i'm {not} sorry [alexis and louvain]

He woke to an empty house. Mom’s only day off was Sunday, and after her cat died a few weeks ago there was nobody to greet in the morning. In the pantry, there was still a brand new bag of cat food he had spent his extra money on. It sat lonely and unopened, and he ignored it in favor of suppressing the memories and grabbing a box of cereal for breakfast. He wasn’t in the mood to cook, and there were only eggs, milk, and fruit left in the fridge anyway. Little Ace had always been such a mealtime pest; she would leap up onto the table and mewl at him for the milk in his cereal. Digging a miniature grave for her in the backyard had been depressing. Now it was quiet.

His shift didn’t start until the afternoon, when the sun was at its highest peak. A day of sweat, grime, and blisters awaited, and the dreadful thought tempted him back into his bedroom for a nap. He knew the drawbacks of that decision and decided to read a book instead. It was a novel about a teenage couple in the Capitol falling in love and working through hardships. Parts of it felt cliché and overdramatic, especially about the parents’ wanting the girl to have a job (weren’t they rich enough?). Flaws aside, he enjoyed reading stories with uplifting plotlines and promising endings. Happily ever afters were unrealistic, but it was fun to immerse himself in a hopeful dream world. He needed a break from the real one.

Seven chapters later, he remembered his upcoming history exam and pulled out his textbook. He was a chapter and a half behind, but could easily catch up today and study his notes tomorrow. That was the only preparation he needed.

Time passed quickly, and the shadows in his room shifted. Fifteen minutes before his scheduled time he changed into an old T-shirt and a pair of shorts, his best outfit for the unpleasant summer weather. Tank tops had been an option until his shoulders burned. He ended up peeling for a week, and mom quickly ran out of the soothing lotion he could use to dampen the pain. The most he could bring to fight the heat was a bottle of water. Only a single bottle; bringing multiple cost more money, and he was supposed to be saving it for important purchases. Mom was down to her last few pills.

He locked the front door behind him. Mom was usually home two hours before he returned, hopefully in time to make a fresh dinner. The sun was setting later and later, carrying with it more lingering heat, but also more hours in the graveyard. He was not allowed to work at night, and frankly he agreed with that rule. Graveyards were creepy at night. Every gust of wind was a ghost’s whisper, and every rustle a hand waiting to grab his ankle. He didn’t believe in the undead, but it was still scary. Darkness in itself was a terror. Supernatural or not, there were still dangers lurking in a dark district. Everybody knew that well enough.

His boss always marked the areas that needed digging. People dropped like flies during summer seasons. Droughts killed the homeless quicker than illnesses. He didn’t like to think about who would be buried under his feet; he just thrust his shovel into the dirt and hoped their funeral would be peaceful and well-attended. His boss was rarely around to answer questions anyway. He was the one attending to the corpses, a career he couldn’t imagine pursuing. It was indoors and paid well, but it was grim. He wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to be promoted.

Two graves wasn’t terrible. If he finished early he could leave and still be paid for the hours he was assigned. That was another perk of the job. There weren’t many others. It was too silent, for instance. Nobody wanted to disturb the dead, especially the ones who visited. They never made conversation with him if they happened to spot him. All he could do was listen to the birds or hum a song. It was dull work.

Today, somebody was making a ruckus. He was halfway into the second grave when he heard their voices, but didn’t bother to turn his head and investigate. He had already taken his short break beneath the shelter of a tree, inhaling his water like a dried up fish. Whoever was here, they didn’t sound like they were visiting. Nobody ever laughed about the dead.

He made the mistake of turning around.

There were five of them gathered around a single gravestone, all boys about his age. Four of them were savagely kicking at it, breaking away chips of stone with the heels of their shoes. He knew whose grave it was because of the landmark next to it; the biggest tree on the property. He instantly dropped his shovel and rushed over to them, panic and shock etched into every detail of his sweaty face. ”Hey! Stop it!” he yelled at them before he was within earshot. They were destroying private property, did they have any idea?

”That’s my grandmother’s grave,” he panted, frowning. ”Why are you ruining it?!”

A seed of anxiety planted itself in the pit of his stomach. The sprouted roots mingled with his nerves to produce widespread tension in his muscles. Their heads turned toward him as a unit, a pack of wolves, and his body went rigid. Their gazes were sharp and their smiles sickly sweet. His heart wasn’t brave, just aching for his resting grandmother. If a soul could stir at a sign of trouble then hers would be writhing, and she didn’t deserve that. Up close he could see the scars of ruin. Chips and pieces were missing, having been broken off into fragments or crumbled to dust. Her name was still etched clearly into the stone. He had not left her flowers in a while, but maybe that was a good thing. These heathens would’ve stomped them to oblivion.

