Perspectives

Her Sister

On a hot August morning, during my first Reaping, my sister begins a fight that she is destined to lose. Of course, I do not know it at the time, and maybe if I did, I would have stopped her from volunteering instead of me. I would have told her that it was for nothing, and that the Capitol (or maybe something bigger?) had singled me out that day, and perhaps I would have prevented her from boarding that train.

But I have to be honest. I am not sure I would have gone up the platform next to Effie Trinket had I known what the future was going to bring me anyway. I didn't want to die in an arena far from home and for all of Panem to see. I didn't want Katniss to die that way either, but I don't have to look too far within myself to see that I would not have done anything to stop it from happening.

I know I am ungrateful, selfish even. I become aware of this, with full force, on that fateful day when Katniss volunteers to face the 74th Hunger Games instead of me. In fact, my first thought, as I gasp and wail in Gale's arms, is not that my sister is going to die, but that I am going to live. That thought lasts for the long two seconds that I continue to relive every day, no matter how hard I try to drown the voices in my head that scream my guilt.

But I'm twelve...I can't die at twelve!

Your sister is sixteen...she wasn't even Reaped...

But that's what she wanted, I didn't tell her to volunteer!

She always looked out for you ... she took out the tesserae to keep you safe...

During the Games, I can hardly bring myself to look at the screen, but at the same time, it is better to hide myself at home, than to have to face the Seamers and their strange looks. I am not Primrose Everdeen anymore, but Katniss Everdeen's sister, the girl Katniss Everdeen is sacrificing herself for, the girl Katniss Everdeen mentions in her interview. Katniss Everdeen's executioner.

It's not my fault! It's the Capitol who's killing Katniss. Not me.

Not me.

Not me.

No one hears me, because I am too much of a coward to speak. Not unlike Barley Mellark, Peeta's brother, who is being accused of cowardice for not doing what no one would have done. Because Katniss volunteered for me, he was expected to volunteer for Peeta, even though no one would have seriously considered it before that day.

Unless they were blinded by a fierce, furious, irrational desire to protect someone as worthless and selfish as me.

I remember seeing Barley wandering vacantly around the District after my sister and his brother were herded away in that train to the Capitol. He had that vacant, miserable look that I see reflected back at me every time I catch my stare in any reflective surface. After the Opening Ceremony, my mother and I begin to find a loaf of white, crusty bread on our doorstep every morning, meaning that we can save up on our tesserae grain, which allows me a respite of some months before adding my name multiple times to the Reaping bowl. We both know that it is Wheaton Mellark who sends us the bread, but it is Barley who actually delivers it. He is not a particularly light-footed walker, but it is also completely impossible to miss his cloud of blonde curls as he tries to walk away silently. His curls that are spared from the Seam's dusty blanket of coal dust.

The day I go to the bakery to thank him for the bread is the first time I find a reason to smile since Katniss has left. I hug him tight, and we understand each other in a way that no one else can. With our embrace we share guilt, helplessness, self-loathing and anger. But we also squeeze each other's hand and share a smile.