Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Fear is the most primal human instinct. It's why newborns come out of their mother's wombs screaming, their small lungs offering a momentary shock to their enigmatic attacker that pulled them from their home. Humans fear first. Trust is secondary.
People who trust have weaknesses. They have people who mean something to them, who can easily tear them to pieces and ruin their life given the chance. Plume doesn't know much about the world, but she knows that love is a hindrance. Friends move on, families die, district partners are massacred. Nothing lasts forever. Love cannot be sustained. Aries Roman will not be spared from the Hunger Games, so the fact that Plume (a girl who likes to think of herself as rational) is allowing him to have this influence over her is not only astounding, it's unheard of.
The downside to not trusting people: paranoia. A girl weaned on terror and trauma will eventually begin to see shadows that aren't truly there. She'll be skeptical of small details, and build walls around threats that don't exist. She becomes a hypochondriac, too distanced to be loved and too calloused to be happy. Neuroticism is not a pleasant way to live.
So, maybe there's an in-between, Plume thought. Maybe there's a space suspended between love and safety that very few people have reached. The chances of finding it are slim. Love too much, you grow weak. Protect yourself too much, and you grow lonely. That sweet spot in the middle is almost unattainable.
Newsflash: building walls are harder than breaking them.
Aries was the space in between. He was the first person that Plume trusted. So, Plume was surer than anything that she'd fight to keep him. Anybody who could slide through the fortitude of Plume's heart deserved to stay.
Plume's spine stiffened as she caught the odor of jasmine incense while walking toward the elevator. She had almost forgotten Socket Alistair's signature. Want to know where she is? Follow the scent of incense. The old woman had begun to burn them as a sort of cleansing ritual. Plume wasn't very interested in it. The smell was sometimes so strong that it made Plume's eyes water. Socket was curled over the empty dining table, a pencil clutched delicately in her gnarled hands. The incense stick burned beside her into an ashtray. As Plume passed, Socket sent her a pointed eyebrow.
"Where are you off to so late?" Socket questioned, her pen hesitated millimeters away from the parchment.
Plume's gaze flicked to the elevator. So close. "The rooftop. I need some air."
"I suppose that's better than breaking something," Socket said before turning back to her paper. "It's cold, bring a jacket."
Plume hated being babied. Socket didn't need to tell her what to do. Plume turned around on her heels and sauntered toward the elevator, making an overdramatic show of not grabbing a jacket from the coatrack. She slammed her index finger down on the rooftop button. The elevator doors hissed shut before rocketing into the sky. Plume's stomach swirled. She had eaten too much once again. She was putting on weight, but something about the rich, cheesy pasta that she had earlier didn't sit well in a high-speed machine. She tried her best to swallow her nausea.
