the good, the bad, the { l o v e l y } // dars

[Stare]

i'm frozen by the fear in me
somebody make me feel alive
and shatter me

T H E S E . G H O S T S .won’t stop haunting me.

Smile, Felicia. Smile. Yes, just like that. You’re going to be wonderful.

But how can I, when the girl who can tie herself into knots has so many scars and the boy who tames the beasts was almost snatched away from me?

Is it strange to fear love? To believe yourself a curse? I never used to be afraid. I was Felicia Vaine and I was outstanding because I would settle for nothing less. I danced with death and distorted terror. That was what had defined me as a person ever since I had left my parents and their inflated expectations in order to become the girl who faced the gaping jaws of her greatest fear and lived to tell the tale. I made crowds breathless by putting my life on the line, keeping them on the edge of their seats until the last possible moment. Off the stage I was a bright ball of energy best known among my fellow performers to cause mayhem with Breyer, but no one ever yelled at me for it and everyone was always understanding when I really messed up. The circus was is my home, and it always will be. I don’t belong anywhere else.

But somehow the smiles feels so much more plastic now that I feel the Capitol’s noose around my neck, threatening to suffocate me if I dare defy them again. They rigged it. They must have. The couldn’t have me so they tried to take Breyer, and when they couldn’t have him they took Cricket. Cricket is still Cricket, of course, but now somehow she’s just a little bit different, if that makes any sense at all. Maybe that’s why I’ve distanced myself from all of them, more often going off on my own with Amber tucked beneath one arm. (At night I curl up into myself and wish for someone’s arms to be around me, to protect me. I can never have that kind of comfort, though. Loving me is like injecting poison into your own veins. I always end up killing you in the end.)

Even when I hated the smallshrinkingtiny spaces they put me into, I always loved to perform. I loved the fact that all eyes were on me, that I could shock and amaze and move entire crowds with a talent that comes so naturally to me. Of course, they wouldn’t be so impressed if they knew why, but that’s beside the point. Now, though, I’m only going through the motions. All I hear as I step out of my trap successfully for the gazillionth time is the frantic thump thump thump of my heart, and when I swoop down into a dramatic bow the cheering of the crowd sounds like the snarling of a beast. It’s worse today, for some reason, even as I smile cheerfully through the performances of Breyer, Apis, and Mac. When Cricket is up, however, I feel my smile fade despite all my best efforts, and I unconsciously drop back a step, avoiding the others’ questioning eyes.

Sometimes I look back on the day I was reaped and wonder what would have happened if I had gone in. Would I have had allies that became like family to me, as Destiny Lenstil had? Or would I have isolated myself and consequently been doomed from the start. Would I have lost my mind, as so many in those Games feared they would? Or would I have stayed sane until my final breath? Would I have won? I try imagine coming home, seeing my parents first thing when I got off the train, with all their wide smiles and open arms. And as much as I hate myself for it, I would have run to them. I would have cried for their acceptance, for their forgiveness, for their pride. Ripred, that’s all I ever wanted to do when I lived in that house. I wanted to make my parents proud.

And yet, I know that if I had died in those Games, they wouldn’t have mourned me. They wouldn’t have shed a single tear, just like the day I left. And that is what keeps me here, at the circus, with my true family. We’re freakish and outrageous and maybe a little bit crazy, but that’s okay, because in the end we’re closer friends than anyone else in District Two. That’s why it hurts, when one of us is torn away. That’s why I died inside when they forced Cricket into the Arena. That’s why my scars are reopened when I see her perform. But I remain where I stand, gritting my teeth and keeping my eyes on her.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present Cricket Antoinette, victor of the 63rd Hunger Games!”

But that, that’s too much.

Without even realizing it, I turn on my heels and flee. It’s not unusual for me to do so these days. Still, I can feel the questioning eyes of my fellow performers as I race away from the show, away from Cricket, away from all the ghosts that still haunt me. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I can’t be here, not now. It’s all overwhelming me, pushing and pulling and clashing within me like the tides I’ll never see, and I have to get away, away, awayawayaway -

I hit something. Hard. I only vaguely realize that it’s another person before I lose my balance and topple over, skidding against the ground. I lay there for a second, chest heaving, not quite realizing what’s happened, before gingerly picking myself back up and brushing the dirt out of my fresh cuts and glaring at the young man. I don’t care if he’s a paying spectator. I wouldn’t care if he was the bloody mayor. I’m an emotional wreck right now, and consequently I am merciless. “Oi! Why don’t you watch where you’re going, idiot?"

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

" So I bare my skin and I count my sins
and I close my eyes and I take it in "

I've gone cold.

