71st Reaping [D7]

H E A T H E R
E
N
L
E
Y

o o o

20 days.

With a huge, toothy grin plastered across her face, Heather struck through the calendar square with a piece of charcoal. It had been so long since her last birthday, like three hundred forty-five days or something, and it was really the only thing occupying her mind for the entire month leading up to the big day. Birthdays were one of Heather's True Loves in Life, number 4 to be exact, and everything would have to go perfectly. She had planned countless birthday parties for all of her friends, family, distant acquaintances, and mail carriers. She'd spent entire days preparing and setting up for grand parties and dinners honoring the day of birth of someone she had met once at the market.

Heather really freaking loved birthdays.

And hers was no different. Seventeen was going to be a big year for her. She could feel it.

She turned from her calendar to the mirror, fixed her hair, and skipped out her room, where she promptly ran into her mother.

Immediately upon impact she straightened her shoulders and stood up straight, arched her feet and lifted her chin into the air -- but not too high! You want them to know you're made of class, but you don't want them to know you know they know. Got it? Good. She'd heard the words a thousand times, and not just when awake. Her nightmares were riddled with the lecturing of her mother and the torturous hell she was promised if she kept up life like this.

With a slight sneer, Mrs. Tenley kept down the hallway and out the front door.

Only two more birthdays until she could leave this house. Until then, she obliged and remained in an upright position. heather straightened out her dress and followed her mother out the door.

The Reaping was never really important to Heather. Just another day where Charlotte Tenley forced her into some gaudy pink dress that was "all the rage in the Capitol" nine seasons ago. She didn't know where Charlotte even got the idea that she deserved this kind of lifestyle. The lumberjacks from Seven were not the type to care or notice some saffron chevron pattern encompassing one's body. Her first two husbands clearly hadn't cared or they wouldn't have left her for working women who didn't inherit their wealth from a dead father. And her current husband, Heather's father, well... that was another story entirely.

As soon as this annoyance of an event was over, and her mother got over trying to sell Heather to potential suitors (despite constant reminders of "Mom, I'm sixteen!") she could be right back at home, in her room, pretending to study the Capitol's culture and book balancing like her mother so desperately wanted.

And get back to planning her birthday.

No one really understood the importance of a good birthday like Heather Olivia Tenley.

They arrived at the square, and Heather ushered herself into her age group away from her mother and her depserate attempts at marrying her only daughter off.

Finally. Relief.

Heather went back into her own space, imagining the partygoers surrounding her in only a mere twenty days, singing celebratory songs and dancing with her as long as their legs could move. It was a picture perfect daydream, broken only by a familiar sound. And then an entirely alien one.

Her ears rang and she realized that the surrounding eyes were focused on her, that the familiar sound was the calling of her name, that her mother's wretched wailing had startled her awake. She had never heard her mother make any noise remotely similar to what she'd just let out. It was out of character and sure to attract the kind of attention she did not want. And yet, as Heather glanced back to see Charlotte reaching for her daughter, tears welling in her eyes. And Heather stepped forward. She did not turn again. She stepped forward again and again until her feet carried her up the stairs onto the stage.

Chin high, but not too high.

o o o

r a t t s.

One arm slung over her eyes, Rattiera woke up on the couch with the aftertaste of beer glued to her tongue. A discarded bottle, empty and forgotten, was toppled over on the floor beside her. No amount of alcoholic tolerance could erase her hangovers, so she woke up with an irregular drumbeat echoing between her ears. There were no Peacekeepers banging at her door, so she knew she wasn’t too late. Now it was a matter of motivation. Nobody wanted to drag their ass out of bed for a death drawing. It was a dread lingering behind every conscience, like scanning a peaceful sky and noticing black clouds in the distance. Minute by minute, they inched their way closer. Today would be doomsday.