”Do we really need a reason?” One of them said, and it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. Part of him – perhaps a foolish, rarely summoned naïve part of his conscience – had hoped that they were angry at a specific somebody and merely attacked the wrong grave. But how could they? There were names and years carved into each stone. Lou had even witnessed the manufacture of one – a man named Samuel who had died of a heart attack four years ago. There was no mistake here, simply chaos. The mistake was his.

This wolf pack reminded him of storybook antagonists. There were always bully archetypes who relished in the pointless torment and humiliation of the protagonist. Their characters were always shallow and unexplored, no backstory included. There were never any reasons behind their actions. It was mindless violence and endless power struggles with no explanation for any of it. People like that weren’t supposed to exist, yet he was detecting that vibe. His skin prickled the longer they stared at him, the more this boy justified his actions by mentioning how “bored” they were. One of them was drunk and the eerie air reeked of cigarette smoke. They were here to have fun. In a graveyard.

Lou didn’t believe in bad karma, so it was safe to say that disturbing the peace in a graveyard wouldn’t return to haunt them. It was morally unacceptable to bring poison to a resting place and damage private property, but he would go out on a limb and guess that they didn’t care. ”And you know, I really don't appreciate having my fun interrupted." The boy continued, and it was impossible not to sense an oncoming struggle. Lou raised his hands in surrender. ”I’m sorry, I-“

I didn’t mean to.

A fist knocked the words back into his throat. His equilibrium shattered, allowing gravity to anchor him violently to the grass. He had always been small and lightweight by nature. With meat added to his bones from years of digging graves, there wasn’t much of a difference now. He had toppled like a domino, and there was no time to gather his wits. Cheek throbbing, he twisted his torso in time to feel a painful thrust against his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs in a wheeze. The kick snapped his head back into one of the gravestones, and his vision exploded with stars. There was a firecracker in his skull, but he couldn’t make a coherent noise to scream it away.

He heard a laugh. ”Look at his face! Do you think we can make him cry?”

Someone kicked him in the spine. He arched his back to escape, and then another struck his ribcage. His whimpers escaped in pathetic puffs as several simultaneous blows painted his torso black and blue. I’m drowning. He couldn’t breathe. I’m drowning I’m drowning I’m drowning on – on nothing. He gasped for air. A shoe smacked him in the cheek and he felt his gums tear open. A hand fisted his hair and yanked him upright as he recognized the coppery taste of blood. He hadn’t bled in his mouth since he lost a tooth when he was little.

Somewhere in the back of his screaming brain, he had registered their laughter throughout the entire ordeal. They were enjoying themselves like sadists. ”How about one more?” One said, and his suggestion was met with cheers as Lou’s scalp burned. A fist plowed into his stomach, nearly emptying him of his breakfast. He coughed and gagged, then he was finally dropped. He didn’t listen to them walk away.

Everything hurt, but he could breathe again. He lay crumpled, confused, vision blurred – something warm trickled down his cheek. I’m crying. He curled himself into a ball and sobbed. When did that happen?

The air tasted of metal and smoke. Arms trembling, Lou propped himself up on his elbow and ejected a glob of blood and saliva into the dirt. He could gag on the flavor of pain but his body was in too much of it, and kept him focused on the areas of real concern. His skull throbbed where bone had collided with stone, disorienting him, twisting his face into a permanent grimace. He didn’t notice the heat of the sun or the sweat beading across his brow. He didn’t notice the stray who had lingered behind, still in the presence of his grandma’s demolished grave. He couldn’t even think about her and what he had done. There was no processing a coherent thought; it was just it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, playing on repeat.

His stomach churned, still reeling from the kick that had sent it into a frenzy. On top of blood and excessive spit he didn’t want to taste digested cereal. He felt pitiful enough, miserable enough. There was no need to add anything more, or perhaps he would scream instead of cry. Disbelief was as unrelenting as the agony scratched across his flesh. How could people like this exist? Evil in its purest form. No mercy, no hesitation, just the senseless beat down of a boy who had only meant to ask why his poor grandmother’s grave was being disrespected. He didn’t want her memories tarnished, but now it was too late. He would never forget how terrible this felt, and how it all happened because of his grandmother’s ruined gravestone.

