DISTRICT THIRTEEN // bentley annise swann [fin]

Sometimes, I just stare for hours at the mirror in my room that's mounted upon the wall by the foot of my bed. (I'd turned my bed around ages ago because I don't like it when my head is so close to the wall when I sleep. The boogieman makes portals in mirrors, so he could just pull my head through and that would be bad so now my feet are there instead so I can kick him away.) There are times when I just sit there and look at the cool portal and try to imagine what's on the other side of the pane. I wonder if there's another me staring from the other side, thinking my thoughts and speaking my words and mimicking my actions as I think and speak and act them. Perhaps, just maybe, she doesn't look like me at all, but she is me in every way. There's another me out there, I'm sure of it.

Maybe she doesn't have large, slanty, squinty eyes like I do, lined carefully in dark kohl I'd stolen from the art department. Maybe her eyes are big like a cat's, opened wide and glittering. Maybe she is a cat. Our eyes would be the same milky brown, diluted but flecked with dark chocolate and gleaming bronze. Her nose would be more pronounced, not nearly as flat and unnoticeable as mine. It's like a little button, Lyss always says, but the bridge is so tiny and it's nearly uniform with the rest of my face. (When I was little and people would play that game with me where they'd 'steal my nose', I used to believe they'd actually stolen it because there wasn't much there to begin with.) My cheekbones are flat as well, though in cat-me they would just be covered with thick dark fur of the blackest night, though I don't really remember how dark night is. I haven't been outside in a long time, choosing to spend them curled into Lyss's side and pretend that there isn't something missing from the cavity of my chest, a natural light I wish I could find. (I used to think I had that light too, but I don't know where it has gone. Maybe all of those people who saw it stole it little by little.) My lips are plump and shiny, worn from worried biting and constant abuse by the... 'hands' of others. Hers would be thin and black, curled back to reveal sharp incisors and a wicked tongue, but mine usually rest right over my aligned teeth and my lax tongue unless Lyss says something really funny. Then I laugh and laugh until my face is pink and my cheeks hurt and my eyes water.

Her short fur wouldn't be all that different from my hair, really, the black strands always falling haphazardly into my eyes and poking them so that I get all itchy and irritated. I never really do anything about it. I suppose I should, but that would mean really putting effort into my appearance and I don't want to do that. (Lyss told me once that she loves that I'm effortless and free, so I just want to be what she likes in me.) My hair tickles across my shoulders a lot, curtaining my round face and obscuring any angles that might exist. I lose track of time so often that I don't wash it sometimes and it gets shinier, but it still looks like I don't put too much effort into it when I pull it back, so it's alright like that too, I guess. Lyss plays with it regardless of when I washed it last. Sometimes I get tired of my hair always resting just upon my slight shoulders and I cut it just a little bit shorter. I guess I should just let it grow out longer, but I've never been too patient with things like that.

I've never really critiqued my own body, but I suppose I'm okay. I'm certainly not as attractive as Lyss. (Girls are pretty and boys are attractive too, but Lyss is just gorgeous. She's the kind of beautiful that makes me want to stop and stare for hours, but I know that's silly. She's not going anywhere that I can't look at her for the rest of my life.) My chest is kind of flat, not unlike cat-me's own, but I don't mind. If my chest was any bigger, I think I'd fall forward too much. There would be too much weight. I'm balanced now as I am and that means I can dance and twirl all I want. (Some people I've been with have complained about it, but I don't really care because I have Lyss.) My hips are a little wider, the lack of size from my chest going straight to my center. It's just a little more to hold on to, and Lyss likes that, so maybe I'll gain even more weight for her. Cat-me would have trouble chasing mice through crawl spaces with hips like mine, but me-me is perfectly okay with them. I'm not very tall and neither is cat-me, but our legs are pretty good. Sometimes, I dance so long that I can't even move the next day because my legs feel like jelly. (Sometimes I think they actually have because I can't even lift my covers to see them because my arms feel kind of weak too, but then later when I peel them back, there are real legs there, so I suppose it's not as easy to turn into jelly as I thought.) Dancing keeps me in shape physically, but it helps me keep focused mentally too, just like hunting does for the cat-me. She stays smart as well as fit. Win-win. Even with all of my dancing, I'm kind of clumsy once I stop moving in beats and rhythms and just start walking in lines. I don't do so well with linear things and that frustrates me, especially when I veer off of the line and I get hurt. It's so frustrating, not being able to stay on the line. I'm always colored in purple and blue blotches and yellow ones that have just started to fade. (Sometimes, I think another me from beyond my mirror is trying to take me over with her multi-colored skin.) Mama used to say that bruises were reminders of bad things we'd once done. I suppose I've done a lot of things wrong then, but Lyss told me I'm flawless with my flaws, which doesn't really make sense, but I'll embrace it anyway. It makes me feel happy.

