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(TW: panic attacks and mentions of suspense abuse. Please read with caution.)
𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄return home and for the first time in months, she didn't fight him on it. After the disastrous breakfast, Sage locked herself in the guest room, which to be perfectly honest was considered her room by this point and dealt with her hangover by herself. She didn't sleep. She couldn't. Even when she tried, she just couldn't keep her eyes closed long enough to allow herself to drift away into the darkness that would soon be clouded with endless dreams of horrid memories she knew she will never ever be able to forget.
Not sober, anyway.
But she did not even attempt to sneak out to find a way to get another bottle. She didn't crave it. She hadn't reached that level of self destruction just yet. She knew the path she was going down and she tried to avoid it as much as possible. She really, truly did. It had taken her so long to even resort to this method of coping. But she can't deny that alcohol is the only thing keeping the memories at bay. If she blacks out, she doesn't dream. She doesn't think. She doesn't remember.
It was peaceful.
But it never lasts. Because soon the alcohol wears off and she is back where she started. Remembering. Visualizing that arena, those other tributes who were all dead, and the three whose blood was on her hands. She sees their faces everywhere she goes. She remembers their movement, their words, their appearance. She remembers it all.
It was suffocating. It was torture. And for the first time in all her life, she finally understood why her mother did what she did- in a way. She may never know the full reason behind Deirdre taking her own life, but she understands what led up to it. The hallucinations and the mental breakdowns.
Deirdre lived with the guilt of what she did to those two boys in the arena for almost nine years, was forced into prostitution by the President himself, was ridiculed and shamed by her fellow men and women from her only home and was forced to bear it all with a child she never wanted. She just couldn't bear the pain anymore. Sage takes after her mother in so many ways when it comes to looks, and it terrified her to her very core that she might also end up mentally unstable just like her mother.
So Sage stayed in the room, barely eating her dinner as she was still physically ill and could barely keep down the breakfast she forced herself to eat in the morning. Before she knew it, it was the next day and someone else was knocking on her door. Sage had been perched on the bed, tucked way into the corner. Her arms were wrapped around her knees as she hugged them closely to her chest, her head resting on top of her kneecaps. She couldn't imagine what her appearance must look like, but she knew it wasn't pretty.
