addison mer. four.

Angel was always a bit of a wet-wipe.

I love him, he's my brother. Don't get me wrong. But some people just aren't born with a back bone. Lofting around at the beach like we did when we were kids learning to swim, pretending we were fish or deep sea creatures. He never grew out of it, not really. Uncle Al always says he should have seen it coming, given up on him sooner. But that's something about our Uncle not many people know: he really does want to root for us and watch us succeed. He wants what's best for us. So when Angel deferred, preferring to frolic in waves and the lips of other boys, I stepped up and did what had to be done. Best to get on with it, Uncle Al said glumly. He'd already wasted too many years waiting for Angel to come back to shore.

I stopped swimming once I'd learned how to keep my lanky self afloat and swim a mile without stopping. No further than that. They made us do laps in the pool back at the Training Centers of course, to keep up our stamina and our advantage. I had long limbs early on which helped, but next to no muscle on 'em, so I sat comfortably in the middle of the pack. There hadn't been a water arena in years and they reminded us of it every damn day. I understood the practicality around it, sure. Best to have it in our skill set just in case. But god it was boring, lap after lap after lap. Watching the clock tick away slowly, painfully. My blonde hair soaked up so much chlorine I thought it might turn green naturally. Training taught me patience, if anything - taught me how to keep busy. Taught me not to think about the stuff around me, to just focus on my work and let time slip away.

I haven't felt the touch of the ocean in years. I'm smart enough to know it's far more powerful than any human could ever be. That it is unforgiving and unable to be tamed. It's moody and unpredictable. Uncontrollable. It'll swallow me up without a thought like it did my parents. I'm not scared. They think I am, the other kids, but I'm not scared. I'm just smart not to risk my life for a little bit of salt water.

Plus I can't fucking stand sand. Shit gets everywhere. Takes days to wash out, gritty and relentless, stings like a motherfucker in your half-healed training wounds. If I'm going to be a District Four cliche all blue eyes and blonde hair and tan skin, well, at least I'll do it comfortably. Too many ocean-eyed kids in this dump of a place, a sad excuse for a Career District if you ask me. Leon and Annie, almost Bell - but not quite. I quite liked Bell. She knew what she wanted and she fought damn hard to get it. Wasn't ashamed of what she wanted either. Didn't give a fuck what others thought. Admirable. It was a pity when she died, she would have made a good Victor, but I could tell the Capitol had been desperate for a One for decades. Justice is washed up, Opal fading into irrelevance, even a stylist refresher every few years couldn't keep them relevant. I won't shed a tear for Bell, I didn't even cry when Annie went - I can't remember the last time I cried. Anyway, good for Ridley, that's what I say. I like a girl that gets on with it, gets the job done.

I'm not friendly with Annie, not like Angel is. Acquaintances, sure, but I get the feeling she isn't pleased I'm doing what her Dad expects of me. If you ask me she got the easy way out, killing a few kids who got brought back to life anyway so there goes the guilt. Living it up lavishly in the Victor's Village. When she won she curtly offered me a space in her home, mostly to be polite - Angel had already moved in. It was nice of her, I'll admit it, going out of her way. Could tell she didn't really want me there so I declined. Told her her father wouldn't think well of it, that I had a place in his home and his office, that it was what was best. Easier that way, for all of us. Truth is I'd rather not live up there, too flashy and fancy, a crowded house - tip-toeing around her like I have for years. Better for the whole family if I stay with Uncle Al, if I live apart from Angel, if I'm ostracized. I don't need distractions. They don't need me.

Career training slowed over the years, thank god, until it stopped altogether. I still run, up to an hour every morning while the sun begins to rise, to keep my fitness up. I like the quiet of the morning when the ships are just setting off to sail. You can hear the creak of their undersides, the squawking of gulls, the soft kiss of foam on the shore. But that's all you can hear. No people, no business of the day, just your own feet on the pavement and the ambient of the morning. An occasional bird flitting in the blue of the morning as I run past our old house. There's another family living there now, occupants reassigned after they declared Mom and Dad dead by absentia and Uncle Al scooped us up. Got a new lick of paint, good for them. Good for it. Best a new family fill it up, not three sad little orphans. It's fine. Jog on.

It's the regiment of running that I like, the routine of waking up at 5am and putting on my shoes and scoffing down muesli for a kick-start of energy. But the quiet allows me to think, and that's the thing I crave the most. Ticking through my small head, clockwork between tiny ears. Cheapest way to bait the nets, fastest way to repair broken lines and boats, shifting budget around so we can upgrade the fishermen's clothes for winter. Every step a new idea, every heave of cold morning air a solution, every time my dry tongue thirsts for fresh water a concept is testing. In the quiet, without distraction, I can finally fucking think.

Think about what we could have done differently to keep Mom and Dad alive, think about if Angel's accepted they're corpses on the bottom of the ocean floor, wonder how Anarchy's doing in training. Everything about my family I put back into our work. Emergency systems for storms, more accurate weather readings, predicting bad rain or 20+ knots of wind, producing life vests, fitness tests, medics on standby, investing in better, safer, faster ways to do things. I miss them. Of course I do. I was the favourite. But in Alistair Morrisen's eyes I still am: as long as I don't fuck it up, as long as I don't act reckless like my parents.

It's in my nature to be reckless. I don't feel it within me, but I can sense it in Uncle Al's eyes when he looks at me. Holding his breath, waiting for me to make one wrong move and prove a point. But I've got my own point to prove. One foot in front of the other, one report after another, dead parents and ostracised brothers. If I'm to drift from them than so be it - but I'll die before I make it clear I won't be like anyone else in my family.

I'll be better.