lucas wheeler {seven} fin

lucas wheeler {seven} fin Mar 7, 2017 12:10:54 GMT -5

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Post by solo on Mar 7, 2017 12:10:54 GMT -5

↠ Lucas Wheeler ↞

Ever since I can remember, my life has constantly been changing. It never stays the same. Sometimes, for a short moment, I start to believe things have finally settled down, but then something happens and the world is flipped upside down and I've got to start all over again. Changes occur faster than I can keep up with them, and sometimes I wonder if I'm losing myself in it all. I've already lost two souls. Who's to say I won't lose my own?

Of course, I'll have to start when I was born. Fourteen years ago. It was after my sister Leticia, who was a year old at the time. I guess our family was kind of normal back then. Two parents who loved us and worked hard, had stable jobs and two kids to take care of. Not necessarily dirt poor, but not filthy rich compared to the rest of District 7 either. I can't remember much from back then, only stories that Mom tells every once in a while, and things that Leticia used to tell me.

Used to. She's dead now.

The first major change, although I don't remember it that well, was when Mom said she was going to have another baby, a year after I was born. She tells me I had started sticking to Leticia like she was my second half from the moment I was born. I think it makes more sense that she's the one who stuck to me, but that's not the way Mom tells the story. She says I'd crawl around the house after her and poke at her knees and shriek with laughter whenever she turned around and made a face at me. I was too young to keep many of those memories, but my family talks and jokes about it so much, it's almost like it happened yesterday.

And yet at the same time, I sometimes think those days never existed.

Maybe it was all a lie.

Like I said, I don't have very many real memories of my Dad. None that are my own anyway. Leticia would sometimes tell me that she could remember his face, and when I asked her to describe it she did her best. Mom tells me I look like him. Messy brown hair, inquisitive eyes, snub nose and a generally cheerful expression. She says I have apple cheeks from smiling so much. I've got big ears like him, and a couple of freckles that stand out in the summer time, when there's plenty of sunlight. She says he was tall. I think it's the one trait I didn't get from him, considering I'm barely an inch or two taller than Leticia. I don't look very much like my Mom. The only things I inherited from her are dry hands and one foot slightly bigger than the other.

Sometimes I think the memories of Dad could be my own, but then I think it could be simply because I hear them so often. The most vivid thing I think I can remember is his laugh. He used to throw his head back and his belly would quiver and it was the most joyful thing I thought I'd ever here.

Used to. He's dead now.

Aileen never got to meet Dad. When I was a bit more than a year old and Leticia was just over two, there was a night when he didn't come home from work. That's the one day we don't talk about a lot, so I don't know exactly what happened. I don't remember how Mom reacted or what Leticia did or whether or not it was raining outside. None of it really matters, I guess. What matters is that someone's soul was ripped away from the earth. It was an accident at work, Mom tells us, although her voice gets shaky when she mentions it. She wrings her hands together and I try to imagine just how much she loved him. He was a woodcutter, before he died, so I imagine something happened with one of the machines. I don't like to think about it all that much. It's just a fact in my history. A point where my world was flipped on it's head and the words "my Dad is," changed to "my Dad was." A married woman became a widow and three children became fatherless.

I don't think I remember a day when we weren't starving, but Leticia used to tell me that that's when it started. Dad was bringing in most of the money, and Mom was pregnant with Aileen, so when he was gone, so was the money. I think that was the worst couple of months for us, in the weeks coming up to when Aileen was born and the few months after that. Mom couldn't work, because she was both pregnant with Aileen and needed to take care of Leticia and I. I always wish I'd been older at the time, that I could've helped in some way. But instead I sat and cried and occasionally screamed when my complaining stomach became too much for me to handle. Food was the hardest thing to come by, especially when winter rolled around. For a short time, our neighbors brought us food. But they could only afford to do that for so long. Eventually, they urged Mom to get a job, told her she needed to get herself together and take care of her family, said they couldn't be responsible for our well-being.

That was when Leticia started digging through the trash cans behind the merchant's shops in the Town Square. She'd leave me at home with Mom and Aileen, and come back with rotten apples, bread crusts, and half-eaten carrots. Mom says I got sick a few times from eating spoiled food, but eventually my stomach got used to it, and these days I'm able to hold down pretty much anything. Not that I prefer that to regular food. I used to walk to the Square and peek inside the windows and wish I had enough money to buy the fresh loaves of bread and bright, shiny fruit.

Used to. I don't walk anymore.

The accident happened when I was four years old. Leticia was five, Aileen was three. Mom had gotten herself a job and believed we were old enough to be left alone at the house for short periods of time. I remember the day quite vividly, the excitement in climbing on to the roof of our house, Leticia telling me to get the hell down from there before I broke my neck. She had a mouth on her even when she was little. I told her my umbrella-parachute would protect me. Aileen was in the house, playing with some acorns we'd brought in for her, so thankfully she wasn't there when my body collided with the ground and I screamed because it felt like my torso had been split in two. I guess it had, in a way.

Mom wasn't home, so Leticia had to run for help, leaving me and Aileen alone. The pain didn't stay for very long. It numbed quickly, and I guess I should've taken that as a warning sign, but how could I have known? I was only four. When someone finally came and I was able to get to a doctor, they said I'd crushed my spine and paralyzed myself from the waist down. I cried. Leticia kept a stone cold face. Aileen sat in the corner and played with her acorns.

I never walked again.

Mom put together what little money she had saved up and used it to get me a wheel chair, although she couldn't afford the whole thing. She was stuck paying interest on it for the next two years. I'm always careful these days, more cautious than I need to be, because I know she can't afford to get me another one. There are days when I wish more than anything that I could walk again, but I know it'll never happen. I completely destroyed my spine. I'll never be able to work, never be able to get Mom the extra money she needs. The least I can do is cook for her.

I've loved cooking for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, we can't afford good ingredients, so I can never come up with anything above average. The most I can do is make a not-so-yummy meal taste a little bit better than it actually is. I've always wanted to cook a real meal. My mouth waters when I see what they have in the Capitol during the Games, and my mind races through every possible thing I could do to duplicate what they eat. But I can never come close enough to it.

The longest stretch of normalcy in our family happened after Mom finished paying off the wheelchair. I was six. Leticia was seven. Aileen was four.

Nine whole years of an almost-normal life. If I closed my eyes, if I looked away from the sunken-in cheeks of my sisters, if I ignored my grumbling stomach, if I turned away from Mom's quivering hands...it was almost normal. I don't think I ever really knew what normal was though, so I can't say I have anything to compare it to. All I know is that I had time to focus on school, to learn how to move around in a wheelchair, to play games with Aileen and talk about everything and nothing with Leticia. It was fun, in a way. School in the morning, scavenging for food in the afternoon, cooking what little supper we had late a night. It wasn't all so bad. Sometimes I forget that anything bad had ever happened to us. Sometimes I could focus on laughing and smiling and making them all happy again.

Sometimes.

Then my sister became a sacrifice to the Capitol.

Things haven't been normal since then.