Elle Maynard | District Twelve | Finished

My eyes open, allowing the malice of light to overtake my own will and force them back shut. I take several moments to prepare them for another battle and finally allow my eyelids to break open the crust that has settled in the corners of my eyes. Everything around me is a little blurry, though I can still make out shapes that haven’t yet come into focus. I grasp at the solid, cold floor beneath me and begin to push myself up into a sitting position. My arms shake from the exertion and as soon as I’m sitting a double over and clasp my arms around my head. My fingers run through the everlasting mess of corn-yellow curls on my head. I slowly lift my head back up and take in a number of deep breaths to calm the pain that is spreading rapidly through my bones. It’s an odd feeling, the pain. How my body can hurt so much, yet I can’t feel a thing. I can see them. I see my skinny arms that continue to wither away to nothing- I just can’t feel them.

The room is becoming more clear and visible. I can make out the shelves towering above me and the empty bottles lying next to me. I breathe in and feel the burn of the alcohols. My small stomach Jerks inward and all the poison from the previous night bursts from inside me and now rests on my pink crop top and my legs. I don’t have the time to be disgusted because I’m too preoccupied with the thoughts that it wasn’t enough. I transition to a position where I’m supported by both my arms and legs and crawl forward reaching for a nearby waste basket. With my face implanted into it, I insert two skinny fingers into my mouth until the vomit is covering those too. I collapse sideways onto the ground. I lay there for what feels like hours but the piercing stench stays fresh.

Eventually I hear footsteps shuffle towards the storage room. The worn door squeaks open and a woman weighted with age shuffles in. "Elle, honey are you in here? Are you okay?" she calls before rounding the corner of a stocked shelf. Once I enter her eyesight every inch of sincerity in her face is replaced with anger. Her lip quivers as she suppresses her rage. With a tranquilized scorn she asks, "What in the hell are you doing? Have I not-"


"I need water," I cut her off. She grants my request by clawing her fingers into my arm and dragging me to the other side of the room, up the stairs and all but tosses me into a kitchen chair. She travels around the small kitchen to get a cup and some water she had boiled that morning over the fireplace downstairs. Her fast pace makes me dizzy so I I have to look down at my legs. They're covered in bruises from the trip up the stairs.


I'm seated inside a small kitchen with a bedroom through the doorway that has both mine and nana's beds. That's all there is upstairs. Downstairs is the storage room and the shop where we sell alcohol. Mostly wine and liquor. That's all there is to my life, four rooms. Sleep, eat, drink, and work.


My attention is drawn back to nana as she slams the water down in front of me. As I sip she begins her lecture that I almost have committed to memory.


"Young lady, I understand the last few years have been rough on you, but you have to cut me some slack. The only bit of money we get is what I sell in that shop. I have to trust you to leave the merchandise alone. You're seventeen honey. Do you understand the kind of trouble you'd be in if you got caught drinking? You're so beautiful, and with so much potential. Don't waste your life because of your mom-"


"Don't talk about my mom." I make a habit of cutting her off, but I don't like to talk about mom. I didn't use to argue with my nana, or anyone for that matter. But people change, I change. 


"Oh, get a grip honey. You lost your mom, but I lost my daughter. Stop acting like you're the only one who hurt. It's been two years, you have to move on. I took you in because I love you, and I don't want you to live in the orphanage. But I'm getting old, and I won't be here forever. You have to learn to take care of yourself. You can run this shop if that's what you want to do. If not, find something. You're running out of time sweetheart."

"What if I don't want to do anything? I like drinking. I like being hungover." I stare her directly in the eyes. Hers are a sloppy ocean of grey and an exact reflection of my own. She's very unattractive, and that scares me, because she claims to have looked exactly like me when she was my age. Her silver locks, bleached. Her saggy skin, tight and slender. There were differences, of course. Her eyes weren't an island between the ocean of black bags. Her hair was kept, and tidy in contrary to my perfectly unplaced frizzles.


"Watch your tone with me young lady," her scold snaps me back to attention. I often zone out on the world, even if I'm interested in the conversation, "I'll knock your teeth right out your mouth. Don't think I won't, I did it to your mother when she tried to tell me David was a good guy. But guess what? I was right, and she was pregnant!"


"What was I a bad thing? Do you regret me?"


"That is not what I said." I know it's not, but if I can make her feel bad she'll let me go.


"Why can't I go live with dad? He might want me"


"You can't live with him because he is, was, and always will be a waste of space. I want you to stop drinking, not be encouraged to do more of it. Now if you open your mouth again I'm smacking it."


I start to speak but I bite my tongue, literally. I don't calm until it's bleeding. Bleeding helps pain. I stand from the chair and force myself not to get dizzy while nana is looking, it's not the time to be weak. I stomp towards the door and rush down the stairs to hear her call out, "You better clean that nasty up, I ain't touchin' that."

I don't. I walk past it, grab a bottle of wine, and head towards the allies of District Twelve. That's where I'm welcome.