Battle Scars

Chapter 32: Some Raw Emotions

Chapter thirty two: Some Raw Emotions
"Abby, are you ready yet?" Yelled Em, as she banged on my bathroom door. I was busy showering in readiness for my interview in front of the crowds later that evening.
"Give me five minutes," I replied, turning the water off and reaching for my towel.
"I don't have five minutes to give you," she returned. "Anna and Daniel are waiting for you, you still have to get your hair done once you're out of there."
"Can I have two minutes then?" I laughed.
"Just hurry up," she replied. I could hear the smile in her voice as I hurriedly dressed, and burst out of the bathroom.
"Abby!" Exclaimed Anna, who was waiting for me in my bedroom with Daniel. "What have you done to your dress? Oh it's all screwed up, come here and let me fix it."
"What were you doing, showering in it?" Exclaimed Daniel in indignation.
"Hey, you can't blame me, this isn't exactly what I ride horses in everyday. And screwing up your clothes is the least of your worries in the arena."
"Well you're not in the arena now," protested Daniel, as he helped Anna to fix my clothes. "You're about to go on stage. They're totally different places."
"That's debatable," I murmured.
"What was that?" Asked Anna absently.
"Oh, nothing. Hey look, Mitch is here. I need to go." The door had opened as we were speaking, and a rather attractive head was poking around it.
"But we haven't done your hair yet!" Protested Daniel.
"Oh," I sighed. "Do we have to do my hair?"
"Yes!" Exclaimed Anna and Daniel. Mitch smirked at me, and I glared at him.
"It's alright for you, you don't have long hair," I protested.
"If you stood still, it would probably take much less time," he replied, chuckling.
"Oh shut up," I laughed.
Anna and Daniel finally finished, and I followed Mitch backstage, to the place where we would make our entrance to the place where Yoseph Scourman would spend thirty minutes interviewing us.

The crowd was as mental as they'd ever been. They cheered the two of us on as we walked on stage under the dazzling spotlights, hand in hand. I was glad I had someone to go through this I with, or I'd probably go crazy. Yoseph was, of course, overjoyed to see us.
"Welcome back welcome back!" He yelled, and the crowd's cheers finally began to die down. "And don't they make the perfect couple everybody!" This set the crowd off again. Yoseph shook both our hands, and we sat down in the comfy interview chairs.
"So, something we're all dying to ask, is when your feelings for each other really started! It's clear it was before the ravine, but exactly when was it?"
"Well for me," began Mitch, holding my hand tightly, "I first felt something one of the first times I ever saw her, which was on the first day of training."
"Is that right?" Questioned Yoseph incredulously. "And how long did it take Abby to cotton on?"
"To be honest, I don't know when I first felt something," I responded, thinking a little. "The first time it actually registered in my brain though was after he fought me for the water bottle in the arena, and asked for an alliance."
"He asked you for a lot of alliances, didn't he," chuckled Yoseph, and the crowd laughed with him.
"Yes, he did," I smiled, looking at Mitch. He returned the smile.
"How many times did you actually ask for an alliance, Mitch? Before she finally agreed in the ravine?"
"I think it was about three times, actually," Mitch smiled. "I really admired her for her determination to survive on her own. Perhaps none of this would have happened if I was as determined as she was.
"You lost a lot of special people in the arena, particularly you Abby," said Yoseph, lowering his tone a little. "How did that feel?"
"Well," I sighed, not really wanting to talk about it for fear of crying on stage. "What do you want me to say? I mean you all saw it there, it was pretty raw emotion. Loosing Ellie and Ebony at the same time was heartbreaking. In the end, the best I could do for Ebony was to make her death as peaceful as possible, which is why I sang for her. I only wish I could have said goodbye to Ellie properly."
"And how about you, Mitch?" Asked Yoseph quietly. "How did loosing Preston affect you?"
"Quite a lot, as you would have seen," replied Mitch. "I was already quite close to him from training before we entered the arena, and he was a loyal friend. I felt like it was my fault, because I knew what Vi... What the others were planning, and I didn't warn him." He looked at me, and I smiled at him, grateful that he avoided mentioning Vikk. He knew that particular cut was still open in my mind. "In the end," Mitch continued, "Preston really saved my life, because seeing them kill him was what told me that I needed to leave the group and hide somewhere else."
"It must have been satisfactory to both of you to finally destroy Vikk and Jason then," smiled Yoseph. Oh he did not just open that up.
"In a way, we were just glad to get out of the arena, I guess," said Mitch, sidling past the question. "We were pretty relieved when the announcement was made at the end there."
"Oh yes, weren't we all!" Exclaimed Yoseph. The crowd gave voice to their agreement, and I grinned at Mitch. He returned the smile, and kissed me quickly.

A/N: y'all would be ashamed of me if you knew how close I came to naming this chapter "Yoseph goes Open Cut Mining" I'm ashamed that I even thought of such a terrible pun xD Actually no I'm not it's pretty funny :P One more update tonight? I'm on a roll here!