He hadn’t noticed he was panting, but the pangs in his lungs – his need for oxygen – pushed his diaphragm to its limit. Every inhale was flavored with smoke and he wasn’t sure why. It made him cough, triggering another spasm of pain in his chest. It pushed a groan between his lips, and his elbow collapsed. The grass was itchy, but it didn’t register as strongly. He coughed again and squeezed his eyes shut. The sun was too bright and he wanted to imagine that he was anywhere but here, inhaling smoke from a nonexistent source.

Maybe they had started burning the place down.

There was sound but he wanted to mistake it for the wind instead of footsteps. Footsteps were terrifying, and voices worse. He flinched when a hand touched his forehead. His eyes shot open and he found himself shadowed by a boy – not one of the ones who struck him, or so he thought. He couldn’t think, really, so he stared. The hair sticking to his forehead was matted backwards, and he took the opportunity to peer up at the cigarette in his mouth. That explained it. One of them was still here, touching him. Fingers swept his cheeks. ”I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and it sounded like something he wanted to hear. Therefore it had to be a lie. Now was the worst time to have any amount of hope.

Lou turned his head and buried his nose further into the grass, inhaling desperately to escape this stranger and his poison. Can I walk? His legs were one of the few unscathed parts of his body, and unless they had broken without his notice, it was a silly question.

”Well, I suppose you really don't have a choice, you have to walk to get home.”

Thanks.

Captain obvious claimed that he wanted to help. The idea brought him as much discomfort as the twig digging into his hip bone. He shifted away, body scooting against grass and dirt until a gravestone pressed into his back. ”I don’t..” The voice that sounded so small and defeated didn’t sound like himself. His tongue felt heavy and sticky with blood, a disgusting sensation that made him grimace again. ”..want your help. Go away.” He said it in a groan, but meant every word.

He wasn't asking to be saved, it was too late for that. Just leave me be.

He thought he had understood most of what the world had to offer. He knew what to expect from adulthood, he knew what it meant to fear for somebody’s life, he knew what it meant to be sick, to be invisible, to be insecure. He knew what it felt like to ache like he had aged a thousand years in one day. He knew the Reaping, the Games, he knew tragedy. There were things he hadn’t experienced yet, but he could understand them. This he didn’t understand. Most chaos was somehow organized, like weather patterns. They were never random. It was all atmospheric design, but it was the damage it caused that people labeled “chaotic.” That chaos didn’t compare to this. Unprovoked violence, savagery – and one of the villains themselves offering what he called “help.”

No, he was forcing it.

His words were the least bit comforting. Somehow he made “help” leave a bitter taste in his mouth. It made him shudder because it was wrong, it was not supposed to feel like his freedom was being swept from under his feet. If he was a hero meant to help, why did Lou feel cornered? This boy was as dangerous as the others, perhaps playing some game of pretend, luring him further into vulnerability so he could be humiliated. The rest of the pack was gone and he knew it, he checked again. The sun was blinding when he raised his head, and it blared into the back of his eyes, squeezing ahold of his pain threshold. His skull throbbed again.

”That’s not..” Fair, he wanted to say, but what would this guy know about fairness? He wasn’t an underdog. If he heard the phrase “life isn’t fair” one more time he would scream until he scared the sun away.

Something worked against gravity to sit him upright, and he grimaced. He didn’t want this boy’s hands on him. They dusted his shirt and brushed against fresh bruises, prompting him to flinch and curl further into himself. The stone was still scraping against his back, obstructing his path. He couldn’t scoot away like he wanted to, and the pain was still too sharp for him to stand. Would this boy even let him stand? He was his prisoner now, chained to the tombstone like an animal. All he wanted to do was sit in a pitiful heap, then go home. To whom did he owe this suffering?

If he wasn’t exhausted, he would scoff. The boy could preach all he wanted about not hurting people, but Louvain would never believe him. Hanging around that crowd, he probably tormented innocents on a daily basis. Now it was his turn. Perhaps he wouldn’t kick a dog when he was down, but he was finding another way to make him feel miserable. Leave me the fuck alone.

He wasn’t brave enough to say it.

Lou didn’t care about his name or shaking his hand, but what he said after startled him. ”What? My head is bleeding?” He touched source of his throbbing and sure enough, the pain radiated like a fresh blow to the bone. Years of digging graves and healing blisters and sweating in the hot sun hadn’t made him stronger. He whimpered at one measly touch, and he hated himself for it. The hand he brought back was sticky and red. It can’t be that bad, he panicked, willing himself to cease his trembles. It didn’t work. He didn’t have a concussion, right? He would be twice as disoriented. He wouldn’t be able to make sense of the asshole in front of him.

