Clementina Ogden // D7 // [FIN]

Clementina Ogden // D7 // [FIN] Nov 24, 2013 6:20:21 GMT -5

Post by arx on Nov 24, 2013 6:20:21 GMT -5

\\ Clementina Paz Ogden //

One, two, three, four - done.

I sigh as a weight lifts from my shoulders. Four twists of the doorknob - lucky number 4 - saving me from what I am sure would equate to imminent doom for me. Or worse, for my family. My hands begin to shake and the fear seeps back into my veins, the weight once again beginning to crush me. (Did I lock the door? Oh my god, did I lock the door?) I rush back to the door, finding the lock turned - everything is safe. But I twist the knob and yank the door, one, two, three, four times to be completely sure that no one could get in. I make my way through the house again, counting - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven - then stepping backwards to recount my steps just to be sure. But then I find myself at the door, my mind screaming at me to check the lock again or else the bad man will get in again. I can see him now, coming for my mother, threatening to bash her head in, just like he did with my brother - I check the lock another 4 times before making sure to count carefully the seven steps into the house.

I can't mess this up. I need to get this right.

Seven steps in and I undo the buttons of my coat. Counting each of them, outloud, backwards then forwards then backwards again before finally unbuttoning them. Eight buttons. I throw it on the coat rack, finding myself counting through the buttons again. Shit. I put the coat back on, counting the buttons again, (backwards, forwards, backwards), take eight steps backwards, check the lock on the door again - four times as always - then begin the process again, making it all the way to the kitchen this time. But that is when everything in my mind scrambles again and my heart jumps into my chest. A cake. I knew it - I knew I forgot to lock the door. And now someone has got mom. They have to have her. No, no, no, noooo ...

I sprint to her room, completely forgetting top knock on her door 4 times before entering. I will just have to do it more tomorrow. The door flings open and makes a loud bang and I cringe. But only for a moment before my mind kicks in again and I see mom rocking back and forth in the corner on the floor, tears streaming down her face. "Mom." I run to her, my mind eating away at me again. (Did I lock the door? No, I forgot to, I know it. I didn't lock it, no.) No, damn it, the lock doesn't matter, Mom is crying and she needs help and she stole that damn cake on the counter from the bakery. I sit down next to her and let her fall into me. She is murmuring, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Sorry, so sorry, it was just so pretty, it look so good, I'm sorry ..." and I hush her softly, tears starting to stream down my face too. I forgot to lock her in. And now she is on the ground crying because I did forgot. I'm such a horrible daughter, a horrible sister.

When I have finally tucked Mom under the covers, I leave. I close the door behind me, begin to walk away before the urge is too great and I turn on my heels and knock four times on the closed door. "Stupid," I mutter to myself as I walk back to the kitchen, ready to check the lock again before leaving to return the cake to its rightful place. If only Oliver were here. He was always the normal one, the one that kept Mom and I in check, the one who could maintain order. Honestly, he was the only sane one left in this family and now he was laying in a hospital bed. And I think he will be there for eternity. And it was because I didn't lock the door. (I need to lock the damn door.) I know better. I've always known better. If I forget anything, even one little step, the entire order and balance and safety of this family will be altered. It's happened before, what could possibly stop it from happening again?

I pick the cake up off of the counter and set it at the door. I grab my coat from the hook, count the buttons outloud, forwards then backwards then forwards before taking the four steps to the rug where I hide the key underneath. I pick up the key and the cake, then unbolt all of the locks - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - and then I step outside, my hands shaking as I shut the door behind me and lock the door, checking 4 times before making my way down the hall and out into the cold air. But halfway down the street to the bakery my feet are carrying me back in the opposite direction, my head filled with nothing but the memory my brother's seemingly lifeless body sprawled across the kitchen floor. It will happen again ... That's my fault, all my fault, all of it - mine.

I drop the cake in a frantic hurry to make sure the door is locked.

It is.

