Forbidden

“We’ve caught you kissing the mentor from District Four, and assumed that you have something going on. Is this true? The viewers have been really curious,” Caesar Flickerman asks me.

I give him one of my death stares, and turn as red as the lipstick my stylist, Aelia, put me in, if not redder.

“Uh, yeah, actually. It’s gone on for a while now,” I say, my face getting darker by the second.

When Caesar looks at me expectantly, I quickly say “Well, it’s a long story,” which translates to “Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He apparently doesn’t realize this, so he says “We’ve got time.”

I just sit there, looking at him as if he were a maggot that fell out of my shoe. That’s happened once. Not very fun.

Oh! You have absolutely no idea what’s happening, do you? Alright, I’ll start from the very beginning, when I first met my boyfriend, Julius, about two years ago…

“Rob! Please? It’s not like I actually do anything anyway! You even said it yourself that I don’t do anything!” I yell at my uncle, the mayor of District Seven. I live with him because when I was younger, my family died in a house fire. I still wake up coughing from the smoke in my nightmares, but that’s not the point. I wanted to supervise the lumberjacks that bring our lumber to the other Districts. I’m well liked (although I can be a total brat if you annoy me), respected (sort of, but they only respect me because of my uncle), and (if I do say so myself) pretty. Why wouldn’t those guys like me supervising them? It’s not like I actually do anything, anyway. (I’m chronically lazy. Everybody picks on me about it.) We just talk, eat, get out of (hard) work, and socialize with people from other districts. Well, we’d also have to, you know, pick up big chunks of wood, and carry it, which is why I’ll be supervising. Besides, I’m a scrawny fifteen year-old; do you seriously expect me to carry blocks of wood that weigh the same (maybe more) than me?

“Ugh, fine. Amia, just so you know, you are the most persuasive person I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Uncle Rob said with a trace of a smile on his lips.

So, I basically just traveled on a train around to all the districts. However, in District Four, there was a gas leak or something like that on the train, I can’t really remember, as it doesn’t matter, causing us to have to spend the night in the District. There was no room in the Justice Building for everybody, namely me, so one of the victors, the one who just won the previous year and is only one year older than me, which was a relief, Julius Cole, let me sleep in his house. I thanked him, and he told me that it was no problem.

I remember this part so vividly. When I woke up, Julius was right there, looking at me. At first I felt uncomfortable, but then I realized he was just studying my face, not weirdly, just curiously.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing with the lumberjacks?” he asked.

“Oh. I convinced my uncle, the mayor, to let me come. I got bored sitting around in my District, and I can be very convincing when I want to. So, here I am. And, there are female lumberjacks, you know,” I said sarcastically. This boy was really getting on my nerves. I don’t care if he’s a victor! He’s just an annoying brat. A cute brat, but still..!

He smiled. “I know. What do you think I am a sardine? I’m not stupid you know. Maybe not the biggest, but the awesomest, I must say,” he says, raising his eyebrows at me.

I laughed. I never in my life have laughed so long and so hard. It was the way he was talking to me, in that seductive voice that isn’t really his own, what he was saying, and just about everything about him that made me laugh that way.