elena salazar. seven. resub.

I had thought that maybe it wouldn't be so hard if Jacinta had died. We had spent our lives like tides - in and out, far apart and close together, changing with the seasons and the years. I had learnt to live without her, and then learnt to live with her, and when she volunteered to die I learnt to live without her entirely, all over again.

But I was wrong. It wasn't easy when she left. Mom was furious, Dad spent the whole time pacing in front of the television screen - it never turned off, not even when she plunged her spear into Cynthia's eye and won the damn thing. People we'd been told to call "family friends" were showing up at the door not so friendly, demanding we explain what sort of show we were putting on, what plot we'd come up with, what on earth we were trying to prove sending our daughter off as a Games volunteer.

We couldn't explain it. Nobody could. Jacinta, ever the black sheep of the family, had done it all on her own accord. I thought that perhaps this was why they had sent her away to begin with, far too reckless for her own good. A daughter neither Mama nor Papa could control. Someone with her own mind. Someone unlike me. I was too stupid, too young, to know what was really going on, so I played my part without knowing.

"Say nothing," Papa had hissed. "Nothing, miha."

"Yes Papa," Mom didn't need to say anything to me. Her face said it all, a permanent scowling. Murderous, we thought she'd kill Jacinta herself if she made it out of there alive. 

I could get under our father's skin, into his heart, just by being the youngest. But not Mom. Never Mom. I had thought that all mothers were like this, and all fathers were kinder people, so I pedaled around the neighbourhood on the yellow bike I'd got for my birthday from Papa, the one Mom had rolled her eyes at when I unwrapped it in the living room and squealed with delight. I got used to Jacinta not being here. I got used to waiting for her to die, watching her allies fall around her like flies. Boom, boom, boom, I just kept pedaling and pedaling and pedaling until my legs gave out and I fell off my bike, the wheel spinning over and over and over like my head on the grass, looking up at the dancing sunset and crying for my dead sister.

It was awful, waiting for Jaci to die. It was anything but easy, and I was a stupid fool for thinking it would be. 

And then Jacinta came back, very much alive. Like riding a bike, I hadn't forgotten how to live with her. We readjusted - but I pedaled away, my bike and I, circling around and around and around the neighbourhood wondering when I'd get off this ride, when the Capitolites would stop fawning over me, when my tired, spindly legs would stop pushing me forward, when my rough hands would stop clutching the handles so furiously, when I'd stop biting my chapped lips out of nervousness, when the wheels would stop turning and something would just stay the same for once.

She came back and I hit the breaks, head-first over handlebars, grazed my hands and knees and cried some more. I stayed away, unsure of what she had become, what she was before she raised her hand to volunteer and what she was when she came back home. I was scared of gears and cogs and drowning in Jacinta, no Jacinta. Jacinta, no Jacinta. Round and round and round, she was my sister - and a stranger. Dead, but not.

The world kept reminding me that she was alive. Eventually I got up from my bed and got back on my bike again. In some ways the dull ache in my muscles and the way my knuckles turned white-hot, the wind in my long, dark hair, it was all comforting. Around and around and around we went, the Salazars bickering and moaning and all so exhausted. My parents were up until two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning doing business, trying to hide what Jacinta had unearthed in her victory. Mom threatened to send her away again, even though she knew she could not. My sister outranked even our own father so I followed her to the Victor's Village and begged them to leave her be, terrified of what they might do to her to keep power their own.

But Jacinta was here to stay, my father promised. We celebrated, champagne glasses and our finest dresses - Jacinta was ours, gloriously ours. My head kept spinning, cog in the machine, wheel on a yellow bike toppled-over. 

Because she doesn't feel like mine. Not when she stands on the stages of 11 justice buildings, not when her name is stitched into the stars above this nation, not when she steps off of the train and her feet hit the platform of Seven. She is theirs. Theirs, my parents, their associates, the Capitol's. My sisters', my cousin's, everyone else's but mine.

My parents turn towards the carriages meant only for celebrations - all pearls and ties and smiles. She is home, my sister - this time for good. My father makes a lot of promises but I have half a sense not to trust anything my parents say.

Dark hair and dark eyes, Salazars. Charmers, snakes, the Salazar children are not to be trusted - but I have too much faith in them. I know what kind of people my family are - even after they threatened to send Jacinta away and Violetta died in the snow. I still love them, my family. My sisters. Jacinta. Dad. Mom, even. Dad would always come and tuck me in to bed but Mom barely uttered 'goodnight'. He's wrapped around her little finger, sterling-silver bent to be her accessory, she wears him like jewellery and as much as I love him, I cannot trust him.

But I know that I could never, will never, trust my mother. As much as I want to, as much as I try to shower her with love, praise, affection, everything any other mother would want to hear from their daughter. I know deep down she does care about me - even if she doesn't show it. Because I saw her breathe a sigh of relief when Jaci killed the girl from One. I saw her shed a tear at Violetta's grave. I've seen her weakness, and to me it's strength, so I grew up and became Jaci's smiling, bubbly, happy sister. Everything and anything that Mom is not, I am.

I don't want to follow in my parents' footsteps. In fact, I don't want to walk in their shadow or along the path they've paved for us. My sisters trail behind them, like good little obedient daughters, but my own feet stay planted on the concrete floor whenever we must show face. 

"Aren't you coming, Elena?"

I stare off to the side, smiling at yellow paint and handlebars resting against wooden walls. "No," I sigh with a smile.

"I think I'll take my bike."