be brave // hunger games/l.h

reaping

Loss aches. It throbs, and it hurts. But for the lucky ones, it dulls into memories and bitter-sweet recollections of the ones they used to know.

It's hard to let my loss dull when I'm reminded of it, every year like clockwork.

Lea was a ray of sunshine. Everything an older sister should be: caring, loyal and fierce. Each room she entered, and each life she altered was like a breath of fresh air. She was the kind of person that everyone would remember for just being her. The kind of person that would go down in history as one of the good ones.

"Astrid, get up. You're going to be late to the reaping." my mother comes bustling into my room, her arms laden with countless dresses.

"God forbid I turn up late to the death games" I mutter, rolling out of bed and pulling open the heavy cotton curtains, to let in the sound of the rain hitting the umbrellas of the people walking underneath. Being district 8 citizens, we are allowed better clothes because, after all, we make them. The idea of having more than one formal outfit is practically unheard of in many of the other districts, so I should be grateful that I have the choices. I wish that I was, but Lea was always far more interested in fashion than I was: pretending to suddenly have a passion for it, felt like I was trying to replace her. So I don't bother feigning interest.

In the doorway, my mother waits, dainty features laced with a frown. She glances expectantly at the different dresses that are strewn across the bed, although I already know which one I'll wear, and she knows it too. A pale yellow dress lies atop the pile, and it tugs at my heartstrings. Year in, year out, Lea wore it to the reaping. When she was twelve - it smothered her but she was too in love with the colour too care. When she was thirteen - she set a trend for all of her friends, and they all turned up wearing yellow. When she was fourteen, when she was fifteen, when she was sixteen - the hem rose higher and the sleeves got tighter but it was her good luck charm. 

For her seventeenth birthday, Mother made her a new dress. Deep purple, with tiny flowers embroidered all over it - looking like the stars. The yellow dress was too small for her by then, and she wore the new one to the reaping that year instead. It's fine, I recall thinking. What difference to her odds is a dress going to do?

Apparently, quite a lot.

When Venus called her name, I could have volunteered. I could have taken her place, but she would never have forgiven me, for leaving her. So I stood silently, watched as she mounted the stairs and stood shaking next to Venus, purple dress looking lovely to everyone else, but out of place to me.

My mother, once youthful but now frail, nods faintly to me before disappearing down the corridor. I turn to the mirror, pull on the dress, and tie my short, brown hair loosely at the nape of my neck. I scribble down a hasty note to my parents, letting them know that I'm on my way to the square, and that I love them. Speaking to them too close to the reaping hurts, and if I turn up with puffy eyes then people will know that I've cried.

I head out out the door, joining families from across the district, parents cradling younger children with tears brimming in their eyes, eligible children walking ahead. The only source of noise is the rain hitting the cobbles that pave the floor.  Once I get there, I join the line for seventeens, and sign in silently. The National anthem blares through the loudspeakers that surround the square, as I weave through the streams of kids to find a place between faces I've seen before, but never spoken to. Along the sides of the square, family members watch, searching through the sea of heads to try and identify their children, to see them again.