And now the cake is ruined, little scavengers already starting to crawl from their cracks in the foundation and holes in the wall. I lean back against the door, slide down as misery overcomes me, and I cry. Of fucking course the door is locked. I checked it 4 times before I left. Why do I have to be so paranoid? My brother. He told me once that I was special. He said me and mom we were both just really special and our minds were too complex for anyone else to understand. I was younger, maybe 12, and he had explained it so that even my young mind could understand. He told me that not everyone thinks like I do - not everyone counts the buttons on their coats or checks the lock more than twice (I gasped at that part. Twice?! Only twice?!) He told me that my mind made me worry. Like how our mom worried about us on Reaping day. This made me think of the panicky, fretful woman who ran around our house kissing our foreheads every two seconds and crying as if we were already dead. I didn't like it when she did that.

Oliver told me I was special, but nothing bad was ever going to happen to mom or him just because I forgot to count the buttons on my coat. Of course I didn't believe him at first. I even thought an evil alien had taken over his body and was trying to trick me. That only made me more paranoid and gave me more routines to follow. After mom had one of her breakdowns and stole jewelry from the old lady across the hall and the "medicine" (That's what Oliver always called it, but I know now that our neighbor is a drug dealer - a popular one I might add.) from the young man downstairs. She never wore the jewelry or took the drugs, but she had been crying in her bedroom, curled up in a tight ball, clutching her knees to her chest and whimpering incoherent words.

"Mom is special, too. A different kind of special, but still just as special as you." Oli said, scooping up the jewelry and throwing the drugs in the trash. "She steals things. Not on purpose, it's just the way her brain is wired to think. Kinda like you, Tina." I now the word for it now. Kleptomaniac. It's a disorder. Nothing all that special about it - it means you are a freak. It means I am a freak. Nothing special about me except for the fact that because my brain needs rewiring I can't make it to school sometimes because I spend all day checking and re-checking, counting and re-counting, trapped in routine after routine in an attempt to stop the voices from telling me that, "Your mother will be comatose too if you mess up."

One day I controlled it. Everything had been turned down to a dull roar in my mind. Oliver taught me that everything would be okay. (Well, he convinced me after he dragged me to school without any of my regular routines and we came home to nothing wrong. Mom hadn't even stolen anything.) So, I had gotten down to only checking the lock three times before I left the house. No counting buttons or washing my hands thousands of times or brushing my hair with exactly 1,000 strokes of perfection, just checking the lock one more time than everyone else in all of District 7 did.

But then I came home to a wide open door.

I had finally forgotten the lock. After I had been so thorough for so long I had forgotten. I found Oliver laying face down on the floor, his head bloody and a shattered glass vase nearby. My mom was nowhere to be found, and instead of running to get a Peacekeeper or even just getting help from one of the neighbors, I couldn't do anything but clean up the mess. I cried the whole time and didn't notice that I had cut my hands on the glass until mom came home and told me I needed to talk to her. Of course I could only babble on and on about how I didn't make the mess and how I was sorry I didn't like the door. Stupid, stupid me - WHY DIDN'T I LOCK IT?!

But Oliver wasn't dead. The doctors determined that he was merely in a coma. Got bashed on the head a little too hard to just be a consussion, but not hard enough to kill him. And it was all my fault. The authorities had determined that it had one of my brother's fellow lumberjacks who had needed money for tessera. Oliver didn't have that kind of money, refused, and his friend got mad and hit him - Hard. Oli's supposed friend had stolen Mom's stolen jewelry and a bunch of other valuables in an attempt to get the money he needed. I don't really know what happened to him ... All I know is that Oliver is in a coma and has been that way for years. I think he will stay that way forever.

I hate myself for that day. So many things about that day make me hate myself. I visit his hospital bed every day with a pebble. He hates flowers and he isn't dead, so why would I bring him flowers? So I go to the river bed, pick out the shiniest pebble I can find, and bring it to him, dropping it in a vase at his bedside. (I had to dump the flowers out of it and explain to the nurse that he hated flowers.) I yelled at the doctors when they had buzzzzzzzzzed all his hair off. He always loved his hair. It was thick and chocolatey, just like mine, and it curled all over his head. We look almost exactly the same. We could be twins if he wasn't so thick and muscular and I so twiggy and small. Tanned skin, big brown eyes, disarming smiles if I do say so myself - are just a few of the similarities we hold.

I wish he would open his eyes ...

At least then I could tell him I am sorry for not being special enough to wake him up sooner.

I think that keeping this up could be dangerous.
I'm flesh and bone,
I'm a rolling stone,
And the experts say I'm delirious.