Eden Everstein | District One | Done!
Apr 13, 2014 19:57:55 GMT -5
Post by goldskies on Apr 13, 2014 19:57:55 GMT -5
Eden Everstein
Female
District One
Codeword ~ Odair
Seventeen
Faceclaim ~ Nora Zehetner
If I wake up early enough and look out the glass windows over smoggy District One I can see a pink sunrise on the horizon, just for me.
Momma always says the sun rises and sets just for me. I don't know if that's true but it sure is a beautiful thought. I'm never up early enough to see a sunrise, though. I need my beauty sleep.
Not that I'm going to get any more beautiful. I'm not even pretty. For example, this morning I rolled out of my blush pink covers and sat on my little pink velvet stool in front of my mirror and groaned rather audibly. My black hair is cropped close to my head like a boy's. The stylist said it was called 'pixie' and Momma said I looked 'cute'. As soon as she was done cutting I bawled my eyes out. I looked ugly. However, Momma fell in love with it and won't let me cut it any different. I had bags under my eyes that morning from the Reaping party the night before. Those lucky Tributes get all the glory. I slept in the pink contacts and now my large eyes are red and crusty. Red is not pink. Red is blood and sweat and nasty things.
My head is huge and round up top with a point chin. I look like an upside-down egg. Phooey.
I looked down at my fingernails. The paint is all ripped up because I've been biting my nails. Daddy says it's a nasty habit but I can't help it. My favorite boy said he might come last night and I worried myself sick hoping. He never showed. That's the thing about hope, it always disappoints.
They always try to make me eat in the mornings but I just don't want to. I'll just throw it up again. They all say I'm too skinny but there's always that one bit of fat on my upper arms or my thighs that I just can't live with. So it just throw up the fat. I tried running it off once but I fainted. Besides, Daddy doesn't want my running about the house like a child. He already treats me like a child.
It's the same with Momma. I'm seventeen years old and still her baby Well, sometimes I act like a baby, but I want what I want. That's not so wrong is it? The boys don't treat me like a baby. They treat me like a proper grown-up. Why just today I found some pink roses outside my door signed from one of my boys. Not one of my favorites, but I like having him occasionally. Wasn't it sweet of him?
I'm not afraid to tell the boys how I feel, or anybody for that matter. They girls call me ditzy, dumb, and sickly fake sweet I know because I heard them in the bathroom. They didn't know I was in the back stall regurgitating my crab-stuffed butter rolls and other dinner. I can be quiet about it when I want. I don't care what the girls think about me. They're the babies. They can't even handle a little competition.
Ditzy is fine by me. Boys like ditzy. Daddy doesn't, but it's not like he pays any attention except for when I'm doing something wrong. Funny how I'm always doing something wrong. Good he hasn't noticed how thin I'm getting. Maybe he doesn't want to. Dumb, however, is just plain mean. I get good grades. I get up every morning like I supposed to and go to school. I pledge to my District and to Panem. I know the difference between a good whiskey and a bad one and a good boy and a bad one. I can read, write, talk like a politician and lie like one, too. Daddy says that's all you need in life to be successful. As for and sickly fake sweet, they're ones to talk about fake. None of the girls around here still have their original noses or hair color. I can't make a claim in the hair color department but my nose is still the one-and-only original nose of Eden Everstein, thank you very much.
I was born seventeen years ago just as the sun came up. That's why Momma says that bout the sunrise and all. I was Momma's only child. She said I was all she ever wanted. She still doesn't know I know that I was all she could ever have. The doctors wouldn't let her anymore because she's sick. She's been sick for fourteen years and nobody can figure out what's wrong with her. Her hair's all falling out and she's deathly pale. She's skinny as a rail and always has this pinched look on her face. People say we're practically twins. I think that makes Momma happy, 'cause Momma thinks I'm pretty.
When Momma caught the sickness Daddy just got mad. He got so mad at her for getting sick and she got mad because he was mad and now they don't talk anymore. Daddy was already taking the bottle pretty bad when she got sick so I can't say that got worse. What did get worse was him cheatin' on her. He didn't ever love her except for her money, I think. It's okay. I think she felt the same way about him. Besides, I've met Daddy's mistress. She's nice except for the ugly red lipstick spread all over her thin lips and her god-awful man perfume. But other than that she's alright.
I don't know what I'm going to do when I finally have to do something. Maybe I'll get thrown in the Hunger Games and die a nasty, ugly death. Wouldn't that be horrible? Right now the plan is to find a nice boy who Daddy likes and can tolerate Momma so I can get married, have lots of money, and lots of babies of my own. I've always loved babies. Ever since I was little I've been fascinated by their rosy cheeks and plump little bodies. They say the babies from some of the other Districts don't look like that. They say that they aren't so plump down there and that they don't have any color because they're hungry. It makes me so sad. But there's nothing I can do, is there? I'm just a baby myself, according to Momma. That's how I get out of most everything. Pretending not to be capable. Maybe, if somewhere along the way someone had made me capable, taught me how, I could be a better person. Nobody ever taught me how to be a capable person. Momma made it like that so I'd always depend on her, I think. Once she's gone I'll have nobody to do everything for me. I don't know how I'll make it. I wish somebody would've taught me how. How to be more than a baby I want to be a person.
