blooms every hour • gryphon • blitz

[✨ zozo.]

elena carroway

I pick a flower every day for my sister.

Sometimes I buy bouquets and wreaths and flower crowns. She'll never know that they're from me but that doesn't matter. There are days when I want to spell out my name in petals across her front yard or ring the doorbell in the hope that she might get a glimpse of my head, running through the gates of the Victor's Village and back to anonymous safety. There are days I'm glad she has no idea I exist. But I visit the florists so often that they know me by my name and my smile. Perhaps one day she'll bother to ask who spends all their money on her. (Perhaps not.)

Today I hold a single flower in my hand. It's a white rose - no particular meaning at all, just what I could pluck from our garden at home. It's one of those days when I'm mad at her, mad at my parents for letting her go, mad at myself for being mad. The thorns burst the skin on my fingertips and I hiss in response, about to throw the damn thing to the ground. (Fuck this, who needs a flower anyway, I don't even know if it's true if she likes them could just be some Capitol bullshit to make us like her more, well fuck that she doesn't even know they're from me, why do I even bother.) Flowers on a doorstep don't mean anything.

Flowers in person, however, do.

There's a girl in my view and I'm desperate to get rid of the damn thing, so I walk with haste towards her and thrust the rose into her personal space, beaming, as I always do when I meet strangers. (My sister is a stranger and I'll probably never meet her.)

"I like your hair," I add through my teeth. "Here. For you."

[Gryphon]

My eyes bore into the empty pages of my writing journal as I flip through it softly, pages that may remain empty for who knows how long.

The words...those words...I'm still struggling to take them in. It's a short-lived cycle of me trying to gather the broken pieces of my heart, trying to understand it is reality, trying to understand that it is a great deal of difficulty to live a Fairytale's happy ending. Especially...especially in the rule we live under.

I just break down all over again in the end, whatever mess I have collected of my glass heart bursting into shards and flying off to wherever they wish to go. If I can't let those words sink in, how can I find the words to continue writing?

Tears brim my eyes as I just shut the journal closed and drop it to my lap. I place my now empty hands upon its surface as I desperately look around my surroundings, just hoping to find something, something to distract my mind and temporarily free it from the harsh, firm clutches of loss.

"I like your hair."

I freeze. I feel something gently brush my cheek. ...Great. This is the last thing I need, having to deal with others. I slowly turn my head to see a girl, grinning at me, and...I might have found that something to distract me.

"Here. For you."

On the bridge of my nose lays a white rose (...Haha, rhymes...). With trembling fingers, I reach up and grab the flower by its stem, bringing it closer to me before wincing in shock as I feel the thorns slightly dig into my skin. It drops onto my journal, and out of embarrassment my gaze locks on it. Eye contact's just going to make me feel uneasy. I open my mouth and, after a pitchy squeak, I manage.

"W...What for?"

[✨ zozo.]

elena carroway

"What for?"

She would ask me the same question and I wouldn't be allowed to tell her. And even if I was, she wouldn't believe me. I heard she has siblings upon siblings in the house she grew up in. Too many sisters to count - brothers, too. She wouldn't want me. Just another girl in her life overrun with sisters. Just another. Just another.

Mom and Dad told me I was special, but I know compared to her I'm not. I wouldn't be special in her eyes. Another. Just another. 

I'd make her believe it, though. I'd force her to.

"For being here" I shrug. She doesn't seem to want to look at me and a part of me irks with irritability. (I'm not special. I'm not special.)


Bullshit. I am.

"I thought you might like it and I have nobody else to give it to."

I'm a sickly-sweet stranger with a need to be appreciated. Please like it, I beg silently. Please.

[Gryphon]

A  l  e  x  a  n  d  r  i  t  e  .   R  o  s  e

"For being here."

The words leave me tongue-tied, and I begin to fiddle with my fingers. I didn't expect to hear that response out of all the possibilities of replies the girl could say to me.

"I thought you might like it and I have nobody else to give it to."

My emotions quickly transitioned from speechless to confused. Why wouldn't she have anyone else to give it to? If she wanted to offer this to a stranger for some  unacknowledged reason, isn't there other people that she would've noticed?

...Then again, there was my hair. And eyes.

My head lowers some more as my hands slowly move toward the rose again, taking care not to prick my skin with the thorns this time. I twirl it around for a brief moment before glancing up at the girl. I still didn't have the courage to speak, but I forced myself to--although this time my voice was more quiet and shaky.

"...Thank you."