Hope There's Someone [Peethon]

[arx.]

There's a ghost on the horizon
when I go to bed.
How will I fall asleep tonight?
How will I rest my head?

One whole year. An entire year of nothing but tear stained t-shirts and pained voices. Or maybe just one pained voice. It started with Drace. The 64th Reaping came around and suddenly everyone in this mansion was shaken to the core. There was a place much worse than the cage we lived in and only one, very fucked up person came back from that place. Drace wasn't one of those fucked up individuals that came home to their families and friends a completely different human being - he was one that came home in a body bag. My best friend was dead and gone and sleeping six feet below and honestly, even though I had expected that outcome, some tears still manage to slip past my usually stellar defenses and that tiny sliver of hope I had was crushed into non-existence. The idea that I wouldn't ever see him again alive and in the flesh made my stomach twist and sometimes I would wake up at night drenched in sweat, remembering only that I couldn't catch up to him before the blade that ended his life fell upon him. It was on those nights when I awoke that I could hear Val's quiet sobbing through the wall. Sometimes I would go to her, try to comfort her as best as I could, but most times I only sat with back pressed against the headboard and listened, forcing away tears as I waited for her to go back to sleep. Sometimes the sun would come up and I could still hear her. She would crawl out of her bed and I mine and she would try to look presentable and so would I and we would go on like that until she broke from the stresses of the day and I would just hold her, trying to make it better but mostly feeling like a horrible person.

Drace was dead. That's why she was crying. They were in love ... or at least I think they were. I was too busy hating Valencia to really notice if she and my best friend were getting along alright despite Magnus' watchful eye. They wouldn't have to worry about that anymore if he had come home alive. All in the time span of about a week Drace was gone and Magnus was gone and everything in my usually well balanced world was being completely flipped upside down. I was glad Magnus was dead. Val burned the contract the say she was released from the hospital. I never asked and I never will, but I'm certain that having your own father shoot you is not something that you hope to receive as a gift from the man. She was essentially an orphan. But seeing as I had no other place to go and she the idea of leaving a grieving girl like her alone in a big, empty mansion made me feel horrible, I stayed. It was only right that I do it anyhow. Tib may have incited the whole fire fight thing, but I had carried her to the hospital when I thought she was going to die right there in my arms, sat by her bedside until the doctors were certain she would live, and I hid her father's body in a way a very dignified manner. As much as I wanted to kick and spit well, I still did that but still on his corpse, I took the time to bury him somewhere outside the District parameters. Maybe I should've asked if she wanted to kick his corpse herself. He was a horrible man and yet she was so, so good and it still was bewildering to me. She and her mother must've have been nearly identical. There was no way Val had gotten anything from her ruthless, manipulative, cold-hearted father.

She was distant though. Her heart was shattered. It was hard to watch. It was even harder to comfort her. In the beginning, while my arm was still in a sling and she was still immobile, I tried to tell her that everything would be alright. That the worst was over and now she just needed to get over it and it would be alright. That didn't work of course. I was fairly certain it wouldn't. After all, I was still brooding, bitter, and utterly depressed about having been sent to the Detention Center to endure a punishment that was not rightfully mine after watching my brother shoot my sister. There was no convincing me that after her mother died when she was young, her boyfriend died in the Hunger Games, and her father shot, and nearly killed, her that a few words from someone she had barely talked to was going to make all of that disappear. So it seems that it has only gotten worse and worse since everything had happened. And now with the next games rolling around, she was only reminded of what had been lost. Lucky for us, we didn't have to stand in the square this time. But just watching all those tiny faces flash on the screen was disheartening enough to make me want to cry all over again for completely different reasons. My sister would've been that age this year.

I've never shared that story with anyone. I've never even mentioned my little trip to the Detention Center to anyone before out of fear that they couldn't stand to look at me anymore, that they might actually see me as the criminal thug that I had been forced to become. It really was insane how Val could even look me in the face. I can remember when I hated her with every fiber in my body and soul. I looked at her, saw the jewels and the make-up and pretty clothes, and I saw her father written all over it. She could look like that because we were essentially her father's slaves. I still hated her even after she lent me money to pay off my next month. I knew there was something that she wanted, that the only reason she could possibly be helping me was because there was something that she wanted in return. Maybe she wanted me dead, maybe she would tell her father about how I had threatened to kill her, maybe she was just as sadistic and heartless as her own father and just wanted to see me fail - I didn't know the exact reason, I just knew there was one. For so long I had believed that there was nothing but a hideous monster hidden beneath it all. I figured that the reason she wore the make-up and put a smile on her face was because if she trying to cover up the same sort of evil that possessed Magnus. I had to see her broken and torn to shreds to realize she was still just the same beautiful girl underneath. I had been a real jerk to one of the kindest people on the face of the Earth. Drace had tried to tell me, he really had, and I guess, as always, I was just too stupid and blind with rage that I couldn't let myself see it.

