Perspectives

The Other Brother

I see the train approaching, a tiny dark blob in the horizon that in a few minutes will bring back my brother to District 12. Disappearing amongst the cheering crowd is not even an option, since the organisers of the welcome event thought it fit to separate both familes of the Victors from the rest of the District 12 folk by a barrier. So it happens that the Everdeens and their "cousins", the Hawthornes, stand now side by side with the Mellarks; Seam and Merchant, a mix of complexions, wealth and temperament united in their relief and incredulity at being able to welcome both their children back. As the train approaches, I shrink closer to my brother, and suddenly I feel the button on my sleeve, the one I have been nervously tugging all day, loosen up and fall to the ground. I curse at my carelessness, thinking that once again, my brother will have to make do with clothes that never reach him intact. In fact, I can now add a missing button to the list of ways in which I have failed Peeta. It's not that he would mind of course, my younger brother is used to having to patch up his clothes once he inherits them from me. He never complains, not even when he has to go to school with mismatched buttons or with frayed trousers. He has always been practical, a problem solver who prefers to grin and mend then to complain. My little brother has always taken the same approach even with regard to our mess of a family, taking on the role of the steady one, always ready to diffuse the tension with a joke or a compliment aimed at our mother, just at the right moment. He smiles, obeys and causes no trouble, while always going out of his own way to try to please.

At the same time, our little rebel falls in love with a Seam Girl, feeds her, wins the Hunger Games and resolutely remains alive when everyone else expects him to die.

I stare at the tiny hole which, up until a few minutes ago, held the button of my shirt, and blink rapidly, trying to keep my tears at bay. Naan nudges me roughly and glares at me. "Now what the hell is the matter?" he hisses in a poor attempt at whispering.

"The button," I gulp back, "I ruined the shirt for Peeta."

My older brother stares at me. "Peeta doesn't need your shirts anymore, Barley," he retorts, "he's a Victor now. He can buy his own damn clothes for the rest of his life!"

A Victor. My brother is a Victor, alive with no thanks to me. I don't deserve to be a Victor's brother. I don't deserve to be here, welcoming back, after I had sent him off to die without moving a muscle. All of a sudden, I'm finding it difficult to breathe and I frantically look around me to try and find a way out of this platform, preferably an exit that can lead me away somewhere where I can wallow in my shame and loathing in peace.

It's not meant to be of course. In fact, my breathless scanning of the crowd causes me to lock eyes with Lilly Carter, who wordlessly pleads with me to reconsider, to take back the words I had told her weeks ago, to tell her once again that I loved her. Lilly had been the first girl I really kissed, my first love, my first everything and I had promised to marry her as soon as we were both out of our Reaping age. I broke that promise of course, because that is what I do. I break promises and destroy people because I'm a disloyal coward. The same night my brother was making his way on the train to the Capitol, I broke things off with Lilly. I didn't deserve to be happy, not when I had sent Peeta to be slaughtered.

I spent the whole Games alternating between sobbing in front of the television, clandestinely leaving bread at the Everdeen's doorstep upon request from Dad, and staring blankly at Lilly's house from across the road. I was not fit to help in the bakery, until Naan dragged me from my shirt collar, dressed me in my apron, and told me to make some goddamn bread goddamnit. That was the same day Peeta received his first kiss from Katniss, and also when Primrose Everdeen visited the bakery, thanked my father for the bread, and surprised me by hugging me tight. "I know how you feel," she had whispered softly in my ear, "but they're going to protect each other until they're both home, and then you and I will have all our lives to make it up to them."