”I-I..have a first aid kit at home. I don’t need you.”

He needed his mother.

He needed anybody but him

The first aid kit was something his mother had purchased as a precaution, and it was stowed away in her private bathroom above the medicine cabinet. She left every room in the house unlocked so he could access it. Safety was emphasized because there was not a moment she was liberated from a potential episode, and now their precious supplies would be wasted on a vicious attack. Lou would call it unprovoked, unless he had somehow threatened them with his timid demeanor and complete lack of confidence. His evident helplessness must’ve been a temptation. Weaklings were attractive in the eyes of evil, and as pathetic as he was, he must’ve been a delicacy. He had always known he wasn’t a fighter, but hadn’t expected life to shove that in his face.

It wasn’t even heroic, defending his grandmother’s grave. It was logical. Logic wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.

He had always prided himself in his ability to balance logic and emotions, but now logic was being thrown out a window. It was lost somewhere in the woods where the trees were being sawed down by Seven’s finest lumberjacks, and Alexis wasn’t sniffing it out. Despite all protests, he was still standing there, insistent on being a brand new nuisance in his life. He was as much of a headache as the pounding between his skull and his brain. He knew head wounds bled a lot, he had taken an anatomy and physiology class. Actually, he had taken every health class his school had to offer. It was the idea of bleeding at all that startled him so much. He hadn’t expected a simple day on the job to turn into a wound.

When he glanced up again, he caught sight of his exposed stomach. Boys who could rip their own shirts were an anomaly to him, but perhaps he only thought so because he wasn’t physically powerful. Shoveling graves didn’t build any sort of impressive strength, just endurance. Lou faintly listened to his chattering, watching with a scrunched expression as he doused the torn fabric with alcohol. He was planning to sterilize his wound, he could already tell. ”This'll sting a bit, but it'd sting a lot more if it got infected.” If the pain wasn’t crippling his every movement, he would roll his eyes. Of course alcohol would sting, and of course it would hurt if there was an infection. Common knowledge. He wanted to suggest changing his name from Alexis to Captain Obvious, but thought it unwise to offend him with snappy commentary.

The fresh burning sensation distracted him from the throbbing, but a distraction from pain with pain didn’t help anybody. He hissed through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. This moment would be easier if he could make himself pass out. Then maybe the nuisance would leave, or carry him to the medical center at least. He hated sitting here under a stranger’s mercy, when all he craved was silence to gather his thoughts and endure his pain. There was no reason to stay and heal him. He didn’t understand the intent behind it. He was strong enough to punch Lou into next week – and perhaps that was the blackout he needed – yet he insisted he wouldn’t hurt him. His friends had hurt him, why was he any different?

One drop of relief; his head wasn’t bleeding anymore. He couldn’t find the energy to sigh about it. There was no relief in misery. ”Why are you helping me?” he managed, voice still as soft as a cat’s purr. Under a stranger’s mercy, there was nothing to do but question. Or in his case, make demands. ”I want to go home.”

Reduced to dust, it felt like. Not stardust, not something beautiful crumbling to specks of light sprinkled across every inch of the spectrum, but the dust at the bottom of one’s shoe, stuck like glue to endure an eternity of torment. Textbooks often compared humans to specks because of how enormous the world was, in addition to the endless expanse of the universe. At ground level, he didn’t feel that way. He hadn’t felt like anything less than an ant, any less important than the rest of the population. He had existed as an almost invisible entity, surrounding himself by friends who would study their notes with him. They could exchange a cute joke or two, maybe walk to the ice cream shop together. Other than that, he was generally ignored.

It wasn’t so bad. There was nothing to seek in popularity – too many friends meant not enough trust, and he wanted to instill his faith in the few people who earned it. He was a classic introvert, preferring the quiet and the secluded, burying his nose in books rather than seeking social contact more often than not. A simplistic life was the least chaotic. It was enjoyable, hopeful. The road to the future was clear and he could be comfortable that way, knowing what he could do after he reached beyond Reaping age. There were always kinks, like his name existing in the glass Reaping bowl, and his mother’s unpredictable health, but he thought he could be optimistic about the morbid. He worked in a graveyard, after all.

