blue montgomery {nine} fin

There's something about waking up on a Sunday morning and feeling like you want to die that seems particularly unnatural. Drinking after district curfew outside of your home is forbidden, but I wasn't breaking any rules. I'm not the type to go out with friends on a Saturday night, partly because the very few friends I do have are either a) living with extremely strict and/or paranoid parents, or b) sober. No, I spent the evening with my crazy uncle and my even crazier parents. They thought it would be wonderful to induct me into my seventeenth year by getting me absolutely trashed - a hilarious tale to tell at future family gatherings and another way to pull a middle-fingered 'Fuck You' to the powers that be in white helmets.

But I'm not a heavy drinker or anything. Sure, my uncle likes one-too-many when he comes over for dinner but I tend to stay away from hard liquor. Apart from Saturday evening where I thought gulping down scorching liquid was the best way to bring a smile to my parents eyes. It's hard trying to please them with rebelling when they don't actually allow me to rebel at all. If I'm honest, I'm a lot little scared of what they do and what might happen to them if they're caught. They're scared of what will happen to me if I join in. They haven't been caught yet - and the only reason I know that is because they're still breathing. Panem keeps them in cages, hot-tempered animals that are too smart to break out of their prison.

My life has consisted of whispered discussions I wasn't allowed to attend and keeping secrets stitched away in my mind. It's easy to hide them away between my teeth when I hardly open my mouth. I am more of an observer than a talker. That tends to be the result of being left out of the inner most going-ons of my household. Whispers. Muffled voices. Charts and plans and tears of those who sacrificed everything for a better future. My father inspires with his words and my mother walks with her head held high. My parents are fighters of the night and the painting of a future everybody wants and nobody can achieve.

I wonder what they'd say if I told them I wanted to be a Peacekeeper.

I wonder what they'd say if I told them I wasn't joking.

They hate the Capitol and the men in white. I don't want to be the image of oppression that they see. I want to change. I want to enforce peace, quiet, equality and order. To punish only when one must be, as an absolute last resort, for crimes that they actually commit. I sit on the roof of my home, black hair cropped at my shoulders that's dry to the touch and probably needs washing, mouth twisted to the side, chin in my hands and grazed elbows at my knees, knowing that the words being spoken underneath me could get us all killed.

When I was younger I wanted to help. I hate the Hunger Games as much as the next person and they terrify me (I'm seventeen but my age doesn't scare away the nightmares that haunt children on their 12th birthdays) and I hate the people who let them be. But my parents said no, it's too dangerous, no, you're not old enough, no, wait until your nineteenth birthday. And I would stamp my foot and cross my arms and sulk, dragging my feet across dusty pavements until the rubber on my shoes wore through. When I was younger I thought I could take on the world. Now that I'm older I think twice about putting a gun to my head and letting someone else pull the trigger.

Up on the roof the bullets can't get me. I don't need fear to keep me quiet anymore. I am passive, silent, introverted and caught up in my own thoughts. I have been brought up to lie and cheat and stay quiet, but when I do speak I am honest and straightforward. I am a contradiction and yet nobody knows it. Sighing, and wrinkling my eyebrows together in a lame effort to dull my pounding hangover headache, I stand and face the oncoming dusk. My teeth chatter together in the evening wind, crooked like the roof tiles. 

"MONTY!" someone hollers from the streets. It's a nickname that's grown on me, and as I break my gaze from the horizon and look down at the ground a familiar face waves as they pass. I raise my hand at the passer-by, wiggling slender fingers back with a quiet smile, saying nothing as per usual. The same person who now walks away with a spring in their step, my existence a blink in their day, once told me I look like I house secrets. They wouldn't be wrong. My house is full of secrets too, hidden in plain sight. But it's my green eyes that give me away. Luckily my lips aren't so giving. Nor are my words.

I am a child of rebels but I'm not a rebel child.