marlow ferdie | seven | fin

The law and me-- we never got along too well. It wasn't that I was bad, and it wasn't that they were. We just found ourselves in interesting positions, me with my eyes half open to the world and my mind floating on air, them not letting me into the peacekeeping academy. Me being caught for real this time, with something stronger than nicotine in my back pocket. Threatened charges, even.

My mom has always been there to remind them, though, and suddenly their handcuffs are easier to escape from and their heads are always turned just when they are supposed to be.

I might have had a tendency to do bad things, but these people were the reason my father never got a funeral.

He was a longtime suspect in a rebellion he wasn't actually a part of, because peacekeepers in Seven are just great at their jobs. They caught him coming out of a bar, started grilling him with questions he didn't know the answer to. Things got physical, and my Dad's body was never found. Of course, that is what the couple that had been having sex in the bushes reported, but who would believe the testimony of two drunken kids who had been caught with their pants around their ankles?

Sometimes I wonder if the buried him out in the forest, or if they dumped him in a lake somewhere. Maybe they got creative and found some starving, rabid animals. I like to pretend he is out there somewhere, in the forests, the father I don't even remember. I like to imagine him standing just out of eye shot, just on the other side of the biggest trees, keeping an eye out for me. Waiting to warn me if the peacekeepers are nearby.

Mom says I look more like he did than I do her. I guess I wouldn't know, though, since the only thing I have left of him is a picture from their wedding day that Aunt Luna had used as a coaster for her wine by mistake once, so right where his face should be, there is a faded purple line. I don't know why I wish I could see what he looked like, though.

To me, he wouldn't be anyone special. I wouldn't see him and just know. He would have just been a man in a picture, standing next to my mother, with toddler me at his feet.

But, I do love the stories Mom tells me: the one where he had saved Aunt Luna from falling out of a tree, the one where he had saved Mom from falling down the stairs, she would tell me about how he had taken care of his parents until their dying days, how they had met when he entered a local talent competition in which he sang a god-awful original. Mom said the lyrics were tragic, but he drooled so much charm that she didn't think anyone noticed. Maybe she should have told him that, though, because he made it a point to sing the song before he proposed to her right after I was born.

Sounds like a great guy, and it sucks because everyone always has the same stuff to say: "I'm so sorry." And I get that they are trying to be nice, but they are apologizing to me for the death of a stranger. I don't tell people that, though. I can't. Imagine the look on Mom's face, or on Aunt Luna's, if ever I said that the man who had saved everyone in his life was not remembered in death by his own daughter.

To make up for it, I taught myself how to play guitar. Mom cried.

My story in't a sad one, though. Aunt Luna moved in when I was five, supposedly to help keep us afloat. I suspect she was just lonely. Which was great, because Mom was too. And she had been working overtime to make sure we didn't lose the little things we had.

---

I sat on the kitchen counter with my legs crossed, pouring handfuls of peanuts out of the jar next to me, and eating them one by one. My mother was making yet another attempt at cooking dinner, and one could tell simply by the smells that she had failed. A lifetime of trying, and she still knew nothing about cooking. I know it sounds weird, but I had grown fond of watching her, of seeing how hard she tried. I had even grown accustomed to walking in after school and smelling burnt meat or overcooked vegetables.

She snatched the jar of peanuts out of my hand.

"For the hundred thousandth time, get your butt off of my counter," I stuck my tongue out in protest, "But this is my spot, you know that," I hopped down anyway, smiling at my mother.

"No, that's the spot where I'd be dicing up these green onions if you weren't always sitting in it," There was a moment of silence while she prepared things, and then, "Aren't you supposed to be helping me?" I snatched the jar of peanuts back from her.

"That is celery, Mom."

---

After Aunt Luna moved in, they made enough to pay what my scholarships wouldn't at the Eden Institute, which meant there was no reason I, a perfectly well-functioning young woman, could not attend it. Except I really despise the Eden Institute. The students, the staff, even the damn building itself is just dripping with a pretentious holier-than-thou vibe that I just don't mesh well with. And after I was denied a place in the peacekeeping academy, I really didn't have a reason to try anymore. So I just make good enough grades to pass, and I show up just enough to not get punished, and I sit in the back of the class and wait until I can go home and find something worth my while.

I like to view most things as adventures that have yet to happen. Most. School has always happened, and someday when it isn't anymore I might miss it, but the idea of it being an adventure isn't exactly what I have in mind.

Maybe I'll become the best lumberjack Seven has ever seen. Maybe I'll get into a peacekeeping academy in another district someday, make it big. Maybe I'll retire in the Capitol, or maybe I'll meet someone and fall in love. Maybe I'll die tomorrow, maybe I won't.

Maybe.

The only thing I know for sure is that time is no good at keeping secrets, and eventually it'll slip up and show me what my life will be.