Saoirse Rose /// District 10
Feb 24, 2017 5:17:49 GMT -5
Post by Riddle on Feb 24, 2017 5:17:49 GMT -5
Saoirse Rose
Age 18
When I was a little girl, I had three brothers. Their names don't matter, nor do their ages, their personalities, or how kind they were to me. By the time I began school, I was an only child. I don't wonder what happened to them, or long for the brothers I never truly knew. In fact, I'm somewhat glad I didn't have to know them, because if they were anything like my father, we would have hated each other. It doesn't matter what kind of person my father was, either - he's dead, too. Dead to me, that is. Avoxed however many years ago for raping some politician's young daughter. Tough luck, I'd say to her, it could have been anyone.
Anyone but me. He never touched me, not even a poke. Given, he only had one hand to poke with - the other was just a nasty stub. Perhaps when I was younger, when he still controlled me, I cared - not so much anymore. My mother would touch me, but even in primary school I cringed from her hands. Not that they were unkind. I was picky. Her hands were long and bony, and made me think of spider legs; her uncut fingernails were like barbs dragging through my long, messy ginger hair, as she complained how I never managed it. I got that from her - the hair, not the complaining, I rarely complain. I got a lot of things from her. We even share a name, isn't that cute? My mother only matters because I never stopped mattering to her.
I left home shortly after I turned fourteen. My father had used me for all I was worth, and he might have kept using me, had I not gotten pregnant. I'm not sure who fathered my first child, but whoever he was, his eyes were brown. Mine are not brown.
My first child doesn't matter, she's dead. I called her Saoirse, after her grandmother. She'd be four today.
Without my father to organize my trade for me, I tried working on my own. It didn't last, but before I could be brought to a community home I was taken in by a woman who's name doesn't matter. She was a bitch, but unlike with my father, I could keep a part of my profit. As a child, my father made me beg for change in daylight and work in the dark, but with this woman, I often slept all day - drinking, if drink was available - and spent over half the night helping my lovely customers.
My second pregnancy was not nearly as dramatic as my first. The first time, I cried almost daily, certain my life was over. Back then I felt shame for what my father was having me do, I didn't see the necessity. Looking back, without me eventually working as I was my brothers may not have been the only ones to starve to death. My father only had one arm to work with, and few people willing to hire him. My mother refused to get a job on account of "blind people can't work." When I was thirteen, I offered to introduce her to some of the men I worked with. They wouldn't care if she was blind. She declined the offer.
The second child, a son, I called David. He half matters. He's alive, but I left him to a community home. Perhaps one day I'll find him, but as for now, I'd rather stick to alcohol and prostitution. It's much easier than mothering.
On my seventeenth birthday I left the old woman and moved in with a client-turned-boyfriend. He was violent and, quite frankly, annoying, but I put up with him because he had a steady flow of alcohol and I only had to work a few days a week. We lasted about five months before I got fed up and left. The old woman took me back easily.
I was once told I'd be prettier if I quit looking so melancholy, but the truth is I don't feel much of anything. Few things seem to matter, and things that do matter don't tend to matter in happy or relevant ways. I consider myself level-headed. Perhaps I just don't care enough to let myself throw a fit. I'm not cynical. Believe it or not, I do enjoy good humor, even if I come across as cold at first. I'm far from impulsive, I think carefully before I do things, because I don't want to make as many mistakes as people I've seen before me. Unless I'm drunk. I'm a sluggish drunk. oDair.