Lydia Jamison started a rumor that I was retarded when we were eight years old. (I never knew that people could be so horrible until I met her.) It took a while for the rumor mill to pick it up, mostly because none of us really knew what the word retarded meant at the time. Lydia was always a stuck up little bitch with the vocabulary of an old sailor anyway. None of us understood her most of the time. (Sometimes I wonder where she is nowadays, but then I find that I don't care.) When she was finally able to explain the word to them, they took to calling me something much simpler, but it stung so much more. They called me stupid. Mama always hated the word, her eyes going glassy and dark whenever the merest of whispers would pass us in the halls. She'd hold my hand a little tighter, smile a little wider, and speak a little louder when she called me her special little angel. That's when I new I hated the word. It made my Mama, usually so happy, so sad. It hurt to see her like that and I hated it. (I hated Lydia even more.)

I know I'm not the smartest. I can't really math all that well and when I try and explain that to the teacher she tells me I don't english too well either, but that's alright because Mama and Lyss always understand me anyway and that's all that matters. History is boring and really, why should I care about those old people anyway? It's not like I ever really have to deal with them anyway. Science is fun, but I usually wind up damaging things like the lab or others.(Once, I even burned off my eyebrows. I thought I kind of looked like an alien without them. It took a while to grow back, but I quite like having them again. I think I would have made a good ambassador to the aliens though, so maybe I'll do that again when they arrive someday.) I just struggle in school. There's really nothing much more to it than that. The numbers confuse me and the words are too big and then my head hurts until I'm squinting at the board to try and understand and I just don't. Everything turns into a blur and by the end of the day all I can remember is Lyss's comforting snuggles and Mama's special tea. It's not really like anything else matters anyway, not when I have that in the end. I just don't like it when people call me stupid. It hurts like a knife in my chest, not that I've ever been stabbed, but I can practically feel my skin being torn open little by little with every cutting word. I hate feeling so weak. Usually, I can't even speak. I've spoken before and they just said I sounded even more stupid and I just shut my mouth.

Now, there's Lyss. She does a lot of the talking for me now, hissing at my attackers until they've learned enough to stay away. I don't know what I'd do without her. Before her, I was just quiet in the rampage, trying to skirt through the mess of hateful words and groping hands. (I tend to accept the latter more often, taking payment in promises of kindness instead of anything else and reveling in the peace it brought to the jungle of hate.) Now, with her help as well as the bought silence of others, I can live a little bit more peacefully. Living is hard, sometimes, especially when others are so forceful in shoving their opinions of me upon my back. I just want to be everything Lyss sees in me. She says I'm beautiful and funny and silly and messy and smart. I want to much to be what she sees, so I am. I am beautiful and funny and silly and messy and smart. I am smart.

I just want to be what I am. I don't want to have to try harder to get the love and attention of others, so I don't. I feel gross and fake when I do, when I smile a little wider, sway my hips a little more, wink as a person leaves. I feel like I haven't showered in days when I do, suddenly covered in a film of ugly and I don't like that because Lyss says I'm beautiful, so I can't be ugly. I can't I can't I can't. So I'm not. Instead, I let everything else fall away as I spin and spin and spin until all I hear is Lyss's laugh and my Mama's rhythmic breathing as she sleeps peacefully and my own feet sliding across the floor. I'll spin until I'm floating up and away from everything around me, dividing the clouds and passing the visiting aliens and heading straight to the bright sun, just bathing in it's warmth and letting that fake skin fall away. (Then, maybe I'll really be bright and then everything will be okay.)

Growing up sucks. I learned that the hard way. I grew up. I never really considered growing up for most of my childhood. It wasn't really an option. I never thought I would get older. How could I? Mama always said I was her little darling, her beautiful gift, her baby swan. If I grew older, how could I still be that little darling? I would surely grow taller until I was no longer little. If I grew older, how could I still be that beautiful gift? I would surely become more of a burden until I was no longer a gift. If I grew older, how could I still be that baby swan? I would surely become older until I was no longer a baby. (I didn't want to grow older.) Growing up meant moving away and moving away meant leaving things behind (like the tea Mama makes on Sunday mornings and the fuzzy blanket Mama sewed and the memories I'd made) and leaving things behind usually meant forgetting. I didn't want to forget anything. I couldn't bear to even think about it. (So I didn't.) For a while, I forgot about growing up. It worked.

Time is cruel though and soon, before I realized it, I was already a year older. I had grown a little taller, my hair had gotten longer, a few teeth had been traded out for new ones. (I was growing up, but I wasn't ready.) I tried so hard to stop. I really did. I stayed home with Mama, played more in my room, tried to cling to the memories I didn't want to be left behind. Already I was forgetting things, I knew I was without even trying. I was so busy clinging to my childhood that I didn't really focus enough at school. I started losing time too quickly, not being able to grasp the math we started to learn or the sentences we were forming. I was falling behind and others were starting to take notice. I tried to ignore it, hiding behind my shell and fading into the background. However, life seemed to take a change when I met Lyss. She was the first real friend I had, other than Mama. Lyss made everything better.

