Innocent Girl - A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 7: For the Sponsors...

Today is the interviews. The day I have been dreading the most, besides the day we actually go into the arena. See, in not one interview, ever, do you see a tribute not get asked about their family.
"Almond, you'll spend first four hours with me on content, and then four hours with Lara-Rose on... whatever it is that you call it. And Alek, vice-versa," Haymitch tells us.
"Presentation," Lara-Rose tells Haymitch, with a hint of annoyance.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, presentation. After those eight hours you guys will spend another hour with your stylist and prep team, and then interviews. Come on, Almond," Haymitch gestures to me. Katniss goes with Lara-Rose and Alek, and Dean is nowhere to be found. I follow Haymitch into another room, and he sits down on the other end of a table and nods towards me to do the same. I sit.
"You know, you don't even need these four hours. Twelve year olds are always the same. Innocent, to be pitied. But it's so typical, isn't it? You need another... side. A personality. So, tell me about yourself. Don't worry about what you can or can't say in the interview, I'll tell you." I am caught a bit off guard by how quick to the point my mentor is, but I oblige.
"Um..." I try to think, but there's nothing really that I want to share that doesn't include my family.
"Try think, family, friends, hobbies, what you miss about district 12, what you like about the Capitol, and so on." There it is again, the first thing that comes to mind is family.
"Er, I like the food from the Capitol? Especially the chocolate. The closets thing 12 has to that is from the small lolly shop, but it's really expensive. I've only had it once, and that was for my 5th birthday. Lemon sherberts. Oh, and how accessible everything is. And, I have a friend, Willow, shes Alek's younger sister. And I have a brother, Julien, and he's fifteen like Alek."
"Good, that's a start. You will have to elaborate more on family though, it's the most touched on topic." I stiffen.
"I have a brother. Julien."
"Yes, but what about, mother? Father?" Haymitch presses further.
"M-my father died when I was six. And, my m-mother, sh-she... My mother hits us. Me. Because she hates me. Because..." my voice drops to a whisper, "I-I am the reason that... that he's dead." My words shouldn't hurt me anymore. My words are the truth, and I've spent years accepting this to be reality, that it really was my fault and I deserved every beating that she gave me. But I somehow can't. Because with every word I say I can feel the tears threatening to fall, and I have to desperately blink them back. Haymitch's face goes sad and sympathetic, but there's also a hint of something else in the 60 year-old man. Not pity... but understanding.
"I understand if you don't want to talk about this. You know, my... my family would still be alive if it... if it weren't for me. In my games, I pulled off a li'l stunt, and the president killed... he killed my whole family. My mum, my dad, and my little brother. And he was only 9..."
"I'm so, so sorry, Haymitch," I whisper. And then we fall into a silence which neither of us break. Until I suddenly blurt out against my will,
"I was really sick." And once I start, the words start to flood out of me. "I could barely talk, and anything I ate or drank would come right back up. So my father went out to the local apothecary to buy me some medicine, while my mother tried to get the fever down. Those were the last days she ever cared for me, even though I was an accident, because my father loved me, and my mother loved him, so she still cared for me. And at the apothecary... there was a really bad fire. And, you probably heard of it, six years ago, but my father being the selfless person he was didn't hesitate to bring out the two children and help the owner out, before going back in for the last child. And he-they never came out, because that was when everything, absolutely everything went up in flames, and either they burned to death or they were crushed by the falling roof. After my mother heard the news... she was devastated, to say the least. And, well the owner was really grateful, he gave the medicine to us for free, and, well, I got better. But after that, she became so cold and distant. Her job didn't earn us enough to live properly, and Julien had to use snares to get us meat and sell it for cheaper food that would last longer. He couldn't take tesserae yet. She sold our bed, so we had to sleep on the floor. And for the first two years, she just sat in her room to rot, grieving over her husband's death, going to work and going back to her room. She only came out to eat, when we did have food. But after that, she started to beat me. And when Julien got in the way, she would beat him instead of me and lock me in a closet to listen to his cries. And every time, she would scream at me that if I hadn't been so important to my father, he would still be alive, that it was my fault he was dead, that I should of never been born and I was a mistake. And... that I should of been the one to die rather than my father. In fact... my reaping dress was the only time in four years that she had interacted with me without screaming at me or getting out the belt. And Julien put her up to that..." Tears are slowly dripping down my face and Haymitch has a mix of emotions on his face that I can't identify.
"You and me both, yeah? Except it's the whole family for me, and the blame game for you." He barks out a short, humorless laugh.
"Yeah," I whisper.
"You see any of the booze anywhere, kiddo?"
"You shouldn't be drinking that."
"You're like Katniss. Ruin all the fun. Well, in that case, we'll have to move on from the," Haymitch waves his arms around, " depressing stuff and actually get something productive done." I smile a little and wipe my tears away with the edge of my sleeve.