She ignored the empty bottle in favor of adding it to her mess collection. It was easy to tolerate her own bad habits; that was part of the luxury of having an apartment. She kicked it aside and shuffled to the bathroom for a shower. She couldn’t yet (or ever) afford hot water, but the ice dousing her skin was the proper amount of invigoration for the day’s dreadful affair. Reapings were an inconvenience. Instead of relaxing, she could feel stress winding knots into her guts. It didn’t qualify as fear. Rattiera wasn’t afraid of any reaping, but something about standing in a crowd of trembling girls – all towering over her – was discomforting, like an itch under her skin.

Fortunately, she had Garrett. It was an unspoken tradition to walk with him to the Square, like they were peas in a pod. She waited on the sidewalk with her hands in her hoodie pockets. The sky was an ugly overcast. Doomsday smelled like rain and wet grass, another reason to crawl back inside and sleep her headache into extinction. She sighed even as Garrett approached. ”No beer for a week,” she said, and the lie tasted worse than the cheap shit she had to buy on her criminal budget. Still, there was a sense of pride in her slippery hands. She could always swipe without detection.

Coffins were an exception, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. Margaret’s dirt bag family couldn’t prove it was her.

It didn’t feel like years ago. It felt like months, but maybe that was time blurring into indistinguishable clusters. Mourning was not short-term. It stalked like a shadow, but receded overtime until a day when the sun could drag it back out. She didn’t like the unpredictable nights of lying awake and remembering the funeral. She didn’t like the days when every sip of beer summoned a dormant memory of Margaret’s bloodied face. Rattiera wasn’t supposed to feel sad, ever. It was a hindrance. She was the living life type, the partying type, the type to say “fuck it” and allow her gut to do the guiding. She often did, and it landed her in messes. She happened to like those messes.

The Reaping itself was an organized mess. She was always shoved within the crowd because of her height. There was no respect for thieves in the light of day, next to all of these normal nancys. The way their teeth chattered irritated her. They trembled like babies.

Tough it out, she would say, but nobody was ever listening.

When the first name was called, a woman made some ungodly noise. Cries of anguish were the most uncomfortable part of this so-called ceremony. She never knew what to feel. Pity? Sadness? Detached? It was easy not to care at all, but that felt like a cold-hearted thing to do, especially after what she had been put through herself.

Fuck it.

She shrugged it off and waited for the boy’s name. Garrett was always at the forefront of her mind during these few tense seconds. He was tall and burly, but too gentle for a game of violence. He favored flower crowns not fists, and she couldn’t have him ripped away from her. She refused to deal with that loss.

Second was Draco, but instead of replaying the name in her head, it was spoken aloud. An instance of outrage shoved her headache into an abyss. ”Bullshit!” she shouted. She could see the other crowd parting to make way for Draco’s unmistakable form. Knots twisted in her stomach, squeezing blood into her eyes until her vision was stained red.

”This is bullshit!”

Peacekeepers searched, but couldn’t seek her out in a crowd. She could vanish behind any of the girls she chose. They were too busy basking in their own relief to notice.

She eased her way to the edge of the crowd and saw him onstage, fear-stricken. It was uncharacteristic of him. Draco wasn’t just a drinking buddy. Even on the nights when she lashed out at him in a drunken rage – having been restrained by his own unwillingness to fight – they would leave the bar together in high spirits. Rattiera could never stay grumpy for long, especially when that idiot took everything literally.

They had history, with Margaret especially. Rattiera hardly made exceptions because friends were dangerous, and anything larger than a small group could leave her more vulnerable than she wished. But on the night they stole Margaret’s coffin, it was his window she pounded on. It was to his face that she said, ”I can cross coffin-stealing off my bucket list. Ready to have a real funeral?” like it was something to smile about. It was, actually. To see Margaret again meant everything to all of them.

She spaced out when the tributes were ushered offstage. This time, the coffin would be delivered right to their doorstep. Unless that oaf managed to break every neck in the arena, doomsday had done its job. It had ripped something away from her yet again.

Her heart felt tired.

table inspired by rook