My heart has felt too much, hurt too much, and it has finally decided to give up hope. I have decided to give up hope, because what is the point, really? Things are different from when I was a child. Though those were much, much simpler times, where it seemed things were always going to be looking up for me, and happiness could be found like oxygen in the air, just the simplest things making my day, perhaps even my week. Happiness- it's not just something I can just come across in the middle of the day anymore, is it? It seems to be a figment of my imagination in truth, a myth just the same as the stories I was told as a child.

Sometimes I think I can see it. Older couples that have lived a thousand lives in the time period of only one, mothers and their new children, and, I suppose even the careers called at the reaping have a bit of it, though I feel that emotion is completely different. Pride, that's more like it. The problem is, no matter how much I see it, large doses or small, I can't seem to get any for myself. My life is the same routine, and other than gambling, I feel perfectly safe- no, not safe, confined at all times.

The sounds of the dice dancing along the shiny wooden tables, cards clapping together in the hands of capable dealers, poker faces worn as a necessary garment of one's outfit, that is where I can find excitement. My uncle says I'm beyond my years in deception, a natural, he calls me. "You could walk a man off a cliff and still have him thinking he had the upper hand the whole way down." He told me. Be that as it may, my talent for lying and manipulation isn't something I should be proud of. Hurting people, using their weaknesses against them for my own personal gain when, really, I don't need it, it's something I should be ashamed of.

Until I find something else to bring a twist in the ride that is my life, however, I'm going to have to stick with it or risk going insane in the boundaries I am supposed to remain within. I try things. I hear people talking about all of these activities they partake in, hear them ramble on and on about how much they love them, and I try my hardest to agree with them, but nothing is really as incredible as they all make it seem. Perhaps I am an addict to gambling, a teenage burn out that has run out of options. It would make sense. It seems smoke filled rooms and decisions made by alcohol rather than sound minds are the only flavors of life for me, every other one tasting bland to me, but it's a habit that I am going to have to break eventually, before I meet my match and find myself with absolutely nothing.

This time, it is a circus act I am trying to use as a distraction. I found a flyer on one of the posts along the sidewalk, telling me in clear letters of the event, and decided it was as good an option as anything. I lost track of the time, so I found myself walking along the street in the mid-afternoon, hoping I wasn't too early or too late. I have heard about this act. Cricket Antoinette, Victor of the 63rd Hunger Games is one of the leading acts. I didn't have to read what it was, exactly. I watched her games, and I know exactly what she was going to be doing in front of the cheering crowds.

Before I can see her perform, however, or anyone for that matter, and blunt force slams square into my right shoulder as I round a corner, and I watch as a head of pretty blonde hair scrambles to the ground. "Oi! Why don’t you watch where you’re going, idiot?" I lean forward to get a look at the girl. Pretty, exceptionally so. Sandy curls fall past her frail shoulders in a mess due to the fall. Her eyes are blue, and currently clouded with tears. (I'm not the reason for them, am I?) Surely not.

I scoff and cross my arms over my chest. "I was watching where I was going. It was you that was running like some kind of a lunatic." It's the truth. She was running, almost as if trying to escape something, perhaps even someone. She has no reason to blame me for that, or anyone. Whatever she is so scared of, whatever has got tears making it hard enough for her to see that she can't manage not to slam herself into me is her business. I have nothing to do with it. I smirk at her, but I still extend a hand to help her up. "You okay there, Speedy?" She may be quick to place blame, but does that make her a monster? No.

How would I know?

Why, I am a professional.

Graphic by:
Stare
Notes:
It's short I'm sorry!!

[Stare]

these are hard times
for dreamers
and love lost believers

I ' V E . N E V E R .been one to trust easily.

The inability to trust is supposedly a character flaw, something meant to be overcome, but I've never regretted the carefully sculpted walls I've built. They're hidden well beneath a facade of an easy going attitude and a daredevil smile, but they're still there, quietly guarding me. Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever come down. I tell myself that they're temporary, a defense put up until I feel safe again, but who's to say I ever will? I thought I knew the meaning of danger when I fled my parents' house to join the circus. I thought my boxes and cages and chains were all true risks. I thought facing the suffocating, overwhelming feeling of walls closing in on me was some kind of bravery. Only now am I beginning to understand the true meaning of courage. I've been struck hard and one more blow could be crippling, so I won't let them hit me again.

It takes me a moment, propped up on my elbows and eyeing him warily, before I calm down. This young man isn't a threat, though I understand why the sight of him made me bristle almost immediately. He has the handsome, clean face and air of self assurance that only the wealthy can afford. Some girls might find it charming, but for me he is an echo of a life I left behind a long, long time ago. Even as I blink I can see the glittering chandelier that hung above our entryway, the grand curving stairway that led to the second floor and the place where I was imprisoned for a good portion of my childhood. The thought makes my stomach twist. I have to force myself to remember that he isn't an enemy just because he's wealthy. On that reasoning, I'd hate half the district.

I sigh an accept his hand, tugging myself back up.

