melantha black, district ten

there are so many things for her to love in this broken, dark world, and yet she loves so little. there are many souls that shine in the murky darkness that engulfs this cursed earth, and yet she sees only a handful of lanterns. her heart is a vast space, and yet it is almost entirely vacant.

attachment. love. trust.

these things do not come easily to her.

they often get tossed out with her collection of broken promises, a growing pile of fading sunshine and broken glass hearts and torn letters. one day, she dreams with an empty heart of doubt and distrust, that it will scrape the sky with its dreadfulness.

if she has learned a single thing in life, it is that people cannot be trusted.

(and she learned the hard way.)

but when she first surfaced into life, her heart glowed golden and white with trust. she would smile with dimpled round cheeks and when she did, they would leap to the faces surrounding her. her eyes, like wide pools of black oil, cursed blessed with innocence, were blind to the tyranny that looms over panem and the tragedy that racks the districts in merciless waves. blood spills were puddles of red paint. bruises were marker stains. death was travelling elsewhere.

and there was no such thing as pain.

there was physical pain, like the ache that rippled through her back when she toppled off of her horse, gypsy. but the pain that engulfed the entire body in an ocean of agony, the pain that hollowed out the heart, the pain that stabbed from the inside of the chest, was nonexistent. tears had spilled from her dark eyes like a drizzle of rain many times, but the tears did not pour from a pool of misery and her throat did not burn with anguish from choking on sobs.

what simple days, when light was all that touched the horizon.

all there was were skies of fire before night approached and running her tiny hands down the flank of her palomino horse and giggling as she played tag with her sisters in the field of flowers as a waterfall of sunset streaming behind her as she ran.

the sun would leave drops of itself on her fair skin - little copper kisses all across her face. the speckles adorning her body matched her hair, red like the trees when autumn swept through panem. they were everywhere her flowing sundresses did not cover, everywhere the sunlight touched her. they were all along her slender limbs, her sternum, her upper back, her face.

she loved the sun. and long ago, she was just as bright.

but the light began to fade the moment she shook his hand.

with every kiss, the darkness seeped further into her skin, dimming the light that danced joyously behind her eyes. and every gentle touch was a broken promise. the moments they shared were lies. it was all a lie, a twisted mirage he had conjured with his convincing words, soft as velvet, and toxic kisses. the only truth was the love that she felt blazing in her heart. she does not know what exactly he had felt, but whatever it was, it could not be called love.

"forever," he said.

and she believed him, with all of her fragile heart. just like every other lie that slipped between his lips.

"this child won't tear us apart. it will bring us together."

"promise?"

"cross my heart,"

"and hope to die."

"i could never do anything to hurt you."

"cross your heart?"

"and hope to die."

"i love you."

and he would cross his heart.

(looking back, it was all so foolish.)

(she did not break promises - "cross my heart and hope to die" was full of meaning to her - so why did he break his?)

everything was severed by the knife that sliced across raina's throat. his knife. she always wondered why he did it, wondering why why why THADDEUS BAINBRIDGE, wrapped in her sheets at midnight. if only the bullet from the peacekeeper had given her enough time to force a reason, even a flimsy one, out of his mouth. the only reasons she could think of was one, he had a terrible quarrel with raina or two, he was a sadist and wanted to hurt her. (or, perhaps, it was both.)

after he sent raina to her grave, she found herself grateful that the baby was a miscarriage. the child was a mistake, but it was her beautiful mistake. she had dreamed that the baby was a girl - its name would have been soleil - and that it was a perfect blend of its parents. she dreamed that her child would have a petite, bird-like frame like herself, that copper hair with streaks of honey sprouted from the child's tiny head. she dreamed of blue saucer eyes and porcelain skin that would bare miles of freckles sun kisses.

the guilt of feeling grateful for the miscarriage was more crushing than a boulder, but it was not as devastating as the despair that had frozen her heart. she would have dreams - nightmares - of soleil, of her child springing up tall like the flowers in the spring and playing hide-and-seek. but soleil never made it to the world. soleil never made it to see the sun.

but if she could make a wish on a single shooting star, her wish would not be to have soleil. (it was not meant to be - but that did not stop the searing pain or rivers of grief.) she would not wish for those broken promises and lies he made to be mended. she would not wish for eternal life - it would be an eternity of remembering agony and hollowness. she would wish for a second chance. she would wish to change the past, to steer her off course of slamming into thaddeus in the school hallway in her frantic rush to class.

she would take back every glance, every touch, every kiss, every "i love you," every lovingly sarcastic retort. if she could change that day, she would have spat, "fuck you, watch where you're going." (it was what she was going to say, and then their eyes locked and the words melted away.)

she would take back everything.

it was an impossible dream painfully far from reach.

and yet, the words "take it back" echo like ghosts in her mind.