Ezabel {D5}

My parents were the happiest couple in the world.

They owned a little cottage on the outskirts of the district, only a minute's walk from the nearest electric fence. It was hardly the romantic getaway they had hoped for after their wedding, but who could complain? It was quiet, peaceful, perfect for a couple with a strict budget. Every morning when the sun licked the horizon my father would cook breakfast for his wife, and they would sit at this little wooden table he constructed with his own two hands and reminisce as they filled their bellies with goodies. Every few minutes or so one of them would smile, and that contagious gesture would force them to share its warmth and company. When they were finished they would head off to work. Dad worked at an oil rig and would always walk through that wooden door reeking of pollution. Mom worked at an animal farm, and cows didn't smell much better than oil. They would come home to that cottage looking filthy and sweaty, but at least they could afford to keep it.

They couldn't afford protection though, so when the bump appeared in mom's belly there was plenty of excitement and worry to go around. What couple wouldn't be excited for a baby? It was part of the family dream. But how could they afford another mouth to feed? How could they afford to expand their home to fit a third bedroom for their future love? They mulled it over for all nine months, both trying to find a second job to compensate. They had no luck, and by the time mom delivered her first born in the medical center they were already in debt from the expenses. Holding their baby boy they wept for hours as the reality of the situation struck their hearts; they would have to give him up or risk losing everything. They couldn't raise a baby in the streets, it was unsanitary and unhealthy. They would all starve, and they were only thinking of their poor baby. So they dropped him off in a wooden cradle at the doorstep of an orphanage, leaving only his fuzzy blanket and a note. "His name is Ezabel."

That's how I imagine them, my parents. Truth is, I have no clue if it's true. I have no idea who they are.

I'm just a baby abandoned on a doorstep, no past or history or anything but a name. Ezabel. A very feminine-sounding name, right? My Ma said it's probably because they expected a girl. I don't know why they would expect that. Maybe they just thought Ezabel was the perfect name for their perfect child?

Apparently I spent my first four years of life in that orphanage being raised by old ladies with no patience. I don't actually remember any of it, to be honest. I just know that Ma adopted me (I call her Ma because she's kind of the only mom I've had, you know? And I don't want to call her Judy, that's not proper) when I was four, along with a kid named Ezra. We're not at all related, but we grew up together so he's my best friend (Ezra and Ezabel. Sounds cool, right?). Then there's Marcy, my Ma's niece. Her mom died so she had to stay with us. It was just the four of us in a three-bedroom house. I shared one room with Ezra, Marcy got her own room because she was just a baby and then Ma stayed in the third room by herself. Until she found a boyfriend, of course, then it was more like she shared the room with him whenever he came over. We would always hear weird noises when he stayed the night. I know what it means now, but back then me and Ezra thought it was Ma getting sick. One time Ezra suggested ghosts, but I don't believe in that stuff so I told him he was just making up silly things. He always got mad at me when I said that to him, but it was true.

Things were pretty normal before Ma married the guy. I call him "the guy" because I don't like to say his name. Whenever Ma was out with him the babysitter - a lady named Tala - would come over and watch us. She was my first crush, I think. She had red hair and pretty blue eyes and freckles, but she would always bring her boyfriend over and kiss on the couch while me and Ezra played outside and Marcy slept in her crib. We actually lived close enough to the electric fence to see it from our backyard, but we never tried to touch it. We would just run close to it and pretend that we were animals. I would always be a bear, because I wanted to be strong. Ezra wanted to be a bird so he would fly over the fence to see what was outside. I always told him it was just the forest. He didn't believe me. He said there would be cooler things, things he planned to see one day when he was older. I thought he was kind of crazy for thinking that, because we're not allowed to leave. We'd get in trouble if we ever tried to leave.

