JASMINE HALL | DISTRICT ELEVEN | FIN

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They said my hair was the same shade of black as a starless night sky. The raven locks fell far past my frail shoulders in thick, subtle waves. The deep raven shade seemed to bring out the healthy blush of my cheeks and the amber colored eyes that were so good at hiding emotion. When I wanted them to. My eyes were a wonderful weapon, and I had used them to save myself more times than I can remember. They say eyes always tell the truth, but mine don't. My eyes can lie just as easily as my lips can.

As much time as I spent under the sun, even when I had free time on my hands, I wasn't really all that dark. After an entire week of both working and tending to my flowers, I should have been so tanned by the sun that I looked like I was from the capitol. I still had a slight olive tone that seemed to blend with my dark hair, though. I definitely still had a light enough complexion to get sunburned, and the majority of the time, my shoulders were a soft pink shade and tender to touch.

I was fit, I suppose. All of the walking and climbing I did during the week seemed to keep my body in shape just enough to keep me going. But by the end of each day I was so exhausted that I could barely make it to my bed. I was taunted for my height when I was younger, and since then I have grown exactly five inches. I am a foot shorter than every boy in my grade, and at least a half a foot shorter than the girls. Being short is a part of me, though. It isn't like I am the same height as children, I suppose I just took after one of my parents. The real ones that didn't want me.

Being from Eleven meant I never had much, even though my parents had a little more money than a lot of it's population. The district was broke. In more ways than one. I did always have clean clothes to wear, and a lot of people couldn't even say that. I think the reason people always forgot that I lived in the same district they did was because a lot of the clothes I wore were flashy. My mother made the majority of my clothes in her spare time, when she wasn't making them for everyone else. She said gold looked best on my, and she used the shimmering shade on a lot of my clothes. I guess I couldn't blame people for forgetting none of us were really better off.

What I lacked in height, I made up for in attitude. People seemed to forget that I was short after they get to know me, and it is because I made them. I didn't take anything from anyone, and I was not afraid to tell them. Not that I was a bitch, or anything, (I was.) I just didn't want to be bullied. I fought for everything I had, and I held onto it with everything I had because I couldn't afford to lose it. I guess I was just selfish. Losing things was something that had taken too big a toll on me, and I didn't want it to bring me down anymore than it already had.

I always kept my eyes peeled for adventure, because anything was better than sitting at home with nothing to do. I had my friends, but everyone had such complicated schedules, and I was no different, that I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with them as I would have liked. So, I ventured out on my own. There was adventure in everything, really. I was just willing to go and find it. Typically, I tended to my flower garden first, and had fun later, but taking care of my flowers was fun. To me, at least.

I loved flowers. My father was always going on about them, about which ones could be brewed into remedies. He owned an apothecary, and he was always needing some kind of plant that might just save a person's life. I had gotten into his books more than once, because I shared his love of saving things that needed help, and somehow had managed to fall in love with plant life. I loved how silently beautiful they were, how perfect each flower was, even though it was different from all of the others. Mainly because I waned to believe we all had differences, but they made us perfect.

I decided from a young age that I wanted children. My own. I wanted to raise them and teach them my ways, and treat them like they mattered. I wanted to take care of them when they needed me, and I wanted to help them spread their wings. I wanted to teach them to fly. They seemed so innocent, and so helpless, children did. I had always had a soft spot for them, even when I was one myself. I think anyone could guess that I wanted kids some day, and if they couldn't they needed to pay more attention.

I will argue until the other person can see that I am right. I have logic, and that is saying a lot since most people don't. I think with my head rather than with my heart, and it makes sense to do so. Why let your heart decide? We are all so messed up, so damaged and scarred, so why do we continue to trust what out hearts say? It is a stupid decision, and if someone else wants to that is on them, but if they want to parade their opinions around, I'll do the same, and I always win. Always. I know I am right, and they always do, too, they just don't want to face the truth. I don't blame them. I would love to live in a dream, but reality swallowed me whole a very long time ago.

Being thrown away was common in District Eleven, a handful of the kids on my class were adopted. Even more lived in orphanages. Still, knowing that I was thrown away hurts. There was someone, somewhere that didn't want me. And one question kept whispering in my mind. Why? Did they try to raise me? Were they just not ready? Or was I a mistake? Regardless, they tossed me away and never came back for me. Not that I didn't love the couple that adopted me, I did. They loved me, and they were there for me when nobody else was. But, what did I do to my real parents that was so bad? I often stayed up at night wondering if maybe I cried too much, or if I cried too much. Probably.

My new parents seemed ready to have children, and they thought it was better to take a child that had been left with nothing than to create a new one. They said I was painting a picture when they first saw me. They said I smiled at them, and that my golden eyes won them over as soon as they rested on them. My mother said she cried for a week because she had never seen something more beautiful or perfect. Did my first mother do that, too? Probably not. If she thought I was perfect she wouldn't have given me away, right? She would have at least came back to check on me, wouldn't she? If she loved me she wouldn't have left me to rot.

Once I was in school, I was already learning how to control people. How to lie to them and make them think what I wanted them to think. I was bright for someone my age, matured beyond my years. A few of the people in my grade, although not many, were like me. Wise. They were the ones I spent most of my time with, the ones I called my friends. As I grew up, the same people were the ones I sat with at lunch, and spent time with when I could outside of school. They were the ones I still cared about. They always stuck up for me when people talked behind my back, and I did the same for them. Mine were true friends, and not fake ones like a lot of people. Mine were friends I could trust. My parents were proud of the friends I chose. They were proud that I never talked about one of them stabbing me in the back.

As soon as I was old enough to work in the orchards, I did. Not that I really needed to. My parents had enough money to support me, but I needed to grow up. They had already sacrificed too much for me, I owed them. I got used to the hot sun, and the long days, but I never liked it. The only real joys were that I was doing something productive with time I would have wasted doing nothing otherwise, and I got money. I could afford to do things with my own money, and I didn't have to ask my parents for it. I think they are grateful for it, using the extra money for repairs in my mother's shop, and for the more of the more expensive plants my father used. I hated working, but it benefited them, so I stuck to it.

other

codeword: odair
lyrics: "sweet nothing" by calvin harris ft. florence welch
palette: "traveler"
face claim: selena gomez