here…” We’ll get found out, eventually. Maybe it will make for great writing for the media, for Sera’s sake. I’ll take the punishment; I’ll make sure of it.

“Do you treat all your mentees to ice-cream before abandoning them?”

”What do you mean?”

I hurry Sera to a table, making sure to smile at every curious face that is mesmerized by our entrance. I am not continuing this conversation while standing at the door, it will draw everyone to us. Unlike Dale’s diner, this place is table service only so we can at least hide behind one of the oversized plastic menus in a leather booth in the corner of the diner.

There’s been no other Keoch in the games, I remember all the names. Maybe it was a friend, I have had a friend in it before. Someone not long ago. Maybe Axyl or Isolde. Not the 95th. Or Caspian or Quentin. ”You should know that as soon as you’re in that arena, I have no power. I can send you hundreds of parachutes, but it doesn’t matter. I never abandon anyone!” That’s a lie, I abandoned Jimmy for Nessa. My own family. I have already spent ten years blaming myself for all of them, I don’t need another voice affirming it.

”I am sorry, for whoever you lost. And yes, I blame myself. For all of them. So, give me all the hate that you’ve got. You’re the first mentee to ever say it.” Gulp. Two years ago, my cheeks wouldn’t have been so dry, but all the emotion has been squeezed out of me. All I can do is hide my face of shame behind prints of ice cream sundaes and milkshakes.

”You can have whatever you want.” I slide the plastic menu across the table to Sera, we’re both sat opposite each other on the red and white checkered leather booth seats. I push my head back against the cushioned leather, exhaling. This place feels as confined as the training center. ”And no, you’re the first tribute I have ever taken out for ice cream.”

ELEGANT

[d6a seraphina keoch [cait]]

but in spite of how you feel

it's not the end of the world

sera

keoch

Flynn is quick to usher me through the doors, taking me under his wing both metaphorically and literally to keep me out of the public eye. But the curious gazes are upon us immediately – I can feel the inquisition, the judgement. It’s to be expected, I suppose. The price of freedom or whatever you want to call this.

We fold ourselves into a booth at the furthest corner of the diner and wordlessly pick up the menus on the table, but I can’t focus on the words on the page. Flynn had sounded genuinely hurt when I accused him of abandoning Izzy, and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to have been so dismissive of someone trying to help me. Maybe this is all just his way of righting the past. It’s enough to make me start to soften.

That is, until he continues to ramble in his condescending way and tell me he has no idea what I’m talking about.

That stings a bit. The voice in my head telling me how pitiful it is that I wasn’t even important enough to be brought up by Iz when I’m sat here now with nothing except her on my mind. Luckily I’m not the petty sort. I’m rational enough to understand I can’t always be the centre of everybody’s universe. Just like how I’m rational enough to know that it’s not fair to blame Flynn. I know Izzy as well as anyone on the face of this Earth. If she wanted to fight, she would have. But there’s something to be said about the days spent leading up to entering the wretched Arena. If Izzy thought she had a chance to live, she would have.

Now look where that got us.

“It was Izzy. Last year.” Does he remember her? Or has she already become just another forgotten face of lost youth in the ageing life of Flynn Garner? “She was my world. My best friend. When she didn’t come back... it didn’t feel like there was much point in living. Which, you know, is saying a lot, given all the dead bodies I hang around.” Never thought I’d see the day I’d be admitting my illegal habits to barely-acquaintances and relating the most to strangers in grave beds, but here we are.

It’s quiet for a while, then. For that suspended space in time where we’re mulling over each other’s words: weighing them, feeling the burden and sincerity in them.

Then: “You can have whatever you want.”

I haven’t cried for her in a while now – thought I’d gotten through all of my tears, honestly – but all it takes to send me hurtling past the point of no return is one look at Flynn’s forlorn face and glistening eyes for my own to start welling up in solidarity.

There is so much life in this crowded diner, but in our secluded corner of an unfair world, we are the two saddest people in the universe.

I point wordlessly to the picture of the caramel sundae before standing the menus upright and arranging them in an architectural attempt to give us some privacy.

“I’m sorry too.” I should say more; I just can’t. I gnaw at the bottom of my lip, hating the feeling of queasiness deep in my stomach. At least I can breathe again.

“I don’t hate you. I just miss her. You get it.”

I don’t know what to do, who to be, how to breathe, without her.

BY CHELSEY

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

F L Y N N G A R N E R

Isolde Owens died on the fifth day. Last year there was that nagging hope in District Six, it all came crashing down when Axyl died in the Top Four. Just as it did when Nessa was so close to the finale. There’s no point in holding any hope until I finally welcome one in the post-games hospital bed with oxygen in their lungs. I am lying to every one of them and all those to come with my poker face of hope, I wonder if Teddy feels the same, but I have no idea what is going on in that man’s head nowadays.

“She was my world. My best friend. When she didn’t come back...

It is all starting to piece itself together, the reason why Sera volunteered, I am starting to understand why. How drastic but would I have done the same for the five I have lost?

We’re both buried behind a fort of standing menus, a little safe space hidden away amongst the hustle and bustle of a popular Capitol diner. One of my hands is spread flat on the table as my back hunches over it. Five intact digits, unlike the prosthetic ear on the left side of my head. One digit for a best friend, two digits for two cousins, one digit for a boyfriend and the last digit for a sister. If I cut each of them off, would it bring them back?

No, I can’t mull over them not when I am not the one struggling here. ”I get it.” I look up and I see Sera’s glacial eyes and quivering lips, her emotions are on show. Projecting my own trauma is going to be no help to her. I extend out my hands, offering them as some kind of comfort. It is hard hugging over a table, especially with someone I do not know.

”You volunteered because her, didn’t you?” Me of all people cannot lecture anyone of why volunteering is the dumbest thing in the world. Those two words ten years ago were the domino effect of my own demise. ”I didn’t get to fully know Izzy in the short time I knew her but I don’t think she would want you to throw yourself away. Light can be found with grieving, it can take a long time but it is always there…” Just as I was close to throwing myself away for Johnny but along came Andal. Then again for Nessa but I found other ways of treating the pain…advice when I don’t even follow it but there is always something waiting to light up the darkness, even in the deepest parts. Grief never goes, it is just a part of life. It is always there.


”You can fight for yourself and get out of this with your life. You’ve seen what has been happening in Six, we could stop this from continuing! Or you can make it quick, the podiums will detonate if you step off before the timer. You won’t feel a thing.” I gulp at what I just said, I didn’t need to say that. She can hate me now if she wants but I eat up my words quicker than the waiter who is dawdling on taking our order.

”If you want it, I can help you with all of the power that I have. You don’t need to decide right now, we can eat ice cream and talk about Izzy if you want or anything you like. We can even sit here in silence and just enjoy the peace until the Training Centre notices you’re missing…one caramel sundae and one banana split please and two sodas.” A waiter with a notepad peering over our barricade interrupts us. ”I will be here for you, for however long you need, want or the Capitol allows me!”

ELEGANT