The shift back into the Felicia the world knows - thrill seeking, trouble making, and carefree - is so automatic that I barely notice it. I make a big show of checking a scratch on my elbow, brushing away the dirt and smearing some blood in the process, before dropping both arms to my sides and shrugging, my lips twitching into a smile at the nickname he granted me. I glance down at my costume - a copper dress that looks like it's made of wrapping paper, in my opinion, though Mac assured me I didn't look nearly as shiny as usual - and grimace slightly at the dirt on it. Cricket's going to kill me. "I think I'll live." A pause. "Sorry for yelling. I wasn't myself." More like I was, but there's no need to share that information.

Now that I'm standing I find myself looking at him more closely, past the ritzy air that seems so blinding to me. He's fairly tall with a strong jaw and brown hair that seems too messy for his station. I know several girls back at school who would have swooned or clung to his arm, but I remain a fair distance away, well aware of how I look in comparison. A lunatic, just like he said. But then again, I never was one for appearances, was I? My lips curl up into a smirk. "If you think I'm crazy, you obviously haven't seen the show yet."

Ripred, Cricket is rubbing off on me.

"Which you're late for, by the way. We started a good twenty minutes ago." I can relate - I'm always running late for everything, be it rehearsal, an actual performance, or the events hosted by the Capitol that all district citizens are required to attend. The Reaping, for example. Breyer says I'm just plain lucky, always making it in the nick of time, and I tend to agree with him. Except for, of course, when I'm in such a hurry that I run into people.

This is where we should part ways - I'm not sure where I was running to or if I still want to go, but I should either be away or back at the show and certainly not halfway between - but something keeps me lingering. Maybe it's a desperate craving for the company of someone who doesn't look at me like a lost cause or a charity case, someone who doesn't know what I've been through and wouldn't care even if they did. Maybe it's just because he's the first person I've been patient with in ages. Either way I linger, trying to think of something to fill the awkward silence.

All at once it hits me, and my eyes light up, lips spreading into a wicked smile. "I'll make you a deal. I'll snag you tickets to our next show - the whole show, if you manage to show up on time - if you keep me company while I wait for this one to end. I get bored out of my mind just standing on the side watching. We could grab some popcorn or something. And I know what they say about strangers and all but - " I stick out my hand for him to take " - my name's Felicia Vaine. There. Now we're not strangers anymore."

Asking for a posh's company? You really are a lunatic, aren't you?

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

" So I bare my skin and I count my sins
and I close my eyes and I take it in "

My mother once told me I was the kind of boy mother's wished for.

I wonder if she still feels that way. I know that she hasn't bothered to tell me if I am. She hasn't barely bothered to speak to me at all these days. Maybe it's just because I am getting older. Maybe she is trying to get me ready for the world. I tell myself that, but it seems like she has an ulterior motive, and it isn't just for my benefit. I genuinely think she wishes she didn't have me to look at in the mornings at breakfast sometimes, and the same goes for my father. It is strange, looking at how close we all once were. She would pat me on the head when I helped clean the kitchen with her. My father would hug me when I got a good grade on a test, or even if I got a bad one. "You'll get it next time, Kiddo." he would promise. Now, I don't even think he knows what grade I'm in.

Things change. That is a part of life, I have learned. There is nothing I am ever going to be able to do about it. Everyone you love leaves you, everything you care about fades away, and in the end you are just left with yourself and just enough will to start over. The only question that this logic begs is this: What happens when you don't have enough will to go on? I think that is the point in which you become someone like me, who really isn't a person at all, but more so a vessel where a person used to be. It's sad, I suppose, but it's the truth. I am no more alive than the concrete I am standing on.

The slight blush that wisps across my cheeks is inevitable, but it fades quickly, hopefully quickly enough that she didn't notice it. She probably can't notice anything with those tears in her eyes, anyway. I have been flirted with before, and I have done my fair share of it myself, but for some reason she has managed to catch me off guard. That was what she was doing, right? Flirting with me? It certainly seemed so, and I should know, I am the king of tricks.

And what is love but a trick?

It pulls people in and traps them, like the web of a spider, and then they are just stuck, doomed to wait and see where their fate will lead them. There are so many options, and so many of them are saddening. The monster could come and take away the one they love, or it could take them instead. They could have a chance to escape, but have no time to save the other, or there is the other option, which seems the slightest, and they would both make it out happily and live together forever. In my experience, the last option never happens, and I have watched as the world has ended relationship after relationship, and in complete honesty, I am sort of blessed to now have a frozen heart. It means it's too numb for me to feel any more pain.