But now I saw it everyday. She walked around and one might swear she was a ghost the way she only just seemed to be balancing on the edge of existence. Once I found her just standing in the middle of the kitchen, her gaze caught on something distant. She didn't even flinch when I walked in, her gaze didn't even flicker. When I got closer, asking what was wrong, I had to step forward to catch her as tears and a fit of sobbing ensued. Just like I had my good days and my bad days, she had her's. I regretted the days when we were both too broken down to be of much help to each other. Those days were the hardest, when we were both just too lost in a realm of sorrow and loneliness that we couldn't even manage to make it out of our bedrooms. But really, I just wanted her to stop crying and hurting so much. I had been doing it for years now, I had adjusted to the loss and the pain and I can deal with it most days. And if I could just step in and talk it all away from her and wear it upon my shoulders I would. There wasn't many people I would do that for and slowly but surely, Val has become one of them. When she cries, I feel it. Not just because her tears soak through my t-shirt and her soft sobs rack her body as I comfort her, but I can feel the pain inside me, too. When she smiles (I love it when she manages to smile), I can't help but feel this huge weight lift off of my shoulders, like somehow when the pressures of the day lift off of her shoulders they are lifting off mine just the same. Like we were connected ...

---

I sigh as I wander through the streets, the morning air cool, my breath billowing out in front of me as I exhale. The sun was only just beginning to rise, and out of old habit, I had stayed out all night. But instead of holding a knife, I held a beer bottle. And instead of wearing a big, black hooded sweatshirt, I wore nothing but a thin grey tee. I had grown numb to the cold hours earlier while I stood on street corners and watched the hustle and bustle of the night streets with a different perspective. I didn't need to hunt these people anymore and I couldn't help but just stare. Most were wary of me, avoiding walking past me as I stood sipping out of a bottle I had found back at the mansion. It made me chuckle. The one time I have never needed to hurt anyone and they were edging away from me. But if I had hid in the shadows and blended with the night, they would've walked straight into me, forgetting to fear what they couldn't see hidden around the corner as they walked home alone. But now I was completely harmless, fighting hard to tire myself out so that by the time I got back home (Yes. It most certainly was home now, not a cage.) I might be able to sleep. What with the nightmares that have been occurring more and more often though, I looked like I had risen from a grave. My eyes ached, drooped, and burned from all the strain of staying open, and my entire body almost felt as if it was shutting down. But it wasn't just the nightmares that kept me awake at night. She was there too, pushing at all the critical pressure points in my brain, forcing almost all of my thoughts to turn her way.

I made my way through the large gates at the front of the mansion, tossing the completely empty bottle into the bushes along the edge of the path. Part of me wished that I could toss my feelings away just as easily. Where there was longing there was guilt, where there was pleasure, there was more guilt. Everything I was doing - everything I was feeling - made me feel like I was betraying him or her or me. There is a simple equation for all of this madness, a little story that I told myself to get through it all, to try to sort out what I thought in the simplest terms possible. I turn the door knob, stepping out of the cold as my mind runs through it all again, just as it always does when I enter the house. (Drace was - is - my best friend. Drace and Valencia are in love. Drace died and that made the both of us sad. I hate seeing Val hurt so much, but I like getting to hold her in my arms. I should feel guilty. Val cries because Drace isn't here. She only cries on my shoulder because there is no one else to go to. She is still in love with Drace. I am still friends with him. Dexter really likes Valencia. And he should feel really guilty about that because he is betraying his best friend and stealing the girl he cares about away from him, and because he is using his best friend's tragic death as a way to justify his actions. I, idiot Dex, should really stop being so stupid. But I want nothing more than to call her mine.) End of story. So clear cut and yet so damn complicated.

