amanda kaur, district two | finished

"I don't follow the rules, Emma R. — I follow dogs into houses that don't belong to me. I'm usually able to rub a few bellies before I'm kicked out and the Peacekeepers are called, though. Totally worth the criminal record, am I right?"

Oh, whoops. There goes Thing One strutting off like always, nose stuck up in the air and eyes rolling so severely that I think she might actually burst a vein this time. Which is kinda sick to think about, but only just for a second. It's actually a really gross mental picture to have in your thoughts for too long. That's a lot of red and a heap of— yeah, let's not go there. Back to the main point. My humor has never sat well with Miss Priss and her crew; not that I've stopped trying to win their friendship back with desperate puns and cheesy metaphors.

I mean, you spend your entire childhood with someone, and then when you become teenagers you're suddenly supposed to let each other go; like you never ate mud pies together? Like you never swallowed purple crayons whole? Like you never drank glue and— Ripred. What the fuck kind of appetites did we have as kids? Okay, scratch those examples. I can get letting all of that go. But there are better memories to fight for, I swear. Like when I punched Noah that night he made Emma R. cry and she baked cookies to thank me with. I got food poisoning in the end, yeah, but they were freakin' amazing.

Why isn't she fighting for us?

I don't listen when she tries to explain with a whisper in another Emma's ear. It's easier to just walk away. There's never anything nice to overhear. "She's so fucking weird and annoying lately," and that's all it takes for the other Emmas to laugh. Where's the dramatic flair in that comment? If they're gonna bash me for being odd, why not make up a conspiracy theory that I'm an alien? That I'm an agent from the Capitol sent to infiltrate Two's society? Just let me be more than a girl who got screwed over. Sixteen years, and this is what I have to show for it. Emma R. and Emma P. and Emma what-the-fuck-ever — and it's funny how I thought I ever belonged. There's never been a place for an Amanda in this clique.

Dad would have let me cry on his shoulder, slurred words making no sense muffled by his sweater, and Papa would have been the voice of reason. "This is just a phase," and "None of this will matter in a few years." But I'm alone now, so I comfort myself as best I can. Someday I'll get used to the silence. Friends are a natural loss, one I could have prepared for if I wasn't so stubborn, but parents? I had myself convinced that my fathers would live forever. Too dumb to see the storm on the horizon; too wise to trust the sound of thunder. My biggest regret is that I never took any pictures of them before it was too late. Polaroids of birthdays and Ratmas parties hanging on the walls, but I'd burn them all for one normal picture of us three. Just smiling. No backdrop, no posing. A real memory to keep.

They were murdered. No reason; no hate. Just a mugger with an empty wallet and a couple who tried to fight back with fists — why didn't they realize that the pistol would win? I try not to dwell on alternate dimensions. I have to be content with the one I have. The only thing I brought with me to the Community Home was a smile that I refused to let falter. Because that's the one thing my fathers wouldn't want me to lose after all of this. And I also tugged a box of my belongings along, too, but that doesn't really make this story as deep, or as inspiring, so just deal with it. I'm trying my best. Stickers on art projects in first grade when Emma P. could already draw a convincing rose that framed all her masterpieces; she got the trophy and I got a ribbon for being an honorable mention. Between you and me, though? My dads said I was the winner. I think I might have been.

"Get ready for the long ride," I remember being told by one of the older kids when I unpacked my things. "I've never heard of anyone being adopted twice." A sad truth that had been hard for me to swallow, but I still braced myself regardless. I've always been optimistic, the kind of girl to burn her fingers fixing breakfast just to say — "That'll make it taste better!" — but I'm okay with never being adopted again. I don't want another home. I don't want secondhand fathers. I just wanna do the best that I can. That's all I've ever known. That's all that they ever expected of me. I could play dead for the rest of my life and they would have been proud. They would be. But I know my passion and I know myself, and I'm not willing to give up just because of some bad luck.

So I play pretend, catching up as best I can and never wincing once. Legs with skinned knees can run just as fast as all the rest if you push through the pain. No friends, no room to call my own, no promise that a girl without any living family will be able to make it alone — but I will. Somehow. "I'm mad good with kids," I had boasted during my interview for one of the local daycare services, pulling out a shoebox of photographs and other artistic contraptions. "I love photography, and I'm really engaging when it comes to helping people create stuff, and I also love to cook! I think the children would find me super relatable because of my age. Oh! And you should know that—" I got the job. I really didn't need to rant without taking a breath like I did, but I had to bring my all. I needed a place to work, and not gonna lie, I started crying when they gave me the thumbs up.

There's two years left until I can move out of the Community Center on my own, and I'm saving up as much cash as I can. I'll buy a crappy apartment and get a second job, and I'll pay my bills and update my equipment, and one day hopefully before I'm old and greying, I'll be a successful photographer with the world beneath her fingertips. Two, at least — I don't really imagine I'll get access to cross the border into the rest of Panem, but it's just a saying. Don't mind me. Seven dudes and a girl trying her best to make a living; what could possibly go wrong? It's just a daycare. Just a sappy makeshift family doing all they can to give children better lives than they had. I hear one of the guys likes to collect knives and another drinks marinara sauce and another may or may not be undead, but y'know what? Sign me up. Sounds like my kind of party! Sounds like all the things I've been missing in my life. A way to be a little less lonely. Me and those wannabe dads.

Let's be misfits together.