vera jeon / district 8 / fin

THEN:

I'm named after a perfume bottle. My mother's mother's mother's mother (and so on, because who knows how many generations there are between now and the before? Nobody fucking knows. Nobody cares anymore either. Anyways,) or something, or whatever, passed it all the way down until it reached me. It's shaped like a heart, tinted purple. There must've been a cap at one point, but that probably got lost, like, a hundred years ago or something. But it says 'princess' on it, in fancy joined writing, the neat kind that I never mastered, and the name 'Vera Wang' -- my name. My first name, anyway. I like it. Even after Marceline and my other younger sister were born, I was still the Jeon family princess. I didn't give them much other choice, to be fair. 

Attention hog. That's what my sisters call me. Not princess, or even Vera. Our mother calls me princess, my dad calls me Vera; if he has to call me at all. I think I'm the disappointment and the jewel of the house all at once. I'm too loud and I'm too much in a lot of ways. In many others, I'm not enough. They don't like it when I stay out too late. They don't like that I always do things my way. Why not? My sisters are no different. It's just that all the older ones let guys go all the way, so they ended up with shotgun weddings. Somehow that's more respectable to Dad, since it's wrapped up with a bow, out of the way. Me though? I don't think so. But they did all the same things, snuck out to all the same dodgy haunts. Marceline doesn't. Marceline doesn't do anything except crochet. I grew out of all that when I was around her age, so I guess it's not too late for her yet. 

Anyways, like I said, I'm named after a perfume bottle. Mom keeps it in the glass cabinet in the kitchen. It glows lavender from the overhead lightbulb. Brighter than all the crockery and stuff. I act accordingly. Everyday, I wake up early to put on makeup, to arrive at school with a smile. I don't have much time left here, so I may as well make the most of it. I'm eying up the guys, the girls too, trying to figure out their future trajectories, but coming up blank on most of them. After all, nobody goes anywhere in Eight. Especially nobody from our part of town. We work like dogs, making luxuries for others to enjoy later. 

But I'm a princess, by birthright, or namesake, or whatever the word for it is. My dreams aren't lofty. I'm not saying that I'll, like, end up being whisked away to the Capitol by some guy wearing bright blue mascara, as nice as that sounds, but I'd like to move up regardless, even if it is just within District Eight. So everyday, I pluck my eyebrows, I pat tinted lipbalm on my mouth, repurpose it as blush, and do my best to look a few area codes above where I actually live. I don't think anyone has seen my bare face outside the bedroom I share with my two youngest sisters since... I dunno, I was thirteen, fourteen? I got that into my head young. When everything went to shit, which it did a lot when I was growing up, I always got to be the cool and collected Vera. Little Vera, whose older sisters even came to for advice. It was so annoying, but I played the part anyways. Cool, calm Vera came into a room and boom, the tension evaporated. Me being such a self obsessed little pig wasn't so bad then, was it? Everyone was happy to fuss over me then, hear my opinion on things then. Ugh.

They'll miss me when I'm gone. When I'm up above them all. Not that I'd ever hold that against them. Obviously. I mean, obviously. I'll be one of those pencil skirted women who liaison with Capitol department store buyers. Or I'll be married to the mayor. Or maybe the impossible could come true; but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe if Panem's Next Top Model ever hosts another casting call, but aside from that, my chances of making it out of Eight are zero to none.

I won't even dream about it. I can't.