Kicking off my shoes I make my way through the house, down the hallway, planning on collapsing into bed and sleeping for all eternity, when I hear a sound that has become to familiar. I stop at the staircase, turning towards the living room. As I peek around the corner, my footsteps quiet as I make my way into the room, I only see the back of her head, golden blonde hair brushed and shining as morning light stretches across the room to meet it. But I can already hear her crying, quiet, but not in an empty and silent house. I swallow hard, the story I have told myself over and over again playing in my head. I make my way around the couch until I can see her, tears running down her cheeks and the smell of hot cocoa contradicting the oppressing depression in the room. She is clutching the mug in her hands, as if maybe her life depended on it or perhaps she didn't even realize it was there anymore. I don't even ask what is wrong. I just reach for the mug and pull it free from her hands, set it down on a nearby table, sit myself next to her on the couch, and pull her into an embrace. "Sorry." I whisper, because I am. Sorry that Drace isn't here, sorry that I wasn't here when she woke up, sorry that I can't make it better, and sorry that I couldn't stop myself from wanting her in a way that I am sure she did not want me.

Oh I'm scared of the middle place
between light and nowhere.
I don't want to be the one
left in there, left in there.

[Python]

Valencia Nox

Last year Valencia Nox had been a train wreck beyond repair; the wreckage could be salvaged and pieced together to form one broken girl with fractures in her soul, but there were fragments that would never be recovered. Her mother, perished from sickness before her first reaping. Royce, the boy who had faced her father’s relentless wrath and lost. Drace, the reaped gambler murdered by the hand of Panem’s newest celebrity. Her father, the devil wearing no disguise struck down by a simple bullet wielded by somebody who was neither criminal nor hero - just remarkably human, like her. Like Dexter. Like everybody who withered in this mansion of horrible memories, except most humans had one or two weakness while Valencia possessed too many to count. Even those who were bloodthirsty were not as flawed as she was, and what was she to do but burn her father’s contract, offer shelter and waste away having already served her purpose? Train wrecks were disastrous; they left scars upon the land and the mind, unable to be mended completely. Valencia, still, was in the process of recuperating from her losses. She was almost certain she would never find salvation no matter how long she waited.

Time heals, they say, but does it really?

Wounds, perhaps, like the closed patch of skin upon her shoulder where her father’s insanity had struck. Everything the medical professionals could not heal in her skin would be healed with time and patience, and it was with her arm wrapped in a sling that she had reduced her father’s sadistic contract to ashes, buried him next to Royce’s rotting grave (with Dexter’s help) and stood in the district square with salt in her eyes as Opal’s venom made it perfectly clear that Drace Vandel was not to be look at with admiration, but with hatred as red as his spilled blood. The longer she remained handicapped the weaker she felt, but it was not because of the bounds. It was everything else around her; the victory tour, Drace’s funeral, the onset of emptiness and loneliness that followed these deaths and the absence of a purpose. When her wound had finally closed she had been in her frailest state, having returned home that day with darkness etched beneath her eyes from insomnia and stress. Both of her parents were gone, her lover was gone, her friends were departing one by one, and there was nothing time could do to help.

An exception to the losses was one gained friendship, one glimmer of hope within the shadows of despair that had gripped her tight and saved her from a lonely abyss. He was now, perhaps, her one and only friend and her closest friend (other than Damea Vandel, who she had sworn to protect from harm. And she had succeeded, for who would say that the Vandels hadn’t been saved thanks to Tiberius’ bravery?). His name was Dexter Magma, former street-walker and criminal, Drace’s best friend, and Valencia’s anchor to sanity. He had been there that fateful day to witness her father’s death and carry her to the medical center as blood leaked painfully from the bullet wound in his bicep. He had saved her life and shared her agony. She was more than grateful to him for his newfound loyalty, and the least she could do was offer him permanent residence if he so needed it. Apparently he did, so he remained in the mansion with her as a friend and counsel. He cradled her to his chest whenever she cried and muttered meaningless apologies that somehow warmed her heart during the winter. He watched over her when she needed the company and the comfort. She just needed him, and he was always there.