That's what Ma taught us from the books. All kids are supposed to go to school, but she didn't want us going to public school until we were comfortable, so she would read us things from the Panem history books instead. We learned about the other districts and what they did, we learned that our district was all about animals and oil and we learned that when we turned twelve we would enter a Reaping for the Games, but she said she didn't want us to learn about that yet. When she finally did let us go to public school we were outcasts, because all of the other kids knew how to read and we didn't. Ma never taught us that, so kids made fun of us and didn't want to be our friend. Ezra would always try to fight them for calling us stupid. I just ignored them until Ma finally took us out of school to continue homeschooling. Before she ended up marrying that guy, she promised us that he would teach us how to read so we could be like the other kids.

He never did.

The wedding itself was fun. Marcy was too young to be the flower girl, so me and Ezra got to walk down the aisle and throw flowers all over the floor. There weren't many people there, but there was a lot of tasty food and afterward we played games. Ma said that the guy would be moving in with us, that they would be sharing their room permanently and that every time me and Ezra woke up he would be in the kitchen to make us breakfast like a dad would. I was really excited. That's what it was like for the first year or so.

Then things started to change. He started making us do a lot of chores, and if we did them too slowly or did them wrong he would shout as us until I cried, or until Ezra argued back. One night when Ezra started to scream at him, he punched Ezra in the face. Then he grabbed me by my hair and yanked me over to the mess Ezra had been cleaning. "Clean your brother's shit." he said, and then he pulled on my hair until my head was tilted all the way back, so he could look me in the eyes. "Or I'll really give you something to cry about."

I've kept my hair short since then. It used to be long, you see, to cover my big ears. They turned red when I got embarrassed, and I didn't like it. Now I can't stand the thought of long hair, because he would always pull it whenever I did something wrong.

It got worse after that. He would never hit Ma, just us. She always told him to stop, and he would lie and promise her that he would never hurt a hair on our little heads again. Then he would turn around and do it, but Ma would never do anything about it but cry, like I did. She wouldn't leave him or take us away. We all just dealt with it.

Except for Ezra.

He planned it for months, running away. I begged him not to because I was too scared to go with him. He wanted both of us to just dig a hole and crawl underneath the district fence so we could escape, but I knew it was too dangerous. He didn't seem to care. One night he just vanished, and the next day I found a hole near the fence with a piece of paper next to it. On it he had drawn a picture of us holding hands. It was badly-drawn, two ugly stick figures with messy hair, but it made me cry anyway.

I couldn't live in that house without him, so I ran away too, but in the opposite direction.

I ended up at another orphanage. I went by a different name so nobody would trace my identity back to Ma and her cruel new husband. I was nine years old when I got forced into some foster home with ten other kids. Half of them were teenagers that didn't care about anything I did, and the rest were either my age or toddlers. None of them really liked me. They thought I was too quiet and too weird, and stupid because I couldn't read. When I cried, they wouldn't comfort me like Ezra would.

I ran away from that place too, because I was lonely and miserable. I wanted Ezra back, but I never had the courage to crawl under the fence.

I lived on the street for about two weeks and nearly starved to death before some Peacekeepers found me. They beat me until I cried then stuck me in another foster home. This one was just had an old woman and two teenage girls, and she made me do chores all day. I stayed there for longer because I was at Reaping age by then. I went to four Reapings with them, and when I wasn't busy doing chores I could watch the Games on TV. It made me feel selfish because I ran away from a man who pulled my hair, but the people on TV wouldn't run away from someone with a knife. It made me realize that I should be thankful that nobody was hurting me anymore. That's the only reason why I stayed with that old woman for so long. She tried to make me go to school, but I failed all of my classes and nobody liked me.

Her name was Ms. Bo, by the way, and she died of an illness just this year. I ran away before the foster people could find me and stick me in another home. I want to find my own home this time.

Or maybe I'll finally gather the courage to crawl under that fence and find Ezra if he's still alive.

I know I can't read, but I'm smart enough to know that he's probably dead.

I don't know if that will stop me or not.