imperfect fit ; an everlark au based off of 'the selection' series

t h i r t y - f i v e

I thrash and shriek all the way back. The guards have to hold me so tightly that I know I'll be covered in bruises later, but I don't care. I need to fight.

"Where's her room?" I hear one ask, and twists to see a maid walking down the hall. I don't recognize her, but she clearly knows me. She escorts the guards to my door. I hear my maids shout in protest at the way I'm being handled.

"Calm down, miss; that's no way to behave," a guard says with a grunt as they throw me onto my bed.

"Get the hell out of my room!" I scream.

My maids, all of them in tears, rush over to me. Stacy starts trying to get the dirt from my fall off my dress, but I slap her hands away. They knew. They knew, and they didn't warn me.

"You, too!" I yell at them. "I want all of you out! NOW!"

They recoil at my words, and the temors that run through Annie's body almost make me regret saying them. But I need to be alone.

"We're sorry, miss," Tig says, pulling the other two back. They knew how close I am to Clove.

Clove . . .

"Just go," I whisper, turning to bury my face in my pillow.

Once the door clicks shut, I slip off my remaining shoe and climb deeper into bed, finally making sense of a hundred tiny details. So this is the secret she had been so afraid to share. She didn't want to stay because she wasn't in love with Peeta, but didn't want to leave and be separated from Cato.

A dozen moments suddenly make sense: why she chose to stand in certain places, or stared towards doors. It was Cato; he was there. The time the king and queen of Swendway came and she refused to get out of the sun . . . Cato. It was Clove he had been waiting for when I ran into him outside the bathroom. It was always him, standing silently by, maybe sneaking a kiss here and there, waiting for a time when they could be truly together.

How much must she love him to have been so careless, to risk so much,

How can this even be real? It doesn't seem possible? I know that there would be a punishment for something like this, but that it happened to Clove, that she's gone . . . I can't understand it.

My stomach writhes. It so easily could have been me. If Gale and I hadn't been as careful, if someone had overheard our conversation on the dance floor last night, that could have been us.

Will I ever see Clove again? Where will she be sent? Will her parents be sent with her? Will she ever be able to use her hands again? How long do such wounds take to heal? And what about Cato? Will he ever be able to walk again?

That could have been Gale.

That could have been me

I feel so sick. I have a cruel sense of relief that it wasn't me, and the guilt of that relief is so heavy it's hard to breathe. I'm a terrible person, a terrible friend. I'm ashamed.

And there's nothing left to do but cry.

-

I spend the morning and most of the afternoon curled in a ball on my bed. My maids bring me lunch, but I don't touch it. Mercifully, they don't insist on staying and let me be alone in my sadness.

I can't pull myself together. The more I think over what happened, the sicker I feel. I can't get out sound of Clove screaming out of my head. I wonder if a time will come when I forget.

A hesitant knock comes at the door. My maids aren't here to open it, and I don't feel like moving, so I don't. After a brief pause the visitor comes in anyways.