I fold my arms across my chest and raise an eyebrow, pushing the thoughts in my head away. Keep her company? What exactly did she mean by that? Hopefully it isn't what my gut tells me- as macho as I am, or, pretend to be, whatever, there is a secret that only I know about myself. Inexperience isn't really a bad thing, and I shouldn't feel that it is, but I can't help thinking people would see me as less of a person. A sheltered idiot, or a chicken. Until my heart gave up, I told myself I was just waiting for the person I wanted to share everything- more than just my virginity- with. Now, I am not sure why exactly I remain loyal to what mother's wish for their sons to be. Maybe what people would say about me is right. Maybe I am a sheltered idiot, or a chicken. Maybe something worse.

"If I were a betting man-" I am a betting man, the betting man, in fact. "I would say you just wanted to spend some time with me, Miss Vaine." I narrow my eyes at her in a sort of playful manner. The tickets actually are a good wager for what she is asking. Whatever she is, which is apparently something that can get me free tickets to the next show, she seems interesting enough to hold my attention, so I nod. "Deal."

I lean against the brick wall and smile again at her. "So, where to?" There are a few places I hang out, but none of them hardly seem appropriate for such a little, fragile girl. Actually, she isn't quite fragile as much as she is just small. Strong arms, quick steps, sure movements, she is definitely physically fit, not some dainty damsel in distress that can't fend for herself, but it still seems inappropriate to take her anywhere I would think to go. Just because I am a monster doesn't mean I have to turn her into one as well, does it? I can pretend I'm a good person, if only for a short moment, and she won't ever know the difference, so that's just what I am going to do.

[Stare]

we are golden, yes we are
hear the thunder
see the stars

M Y . S M I L E . quickly transforms into a wide grin, the one I was once so well known for before the Reapings became an annual event of torture for me. There was a time when I flirted with just about anyone who could spare the time to talk to me - I played weak little damsel for the Careers and wicked escape artist for those outside the Training Center - but things are different now. I changed when I ran away, perhaps because the ease with which I entertained the opposite sex was one of the few things that pleased my mother. I don't think I really did it on purpose. It just didn't seem so important anymore, and I found that having guys as friends was much more fun than looking at them romantically, anyway.

He brings back old habits, though, and suddenly I'm all charm. "Somewhere we can cause trouble." I raise my eyebrows, as if daring him to back out while he still can. "And lots of it." I never was the quiet type and that's probably one of the many reasons I joined the circus. They loved that I was loud, a troublemaker, a rebel by nature. I consider taking him to one of my favorite pubs, but it's a bit early in the evening for that kind of thing and Cricket would kill me for getting drunk on the night of a performance even if my act is already over. Besides, it'd be low even for me to drag a man of high class to the grimy old bar. He's so posh that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he doesn't drink, but even if he does it's probably only the best. Nothing there would be good enough for him.

There was a time when it wouldn't have been good enough for me, either.

To my surprise, the second thing that comes to mind isn't flashy and dangerous, as I'd been aiming for, but it still makes my eyes light up. It's small and quiet for being in the rougher part of town, and the owner knows me by name. "I think I know a place. Let me change first, though. There's no way I'm going out looking like the queen of gift wrap."

I change out of the ruffles and short skirt into some fitted jeans and a t-shirt. Mother certainly wouldn't approve - she thought the best way to impress someone was with a low neckline and a wide skirt, not a pair of skinnies and a loose top - but it's been a long time since I've been Mommy's little girl, and I can't help but grin rebelliously even years after she last scolded me as I catch my reflection in the full length mirror in my dressing room.

I lead the way off the grounds toward the more grungy part of the district. I know it's probably not his territory and that I certainly avoided this part of town when I was still wealthy enough to be worth jumping, but recently its become something of a salvation for me. I fit in well with the outcasts the reside here, and while I don't dare make conversation with any of them they address me with a certain amount of respect that shows they acknowledge me as one of them. I hope it's enough to keep my companion in the clear as we weave through the streets, careful to stay in the glow of the streetlights. "Sorry about all this," I tell him somewhat sheepishly. "I promise it's worth it, though."

Indeed, when we finally reach our destination and I shove open the door, I can already smell the apple pie. The restaurant's a small one, charming in its old fashioned style, with a long counter and mismatched stools on one side and a pool table on the other. The people already inside aren't nearly as sketchy as the ones on the streets, and the woman behind the counter certainly doesn't look like she belongs in this part of the district with her graying blond hair and wide smile. I can tell by the way she walks, with her chin up and proud, that Amy has a story, but I never asked and she never told me, just like how she never acknowledged me as the girl who broke down sobbing when her friend was reaped. I turn toward my companion, my smile surprisingly genuine. "I know it doesn't look like much, but Amy makes the best pie in the district, and their burgers aren't that bad, either." I jerk my head in the direction of the pool table. "And if that's not enough, I'd be happy to cream you in a game or two." As I move toward the counter, I glance over my shoulder. "I don't think I caught your name, by the way. Care to tell me, or do I have to guess all night?"