Now the reaping for the Quell was a week away, and although she was safe from harm for another year the memories of Drace were resurfacing. She still remembered standing in the middle of the district square like a caged animal, frozen to the ground and crying out at the sound of his name. She remembered curling up on the sofa to watch his interview and smiling at his radiant charm. She remembered him sprinting though the bloodbath with blades assaulting him at every angle until there were tears in his shirt and lacerations in his flesh. She remembered clutching her pillow as he battled the Combustiphants with his terrifying circle of allies. She remembered his arm igniting in the feast. She remembered his screams. Everything leading up to this metamorphosis into a desperate, animalistic monster fighting viciously for survival had been recorded permanently inside of her skull like hieroglyphics carved into stone. The death itself had drowned her in melancholy, and the vision of Drace bleeding out into the soil with a former ally towering over his paling corpse still haunted her to this day. She may be able to avoid the Reaping, but she could not banish the past from her conscience. As the dreadful day approached (it would all be children this time, all under fifteen years old. Poor, pure, innocent souls), she knew her nightmares would grow more frequent and more sinister. One of these nights she might wake up screaming.

The winter weather suited her mood perfectly. In her state of wallowing she boiled herself a cup of hot chocolate (insisting that her servants take the day off to relax and leave her in peaceful silence) and stood quietly in her empty kitchen tracing circles on granite countertops with one polished, ring-bearing finger. Sometimes she preferred to be alone, but it was during this time that she always lost herself in thought. They were never healthy thoughts. They always dwelled on her father, on Drace, on her mother, and especially on herself. She continued to question her purpose now that there was nobody left to protect. She had saved her father’s victims from crisis and donated to charities, so what else was left? Mother said it was a woman’s dream to marry and bear beautiful children, but she had no hope for that. She was far too young and pessimistic to imagine herself with a functioning family and children. She could hardly function on her own as it is; how was she expected to find a loving husband and take care of children? Who would marry her? Had he survived, would Drace have stayed and lived and loved long enough to ask for her hand?

It was these questions that ripped her heartstrings in the silence she had so willingly (and regrettably) asked for. After she stirred the mix and sweetened her brew with miniature marshmallows she sauntered into the living room and slipped in front of the fire place. Warmth and flavor were supposed to be luxuries and remedies; right now, they just felt like extra burdens. A few sips of her beverage were not enough to cure her sorrows, and within minutes she was succumbing to tears yet again. She hated herself for it. The only feeling worse than the dejection itself was the defeat that followed, and the knowledge that she was not strong enough to battle tears. She was too easily manipulated by her emotions. She was weak, and she couldn’t help it. She could only hate it.

She didn’t hear the door creak, or the footsteps on her staircase. It was his shadow that she noticed through blurred vision. Dexter gently withdrew the mug from her firm grasp (she didn’t remember squeezing the life out of it so aggressively) and set it down somewhere else. She touched her warmed palm to her cheek and wiped away a fresh tear, smearing it across her dampened skin. When his arms found her she leaned into his familiar touch and ceased her attempts to dry her face. It was no use, anyway. She was too helpless to heal herself. That’s why she relied so heavily on Dexter. It was pathetic, but it was in her nature. She knew that, now, so why fight it? ”I don’t know what my purpose is anymore,” she sniffled between soft gasps for breath, melting into his embrace. ”I sit here everyday, missing him, but I can’t do anything about it.” What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to seek her "eternal happiness"? She couldn’t ask Dexter, she was already enough of a burden to him. He shouldn’t have to listen to her weeping, her whining, or her mourning. Not after an entire year of it. ”I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear this.”

[arx.]

There's a ghost on the horizon
when I go to bed.
How will I fall asleep tonight?
How will I rest my head?

I wrap my arms around her, holding tightly as all her earlier attempts to stay poised and proper melt away in a new wave of tears. I hated this. There were plenty of things wrong with my life, plenty of things that I have had to endure - whippings for a crime I did not commit, watching my sister die, being tethered to a contract that forced me to hurt innocent people - but this, watching her hurt so much, was beginning to be the one thing I hated most of all. Rage was beginning to churn in my heart. A storm was brewing within me, a monster was rising to the surface, a dragon was awakening from its slumber - and it was all directed at the Capitol. They did this. They hurt me, they hurt Val, and most of all, they hurt Drace - beyond repair I might add. I think back to my interview with that lady from the Capitol nearly a year ago now. I had lost it then, even before Drace was completely gone from the world. I'm sure it all went in some magazine or some newspaper, or perhaps it even aired on television. The Capitol citizens now knew how Drace's best friend had reacted to his being in the games. But what they should really be worried about, is how I am reacting to his death. For me, much of the sobbing is over. The mourning has begun to subside. And now, I am ready to fight.

