Becoming Adamant [#1]

Chapter 29 - The Life As A Victor

It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I already feel like the stranger in the house. I mean, sure, we’ve moved to the Victor’s Village, to a house that’s so much bigger than we actually need. I’m pretty sure I haven’t even been to all of the rooms either, but that’s not the main point. It’s when I’m with my parents and with my little brother. Nothing is the same. It’s like they’re treating me like someone else when I myself am struggling to get back to the one I used to be. I desperately need them to believe that I’m still in there…in my head, in my heart…I’m still their daughter, I’m still Sharp’s older sister. I know I have been someone else for the past two-three weeks, but I’m still the girl they were forced to send away. That scared fourteen year old girl.

Bligh and I have had our feuds in the Capitol and on the train, but I’ve spent more time with him during this period of time, than anyone else in the District. Even at my own house, I spend most of my time in my room. The door isn’t locked so anybody can just barge in, which I pray for more than anything these days, but yet nobody does. It’s like my parents think I need time to be by myself, but I don’t. I need someone to sit here with me. I need to talk to someone else than Blight…I’ve had too much time on my own with my thoughts and they’re not exactly my best friends at the moment.

On my own, hours easily turn into days. That tends to happen when I get too much time on my own. Something else that bugs me, is the fact that my little brother doesn’t come in to wake me up anymore…I remember missing it so bad when I was away when Blight was the one waking me up…which I’m still mad about by the way. But Sharp, he doesn’t anymore. It’s like he’s scared that I’ll actually hurt him if he tried to wake me up. It bugs me, yes, but not as much as not getting any sleep. The Arena is too fresh in mind and I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with my own destructive thoughts, which I don’t recommend for anyone. It makes it too damn hard to sleep because I know that the worst memories come back at night.

Once I fall asleep, I usually can’t fight it. It all comes back and there’s no way I can get away from it; get away from the bloodied tributes that keep chasing me in an endless Arena.  I usually don’t get away from it before I wake up screaming my lungs out. Well, the first times I screamed, now I don’t anymore. I want to, but I don’t. I always hear my parents walk out of their room and then stop at my door. Every time they hear me, which is the scream I don’t always succeed in holding back, they stop at my door, wanting to come in. For some reason they don’t.

I don’t really know what’s going on with them. I’m their little girl and I need them right now, but they don’t ever enter the room when I wake up. It has to be about the fact that they don’t know what to say or what to do…which is exactly the thing that I’m struggling with as well. It’s like I know that I want to tell them so many things about me and about the Games, but at the same time I have no freaking idea of how to get it out. Instead, I talk to Blight about it. At least he understands where I’m at at the moment, and the fact that he doesn’t have much time left and I’m gonna be mentoring alone next year, I need all the help I can possibly get.

These days it’s just getting chillier and chillier. In many ways, I feel the winter coming to the District. Even though I see people putting more and more clothes on, those who can anyway, I still don’t feel it. I guess that winter-zone in the Arena did that for me.

I wake up, and like the other times I’m covered in sweat, fear…many of the other horrors that haunt me these days. I take several deep breaths before I manage to pull my legs out of bed and put something comfortable on. I walk down the steps and I can already tell that I’m alone. There’s no one in the living room, and when I get to the kitchen, I find a ‘have a nice day’-note from my mother. They’ve laid out some breakfast for me…well, food isn’t a problem in this house. The Mason-family won’t ever live with that problem anymore.