Kana Freya - District 10 - Fin

”I found God, I found him in a lover.”

And I never knew that he would tell me that I meant nothing to no one. You see, he was a scary man, a person who worked hard to show people that he was capable of anything.

He was my father.

A brooding soul who dealt with things that people usually didn’t see in ten. No. The only thing that people saw here were the families of broken figurines who never knew how to stay in line.

We lined up, tell each other that there was more to our lives then raising the animals that everyone but us seemed to need.

However, when we would get out of line, we were corralled into a corner, unable to breath, constantly suffocated by the fumes of disappointment that we tried to live down.

There was no happiness here in ten, and that was made apparent by the people who wanted us to remember that day after day.

”When his hair falls on his face, and his hands so cold they shake.”

Except he didn’t buy into that, and he found ways for us to celebrate our pride without feeling like we were being overshadowed by people who did not care for us.

He incited a rebellion that manifested inside of us. We would never act on it physically because while they treated us like we were nothing, words echoed from district eleven that whispered to us that things could be worse.

And he told us that as he cooed and sought us out from the gallows.

He taught me how to lift a sack of fertilizer above my head. He taught me how to tie a noose around my neck.

However, I would never pull on it, because at the end of the day, I was happy to have him in my life, even though he had a different way of showing it to us.

Showing it to everyone.

“Now we’re lost in outer space, in a hotel room where demons play.”

And I tried to leave him. I really did. I told him that there was no way this was going to work out for us.

That we were children trying to conquer a world that we knew nothing about, and he just laughed at me, even when I went back to my father.

My father told me that I would do much better being with him instead of being with him.

And for a while, I believed it, because I was trying so hard to make it work.

For the first time, this was a situation that I thought that I could choose. A situation that I knew that answer too because I always thought I had the answers to all the questions that I had in my life.

My father wanted me to take care of the farm, seeing as he was getting older in age, and it was time for him to do things for himself.

We shared in that one dream, but I would never live such a dream because I was too busy letting men decide what was best for me.

There were others, my siblings who would have been better choices then me to take over such a task, but father told me that this was my birthright.

That it was best for me to leave the boy I loved behind and focus on the gift that he was now willing to give to me.

I told him that I needed time to think about it, and that is what he decided to do.

Give me time.

”They run around beneath our feet, we roll around beneath these sheets.”

Because I would always go back to him, because that was simple. Everything was simple for people who didn’t know how to shed their past like snake skin.

We reunited on my seventeenth birthday, the day of the reaping as I witnessed the girl, Bella Rose be reaped.

And for a moment, I thought that could have been me.

I knew the Rose’s before the fire, they were kind people, but they were people who got in my fathers way.

However, seeing her up there revealed a story of a broken girl who was done being weak. And that spoke volumes to me.

That night I met the man that I loved behind a shed and we made love amongst the stars, and as my nails dug into his back, I thought about how much this meant to me.

How much my life, and my choices meant to me.

How I would do anything to be free from the chains that were holding me back.

He told me that I was strong, as we laid there on a piece of plywood, gazing up at the stars. Our naked bodies blending into the scenery because this was one of the only places we knew that we could get away from everything.

Everyone.

Anyone that told us that we didn’t belong together, and anyone that told me that I would never be good enough to finish a task that my father thought I was ready for.

And I wanted to tell them that they didn’t matter to me, because that was always going to be easier.

But that was a lie. I knew that there was no way anything I would do would be easy.

Easy didn’t exist in a district like ten.

”I’ve got a lover and I’m unforgiven. I’m such a fool to pay this price.”

And I didn’t. For a long time actually.

He disappeared into the catacombs of the district we called home. And I wished that I could track him down to tell him that I loved him.

That was I serious now, more than ever to be with him.

But that was the price I paid when I decided that I wanted to be righteous in my cause. That letting go of my skeletons was the only answer I would ever have.

But silence was all I got.

I never saw a body, or got an answer, and that was what was killing me on the inside.

It was all gone in the wind, and that was what I had to live with.

I wondered if I would ever see him again, in this lifetime or in the next.

Some nights I prayed that I would, and others I prayed that I would figure out what my life actually meant to me.

Just like Bella did right before she died.

”It’s coming down, down, coming down. It’s coming down, down, coming down.”

And so I looked at my mother as she looked worn from her new duty of running the farm.

And for a moment, I wanted to tell her to fuck off. To stay out of my choice in life and let me do what was best for me.

However, I didn’t.

Not because she provoked me into being quiet, or because she had something on me that would make me go silent.

No.

I wanted so much to tell her how much father was a man that I did not care for.

I didn’t need to do that though, because we both shared that same hatred for him. He was a bad man that did bad things in order to get ahead in life.

And that was the horrible reality that we had to accept.

So instead of trying to tell her that this was our chance. Our saving grace.

Our swan song to escape on.

I told her that needed her to do this with me.

So I took her hand, held it tightly, and we looked forward.

Together.