But Valencia, no matter how strong I think she is, sure as hell is not ready. And to be honest, I'm not sure she ever will be or that I ever want her to be. My fingers idly twirl the ends of her hair as her tears fall and sink into my shirt. I can feel them burning holes in my skin and searing straight through my flesh to my heart. This is not what I bargained for when I came here. From the very moment Magnus Nox picked me out of the streets and sat me down in his office, I have received deal after deal that I never ask for. And certainly not the pleasant kind. I wanted to live a luxurious life, one with trinkets and nice clothes and not live on the streets like scum, but I never wanted to have to drag others down in order to get there. I always wanted friends, a family that wasn't dead or busy stabbing me in the back, but I never wanted my heart to be torn from my chest when one of my friends was taken from me. I always wanted to fix myself. I've always dreamed of creating myself from the ashes of my past self, reborn as a completely different person with a completely different perspective on the world. I didn't want anyone to be able to vouch for my success. But my heart is just too easily tethered to things - to people. And now, if I ever get out of this slump, I know I will owe it all to her.

And ... And I think I will be perfectly content with that.

”I don’t know what my purpose is anymore,” she says softly between her gasps for air. Purpose. If Valencia Nox, name so prestiged and touch so soft and caring does not know her purpose, then what on earth is the purpose of a worthless, ex-criminal like me? ”I sit here everyday, missing him, but I can’t do anything about it.” And those heartstrings that are tethered to her strum, but not in a beautiful chord or to create a song. The sound they make is one that is disjointed, one where flat notes collide with sharp notes in a tune that would make anyone cringe and cover their ears. I clench my jaw, my teeth attempting to grind away the unwelcome feelings that have leaped into my mouth. Words teeter on the tip of my tongue, threatening to spill, but I cannot let them. They are forbidden. Unwanted. Her ears do not want to hear them, I am certain. And nor do mine. I will not admit that I am betraying my best friend. Not now. Not yet.

”I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear this.” And she is right. I don't want to hear her crying or hear her voice pained the way it is. But she thinks it's because it has been an entire year and I am sick of her. But my reasons extend beyond the petty hatred I used to feel towards her. I am not that man anymore and I don't ever plan on going back. I don't want to hear it because I would much rather hear her laughing than crying. I would much rather see her lips curled up in a smile than twisted into a frown. I would rather see her happy and holding Drace's hand than see her like this for another year. But just as she can do nothing to bring him back, nor can I. He's gone and he isn't coming back, no matter how much he loved her or how many tears stream down her face or wishes she sends to the stars. There once was a time when I was threatening to take her life in some dark alley. I was convinced it was some sick conspiracy, that she was giving me something to steal from her in order to get me in trouble. I thought she was going to tell on me, that she was heartless just like her father and she had some evil plot to get me killed. She told me she wasn't lying. That, ”There’s nothing to fall for.”

She lied to me. I didn't realize it until her father was gone and nearly everyone had left the house and Drace was brought home in a casket instead of wearing a crown on his head. I didn't realize it until she was in the hospital in critical condition and my heart leaped in my chest each time she grimaced as pain radiated through her body when she rolled in her sleep. I didn't realize it for so long that she really had lied to me. ”There’s nothing to fall for.” ... Nothing to fall for but her. And I had fallen hard, flat on my face, for a girl that was only being nice to me. It was a sign of good faith, not- ... not love. My emotions were beginning to get out of control. This was just a prime example. The 64th Hunger Games did not just take my friend from me, they took my sanity.

”Val, I will hold you and listen to you for eternity if it makes you feel better.” I keep my eyes focused away from her, afraid that it will sound weird if I am looking at her. And I am caught between wanting to smile and wanting to cry with her, but my voice is even when my next words come. ”Everyone thinks the worst of themselves,” I say, staring into the fireplace. ”So how about you just believe me when I say you have a purpose, a very important one, and without you, I don't think I would be so strong.” And I hadn't really meant for that to slip out, but it had - and it was the truth. ”Plus I can't make hot chocolate.” And that's when I smile.

Oh I'm scared of the middle place
between light and nowhere.
I don't want to be the one
left in there, left in there.