When we were eight and Lydia Jamison started a rumor that I was retarded, Lyss got so mad that she fought for me. I don't remember her ever being so mad before. It made me sad to think that I'd caused it. (Sometimes, I can't really help but believe that I really am stupid. If I wasn't so stupid, maybe everything would be okay.) I didn't want Lyss fighting and getting hurt because of me. I made a promise to myself then and there to try and stop it, to try and become smarter and make Lyss not fight anymore and maybe, thought I really didn't want to, grow up. I didn't want to leave Mama, not after he left so many years ago, before I had even been born. We don't talk about him ever. It's always been us lady Swanns and that's how it always will be. That's why I was so afraid of growing up. Mama's always been my rock and I've always been hers. I couldn't take that away from her.

It's much easier to say something than to do it. Lyss was perfectly content with protecting me, it seemed, even if I hated her doing it. I didn't want anyone to have to protect me, but I wasn't much of a threat on my own. What could I do? Stutter out small sentences and spin in a circle? Oh, very terrifying, I know. No, Lyss did my talking for me with her fists. I felt so weak, so so weak, but I grew used to her support the longer we were together. (We did everything together. We played, we talked, we studied, we snuggled, we kissed.) We first kissed when I was twelve. I'd never kissed anyone before and it was weird. She was my rock, but her lips didn't feel like that. No, they were squishy and a bit wet. Mine were chapped from nervous biting, but she didn't seem to mind. I didn't either when she smiled against my mouth. So, that became a new routine. It was a comfort, having someone to be with when things weren't so great. Mama grew to love her too. I could hardly stand on my own without her and I never wanted to anyway, so what was the harm in letting everything fall into place? I supposed I didn't really have to grow up after all.

Something changed in our friendship after the kiss, though it didn't really change until two years later. Lyss and I saw less and less of each other at night, her body missing from my bed at sleepovers and her smile missing from my vision as we woke up. When we did see each other, she was a bit more physical. We kissed more. A lot more. (Among other things.) I felt so small, so little compared to her and her worldliness. She knew so much more than I did. I just wanted to be better for her. I wanted to be the best person I could be, everything Lyss wanted so she'd never leave. So, for her, I started to learn. I learned a lot pretty quickly. I learned even more when I found out that my learning could be bought in increment of kind words or silenced insults. I'd found my own way to make my haters stop hating, even though they probably still hated. Everything seemed okay. We were okay. I just wanted it to stay that way forever. (I never wanted us to grow up. I wish we could have stayed young forever.)

We couldn't, of course. That's not how time works. That's not how life works. (Nothing is fair, but that's how it is.) We were forced into growing up, Lyss's defense of me going too far and landing her out of my reach, throwing me off of my rock and into uncharted waters. Mama was there to pick me up again, tucking me safely under her arm and making her tea and singing to me quietly. I danced more and more, spinning until I was dizzy and I couldn't even stand anymore. I stopped thinking in the lines of my classes, linear paths of factual information I couldn't follow, and let myself fall into the beats and rhythms I'd always truly understood. I was so swept away in the waters (and hands and bodies and mouths) that I didn't notice the passage of time until Lyss was back, my head dizzy and my legs trembling, but she wasn't there for me to land on. (Everything had changed. She wasn't the same person, but I knew she was in there, somewhere, and I'd do anything to get her back.) I don't know how long I tried to chip away at the diamond surface that had baked in the hells of juvie until I reached the familiar rock I'd so relied on. I could only chip one touch at a time, hoping for luck little by little as I watched her from so far in my heart. I reached her at some point and fell upon her shores. She couldn't defend me as before, couldn't lash out at my belittlers. (That's okay though. The infamous District 13 jaguar has taken to scratching up my attackers though. I've never seen it. It's really elusive. Apparently, it just knows when you've done something good or bad, kind of like Santa Claus, and he'll find you when you're bad. At least, that's what Lyss told me.)

I don't really know what to do anymore. I've grown up far beyond the point I'd meant to stop at. I wanted to be a little girl forever. (I suppose I really am. My reading level is low enough and I don't know anything about history and I could blow up the world by accident and numbers make me have a headache. I'm not smarter than a child really.) I've let myself fall again and again into the comfort of others that I don't even know how to climb by myself anymore. Most of the time, I'm not sure I even want to. I want to be everything Lyss wants of me. I want to be perfect for her, but I'm so far from perfect. She says it's okay, that I'm perfect in my flaws, but I know that it's not. (It's not okay because it's so easy to believe her, to fall into her arms, and not worry about a thing at all. Who cares about that math homework? Not me.) In all honesty, I am just as weak as I've always feared. I need help. I've fallen and I can't get up.