Instead, he made a subtle mistake and crumbled to dust upon the earth, having been stepped on like a doormat until his bones ached. The sun was still beaming down on his sweaty face, cramming white light into his eyes. It dried up his fresh tears and made him itch. He wiped the nothing from his flushed cheeks, and realized there was dirt on his blistered hands. He must’ve looked like a wreck. A sweaty, dirty, crying mess, now decorated in bruises. A speck of dust on the bottom of somebody’s shoe, easily abused and forgotten.

Except by one persistent stranger by the name of “Alexis.”

Alcohol stings subsided, Lou could focus again on the figure standing in front of him. There were scars peppered across his exposed stomach, and this time he knew he couldn’t sit in disbelief about what he was saying. Maybe he did know what it was like, at some point. How else did he get those scars? He couldn’t count how many or inspect how big they were, but they didn’t look like an accident. Or perhaps he was overanalyzing.

There was a challenge wrapped somewhere between those syllables. ”If you can walk, then sure.” It was too much effort to scoff. He was pretty sure he could walk, given that his legs weren’t broken, but he also hadn’t tried to stand up yet. The determination to prove him wrong bubbled inside his gut, as white and hot as the sun that made him squint. Propping his arms over the grave, he used it as leverage to start pulling himself up. Every ache in his torso screamed against the force of gravity. He winced and couldn’t swallow a whimper in time to keep himself sturdy. He must’ve looked and sounded pathetic, rising inch by inch like he had aged eighty years. The urge to cry gripped him by his jaw.

”If you..” If you care. He claimed he didn’t, that he was convincing himself not to care, but that meant there was part of him that did, right? Why else would he be wasting time tearing his shirt for a stranger? If he had evil intentions, he was putting forth a foolish amount of effort to swindle an already-broken boy.

When he finally climbed to his feet, he leaned against the grave marker and stared at the ground. ”Could you..”

He sighed. It was embarrassing, and the answer would probably be no anyway, but he could feel the weakness bone deep. A walk home would be excruciating and exhausting.

”If you want to help so much,” he said sternly, to compensate for how pitiful he looked. He had his doubts it would work. ”Carry me.”

There was a reason he sought comfort in the sciences. When he buried himself beneath the universe of facts and formulas, there was order. Everything was governed by laws, by observable phenomenon, by tangible sanity forming a safety bubble around him. It was all an illusion. Order did not reign supreme upon the earth, but rather tricked people into thinking chaos was bound by nightmares. It was realer than he had ever imagined. Reality was making less and less sense as time passed, and he wanted to reverse time for a second chance. Human minds somehow didn’t make sense. Alexis and his smirk didn’t make sense. He was seriously going to carry him.

His head was fuzzy, or he was going crazy. Carry him? A stranger? It was senseless. The thought of it brought him physical discomfort, but there was enough of that grinding the nerves beneath his bruises. There was no reason to question anything when he was already too exhausted to argue. Acceptance was probably an important step to all of this. Bear the bruises, grit his teeth through the frustration, and absorb that there was senseless evil in the world instead of the order he desperately craved. This must’ve been the reasoning of an underdog. He had thought of himself as an invisible underdog before, but he was wrong. There was always a chance one could sink lower.

The boy Alexis made an empty comment, hoisting him up from the ground with ease. He claimed there would be no pain, but the sensation was constant. The aches didn’t vanish when he curled in his arms, and neither did the pounding of his whirlwind brain. Muscles like iron rods from a factory supported him, surprisingly gentle for a stranger he couldn’t quite trust with every fiber of his being. Despite its lacking, he didn’t protest. He could rest his head upon a comfortable shoulder, eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment to banish a dizzy spell. His ripped shirt smelled of cigarettes with a hint of alcohol. Not his favorites.

There was a shift in his body with each footstep. He memorized the rhythm and opened his eyes again, drinking the fading yellows of a sinking sun. Alexis’ voice cut straight across the moment of tranquility. ”Home,” he muttered, forced to raise his head and find the roads. ”This way.” He pointed to the corner up ahead.

”Also, my name’s Louvain.” But my friends call me Lou. After minutes of stubbornly keeping his hands together against his own chest, he draped them around Alexis’ neck, having tossed the illusion of pride into the woods. It was already obvious how much he needed him. Not him specifically, but somebody who could offer a shred of stability to keep him upright in the meantime. Alexis happened to be the only one around. He might call it lucky, but he was stubborn. He would rather call it an annoying coincidence.

But he wouldn’t complain anymore.

”Light blue house on the left,” he said, serving as his navigator for the duration of about fifteen minutes. He wasn’t too far from the graveyard, but the road he had to take wasn’t pretty. ”I’ll be okay from here,” he lied.