[Python]

Valencia Nox

Dexter was warmer than any mug of steaming chocolate, warmer than the flames flickering at their feet and casting an orange glow across the manor’s walls. She wanted to feel his heartbeat against her cheek and let the heat sink into her bones to replenish what little strength remained. What she didn’t want was to feel the salty tears dripping off the edge of her chin and see the stains on his shirt; more reminders of her weakness. She didn’t want to be the little bird anymore, yet here she sat wrapped in the protective cocoon of someone she may not have survived without. Always relying on other people, she was. Always needing help, needing comfort, needing someone, and Dexter was always waiting for her. But for how long? When would enough be enough for him? She knew she was a walking burden, she could feel it. Every tear she shed was just another burden to add to the bundle. How long would the misery last?

Yet even as she thought herself a nuisance, Dexter always managed to say the right thing, to convince her that maybe she wasn’t so pathetic. ”Val, I will hold you and listen to you for eternity if it makes you feel better.” She didn’t doubt him. Beneath the hard handsome visage was an honest man, true to his words and to his heart. His heart was what concerned her most, though, because with her in the picture how could he make time for Krisondra? Once upon a time they had been as close as she and Drace. There had been a passionate spark between them, everybody had felt it. But lately the two were hardly seen together, and she was beginning to believe that it was her own fault. She didn’t want to ruin his life with her constant whining. His heart belonged elsewhere, not here in her hands to be held and drained until every last drop of blood and warmth was gone. He should save it for the one who deserved it most.

”Everyone thinks the worst of themselves,” he insisted, and the words drew her eyes to his. She could see the reflection of the fire in his pupils, dancing away as he struggled to comfort her. Always struggling. Did that also mean he thought the worst of himself as well? The months he spent prowling the streets for money, victimizing the innocent and the despised alike; did he hate himself for it? He had her father to blame, only her father. Dexter was a good person with a pure heart – pure until it had been tainted by the ink used to sign her father’s contract. Now it was all over, though, and there were new pains to face and fresh wounds to bandage. She figured she thought the worst of herself also. Why else would she be so miserable in the presence of such a loyal friend?

Once again, he knew exactly what to say. ”So how about you just believe me when I say you have a purpose, a very important one, and without you, I don't think I would be so strong.” Strong, with her? How could that be? She was a heavy weight dragging him down further than an anchor would snag him down to the ocean floor. How could somebody so needy provide him strength? Was it the friendship, the fact that she saved him, or was it something else? Was it the bond they had shared with Drace when he had still breathed fresh air? She didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. She merely smiled at the words that followed, then she knew exactly what to say.”I can teach you,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. ”And thank you, Dex. You always know what to say.”

She reached over and grasped her mug of hot chocolate, now cooled, and brought it to her lips. ”Do you want some? I made it extra sweet.” Like you, she thought, but it was too cheesy and inappropriate for her to say out loud.

[arx.]

$ Dexter Magma $

district 3 - eighteen - from rags to riches

There's a ghost on the horizon
when I go to bed.
How will I fall asleep tonight?
How will I rest my head?

I look down just in time to see her smile - that increasingly rare, beautiful smile. I let the breath that I had unintentionally been holding free, feeling all the tension that had twisted my heart evaporate, just at the sight of her smile. How could I have not noticed her smile before when she tried so hard to be nice, when Drace walked by in the hallway? Was I really in that much of a blind rage? Or was I somehow being loyal to Drace? Or Kris? Kris. I'd killed for her. Used my bare hands to beat the men that bashed and bruised her to a bloody pulp. I murdered because she came home early in the morning with a black eye or purple wrists. She and Valencia were polar opposites - and yet they both meant so much to me. Where was Kris now? I feel my smile fade. I stare at the flames, at the rug that is sprawled before the fireplace, the memory of a night spent with Kris there. I can feel her next to me ...

”I can teach you.” She says. Val says. Her head rests on my shoulder and she's so warm ... so warm compared to the brisk air outside and I think maybe even warmer than the fire itself. ”And thank you, Dex. You always know what to say.” And all earlier thoughts leave my mind, because nothing else - no one else - matters more right now than her. And I'm glad that for once in my life I could say the right thing. For so many years I have been struggling to make the right choices, and I guess that with all that has been going on lately, what with a dead sister, dead friend, and dead boss, I needed someone to reassure me that I was doing something right. The smile inches back onto my face as she reaches for her mug.

