Roland Pomfrey ; Four | fin

torn down, full of aching
somehow our youth
would take the blame
worn out, the way we let it stay

It should've been easier for him to accept. Too many pieces of their sailboat had been recovered, too much time had passed. But that was just it: his parents' bodies were never found, and as likely as it might have been that they'd been lost to the ocean, there was still a piece of him that wondered. That hoped, against all odds, he'd look out the window and see them walking along the beach toward him and Giselle.

He kept the floodlights on every night, though, and they never came.

It was so strange, going to sleep as a boy with one life and waking up with another. In a world so full of death, it should have been easy enough for him to predict, but it hadn't been. And it was such a strange sensation. Because people looked at him, even at the funeral, like it was somehow better because he was from a well-off family, or because they'd died outside of an arena, or because he got a share in his father's company. But death is death, infinite and cold. There was no limit to when it was okay and when it was not. He was eighteen, freshly free of the Games, and he was an orphan with a kid sister who needed him.

And she became his entire life. His friends would come over for brunch from time to time because he started working from home more, but other than that his need to socialize was diminished. He wouldn't step foot in the ocean anymore, but sometimes he'd walk along the shoreline when Giselle was up for it. He drank his fair share of wine, and learned to cook (rather badly. but, still.) He was beginning to figure out the whole living with a teenager situation, but honestly, Giselle made it easier. She was a quiet girl, didn't seem to mind hanging out with him instead of her friends. He liked to encourage her to go out more, but when she pointed out that he was being hypocritical he had to admit that she was right, so it usually ended with her reading him recipes while he tried to cook some ridiculous food item his mother had once made look easy.

He held it together rather well, is the point. But there was anger within him- of course there was. And he didn't know who direct it at: a lifetime of career training wanted him to aim it at anyone in close proximity, but something about that hadn't ever sat quite right with him. The whole "the world is my enemy," thing. He found that, in general, people wanted to be good and do the right thing. At least in his experience; perhaps they were just trying to get in on the fortune. His uncle was always going on about how desperate people were to get their hands on the family fortune.

Uncle Gregor was... well, he was a product of career living, Roland supposed, no more than anyone else was. The only difference was that Gregor actually had all that power that careers were taught to use to their advantage. He'd always been the more aggressive brother; Roland's father was capable and charismatic from age, or so he'd been told, and Gregor had been good at getting what he wanted. The pair of them did well, building up their father's small boat manufacturing business to the staple it was now.

His kids are the same way, though: quick to fight if someone was in their way, quick to hurt those who they felt deserved to be hurt. When the District Officials asked if Roland would be more comfortable with Giselle going to live with them, he'd practically gotten down on his knees begging for them to let her stay. She was a good girl, mostly unscathed by the world despite the circumstances. She deserved a fighting chance and, if he didn't royally screw her up along the way, Roland was convinced he could give it to her.

He was born with gold and silver and diamonds; he became wealthy when he figured out that there was more to life. There was more than a big house, and tailored clothes. And he could admit it: he didn't see it before. It took losing it to realize it was gone, and his parents weren't ever going to come back no matter how much he wanted them to. But he still had her. And he still had a life, if ever he decided it was time he start living it again.

Sometimes, his hand was on the doorknob before he realized he wasn't ready, but some day soon, he was sure.

The entire world was waiting, just beyond those doors.