jensen rohanna : d10 : fin

The sun is already full-force in the sky by the time I pry my heavy eyelids open. My bed has never been comfortable, yet this morning, I find myself slipping back into slumber. No, I tell myself. Wake up. Your break is over, and there is still work to be done.

As I roll out of bed, I muse that I really deserved that long sleep. I worked well into the night yesterday, collecting chicken eggs that were nearly left behind. The extra pay from last night should cover what I missed this morning. While I do take my work seriously, I think everybody deserves a break once in a while. We'd go completely mad otherwise.

I peel my sweat-soaked pajamas off. After unceremoniously tossing them into a corner of my tiny room, I reach for my work clothes. I only have one outfit, which gets washed once a week. It stinks, frankly. I tug the long pants and thin shirt over my scrawny frame. Around here, we're lucky to have one full meal a day. The animals come first, then the workers. The lack of nutrients leaves my stomach constantly bloated. When we are lucky enough to have a sustainable lunch, I give most of mine to my younger sister.

My calloused feet are shoved into too-large boots, caked with mud and hay. With nimble, sunburnt fingers, I knot the laces. Thin black hair tumbles over my shoulders, obstructing my line of sight. I shake it out of my face so I can finish tying my shoes. Once I'm standing upright again, I tuck my hair into my shirt collar. My poor face is constantly under attack- bug bites, acne, itchy hair. I try to minimize it.

The air inside was already suffocating, but now I feel it may smother me before I make it outside. I climb across my bed to pop the window open. As I do, I notice the plants on my windowsill are wilting. I pick up a fallen flower petal, observing it between my thumb and pointer finger in the sunlight. It must be too hot for them to thrive right now. Just as I begin to frown, my sister calls me from somewhere in the yard.

I set the petal back onto the sill. My sister has a habit of calling me over to see mundane things, such as a cow that is slightly fluffier than usual, so I see no need to rush until I hear her frantic footsteps on the wood floor. She stumbles into my room like she's slipped on ice. "Matilda is having her babies," she heaves, through labored breaths.

My sister leads me out to the goat pen, running a solid ten feet ahead of me. Matilda is one of our goats, and she's the first goat we've tried to breed. My sister took a liking to the little animal the minute the farm owner put her in the pen. I know she's been stressed about this birth for a while.

It's easy for me to read people. Nobody really has to tell me how they feel, because I know. It's in the way they crinkle their eyes or wring their hands. Of course, I don't ever tell people that I've guessed their feelings before they've told me. I don't want to creep anybody out, or go ahead with a quick, incorrect presumption. My sister didn't tell me she was stressed until just last week. She told me she felt like it was so silly to be stressed about an animal that wasn't even hers. I gave her a gentle pat on the back. "It's totally fine, Bee," I assured her.

I'm not a very nice person, but I don't think I'm particularly mean either. The only person you can count on me to be sweet to is my sister. I love Bee with all my heart. It's my job to take care of her, even though she's thirteen, which is well old enough to be taking care of herself. I try not to hover. She gets her space, but she also has to let me know what she's up to when I'm not around. It doesn't really seem like she minds. We're close. Everybody else, though, I'm indifferent about. I'll work on their farms and take my pay with no chit-chat, thank you very much.

I suppose some people consider me emotionless. Really, I'm not. I can be happy, or sad, or any other normal human feeling. They just say that because I don't show it to them. My sister sees every side of me because I let her. She's important to me. I trust her. I don't trust anybody around here, not my boss, not the rest of the farmhands. Even the cows seem a bit shifty. If I don't trust somebody, why should they get to see how I feel? They haven't earned that right.

Bee and I kneel down on the hay-covered floor of the goat pen. She reaches out to run her fingers across Matilda's matted fur. The only thing I know how to do is wait. One of the other farmhands enters with a pail of water. Bee takes the pail, the farmhand sits next to me, and we wait.

When my sister starts crying, I have to look away. I don't like to see it. She's cried a lot, but the worst time she cried was when we left our family home. It was just last year. She clung to my mother the whole time, begging to stay, but we had to go. I didn't want to leave either, but I never told her that. Our parents had me young, yet they still raised me the best they could. I was never lacking in love. When they had my sister, it felt like the whole circle of love was complete. I didn't know another family who loved each other like we did. We were all important to one another.

My parents worked on a farm close to our home. While I went to school, they took Bee to work with them. When Bee was old enough to go to school, we'd walk together, and then we'd return home at the same time our parents did. After discussing how everybody's day was, we'd eat dinner together. Seems perfect, right? We may as well have been a Capitol family, minus the extensive wealth. I took it for granted. I shouldn't feel guilty for that, because every child takes their family for granted, but there's still a part of me that does.

Despite the heavy air of trust in our house, our parents didn't tell us everything. I don't know what they did, but I guess it was something bad. People were on their trail. I was older then, and I could see how stressed they were. It was like they were one crack away from shattering. I couldn't help them. Bee couldn't help them. The day they got the letter, it was all over. I don't know what was in the letter. I don't know anything about the situation that made them send us away, and I can't stand it.

They sent us to a farm across the District. I couldn't believe they would just send us away like that. I felt like the love they had showered me with for seventeen years was a cover, a sham. There was nobody I could trust anymore, nobody except Bee, who was just as in the dark as I was. I made myself a promise to keep her safe, no matter what.

Bee's tears stop as soon as she sees the first baby goat. A small thing, with shaking legs, yelling into the golden afternoon. The second kid isn't too far behind. Bee, her eyes brimming with excitement, cleans them off before bringing them back to Matilda. When she returns, she bends down to throw her arms around me. "Ah, jeez, kid. Wash your hands first," I joke, and she laughs into my shoulder.

Getting up this morning was worth it.