”Do you want some?” She asks between sips. ”I made it extra sweet.” And in that moment I could swear that if I didn't know her well enough, I might actually think she was flirting with me. But, unfortunately for me, I do know her. And I know that her innocence runs straight through to her core. And that her heart is still beating for Drace ... As is should be ... She's faithful like that. We're so different. My hands are blood-stained for all eternity and hers gleam as if she has never once been exposed to the cruelty of the world we live in. My nose runs a bit crooked having broken too many times to count and her's is - well, cute as a button. My lips, chapped to the point of bleeding, form curse words and death threats as if that was all my vocabulary consisted of. Hers are always shades of red or pink, shining and soft, and never have I heard her utter anything that might hurt someone. We're so different. I was born in the slums of the district with no hope of being important to anyone - I was always meant to be a failure. But Val was born an heiress to the throne of a very powerful empire, set to inherit everything, meant to become someone who rose above the rest and succeeded and lived on despite the fact that she lived in Panem. Yet, somehow, we are both here in the exact same place. Grieving, aching, and clutching to one another so that we might somehow shelter one another from the rain that is pouring from the dark cloud that has blocked the sun from the moment Drace left us. Holding onto what is familiar - that's all we are doing.

I nod. "Sure," I say, standing and offering my hand to her. "I'd love some." I look at our hands as I lift her from where she sits. I count nine scars dancing along my knuckles. And those are only the ones that aren't being covered by her hand. I don't see any on hers. I drop her hand. Differences. She walks past me as I let her lead the way to the kitchen and I can smell the hot chocolate and perfume. I'm pretty sure I smell like sweat and alcohol. Another difference. She walks a straight line, I nearly stumble into the wall. Why the hell does she put up with me? I stop and lean against the counter, watching.

"Maybe I should just watch." I say, folding my arms. "I tend to break everything I touch."

Oh I'm scared of the middle place
between light and nowhere.
I don't want to be the one
left in there, left in there.

[Python]

He said to lose my life or lose my love
That's the nightmare I've been running from

_______________________________________________________

V A L E N C I A N O X
DISTRICT3 | EIGHTEEN

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She was blind to the extravagance around them; it was all she had ever known, this world of pearls and silk and crackling fireplaces that emitted warmth for shivering hearts. As beautiful as the house appeared to an outsider it was a wasteland without the lively souls that used to occupy its space. There was nobody left to pump it full of life because Dexter and Valencia and Damea were all beyond fixing with gentle words or promises of a brighter future. It felt like a cavern with robotic maids and servants patrolling the corridors with their cleaning supplies in hand, wiping what didn’t need to be wiped, dusting what deserved to be stained with filth after the sins her father committed. As empty as it felt, though, it was her only shelter, and someone so spoiled with riches should have no right to complain about a mansion, right? No matter how hollow it felt.

She didn’t think twice about the fireplace as Dexter helped her to her feet, or about the golden chandelier as she led him to the kitchen, or the about the granite countertops as she grabbed the tiny pitcher of hot chocolate she had brewed not ten minutes ago. ”Maybe I should watch,” he said as she offered him the pitcher with an extension of her hand. ”I tend to break everything I touch.” She frowned and grabbed an empty mug, disheartened by the words. They were ridden with self-loathing. ”That’s not true,” she insisted, pouring the steaming beverage into his mug. He had proven her prediction correct, then. Everyone thinks the worst of themselves, and he was no exception. In all honesty she could not dig deep enough into herself to find anything worth fighting for. She had absolutely nothing to contribute to this world besides money, and perhaps that was her only path. Donate her inheritance, so maybe somebody could benefit from her lifelong string of failures.

And Dexter, he must’ve hated himself too. She didn’t know his story, but she knew enough. She had been a witness to his dark secrets, almost a victim herself. What did the average citizen think of a mugger? Awful, despicable things, and maybe he shared those opinions after holding knives up to so many innocent throats. It’s not his fault, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he should hate himself for surviving, that he should blame himself for what her father caused. It all traces back to my father, doesn’t it? For somebody so cruel he was a persuasive man, having lured so many people into signing his contract. The world was a cruel place, and it had suited him well. ”The things you touch have always been broken.” So it wasn’t his fault it all. It never was, it never would be, and she refused to convince herself otherwise.

Her grip was unsteady, and pinch of liquid spilled over the side of the mug as her aim faltered. She yelped at the hot sizzle against skin and pressed her suffering thumb into the fabric of her shirt. I can’t do anything right, can I? She tried to disregard the incident and set the pitcher down before grabbing a paper towel to wipe the accident.

”Nothing is ever your fault, Dex. I hope you know that.” she grabbed his mug and handed it to him.

She wished she could say the same about herself.

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