vera aquino. one.

When I was born my father says that Abuelo sobbed thick tears, kissed my forehead with shaking lips, and whispered "Dios me ha devuelto a Aisha."

That God had given his sister back to him, in the form of me. What a shit burden to carry: that of a dead girl. I get that it was his way of coping with grieving and all, that I gave him a glimmer of hope in his last years. But fuck, I've spent my whole life trying to live up to my great aunt whatever who got her leg chopped off and I didn't even get a choice in the matter. Stories meant for whispers in the dark drummed into me like a heartbeat, a language I'm too scared to speak fizzling out on a disobeying tongue, and a middle name: Angel - I know what it stands for.

Dad wouldn't let them call me Aisha. Said I deserved my own name. When Abuelo got older, slower, tired, he'd call me it in his confusion. "Aisha, vamos," he'd motion. "Aqui, aqui, mi hermana..." It was shit, hearing that name and knowing he was slipping away. War-torn, shaking hands - as if he'd swallowed grenades from the battlefield, ate up the stories of collapsing buildings and Keeper batons, the ones he'd tell me when I was younger. I know he was a rebel, Aisha too - though he never admitted that aloud.

"Too many spies, mi hermana," always a suspicious, paranoid man. I never blamed him for it. "No confíes en nadie, si?"

"English, Abuelo, my langua- mi idioma es no bueno-"

"¡Es bueno!" he would protest with a crestfallen frown. "Deja de hablar tonto."

"But what if we get in trouble-"

"¡No niña!" and then Dad would step in, scooping me up and yelling at him in a mixture of our languages I could barely understand.

I'm lucky in that my parents understood my nerves, my desire to be my own person. To be Vera, a living girl, and not a ghost. I just wish that my grandfather understood that too. Despite it all, the pressure and the stories and his short tempter, his outbursts and the way he'd cross the street every time he saw a Keeper, I did love him. He put me through Career Training, something I wanted to do for myself but my parents could never afford. When you're descendant of rebels you don't get the lavish houses, the scholarships, the fancy clothes and weapons. You get a two-bedroom unit if you're lucky, on a sketchy side of town near the Keeper barracks. You get overlooked, underappreciated, given second-hand clothes from someone's older sister and no second chances. It's my grandfather's fault that I grew up with not enough and I think he knew that, deep down inside of him, he knew I was suffering because of what had happened.

At Training I can be my own person. I can be Vera with a surname nobody cares about. A name lost to the history books, drowned out underneath the Le Rouxes of the world. I'm as far from Aisha Aquino as I ever could be. And it's freeing, knowing I'm training for a Games she wanted no part in. My own little rebellion. Dad pretended to be against it at first but he came around when he came to pick me up after work and saw how pleased with myself I was. Mom said it was a smart move on everyone's part but she's always been able to see things before everyone else. Foresight, that's what Dad calls it. He's half-joking but it's spooky, like a sixth sense, telling me which girls at school would stab me in the back after we'd sworn to be best friends forever. I'd come home crying, and she'd just wipe my tears and say 'I told you so, kiddo.' She told me to give training a go, in and amongst a tarty line about how it was the least my grandfather could give me, that I might like it more than I thought I would. Sure enough, she'd told me so.

I wish I looked more like Mom and less like Dad's side. Less like Aisha. Abuelo would cup my face in his hands and say I was her twin, a mirror image, marvel at my likeness. When I was really little I liked it, giggling into his palms, but as I got older and understood the laughter subsided. I wanted to toss all of that away, blame it on his heartbroken desperation to find his sister in me, but deep down I knew he was right. We do look similar and I hated it, still do now. I searched for our differences in my reflection instead, picking myself apart with my own fingertips, pinching and pulling and morphing my face into something it's not.

Fuller eyebrows, more meat on my bones, a drizzle of acne on my forehead and chin. Much more unruly hair, wavier, more mousy than anything. My nose is rounder at the end and I've got freckles and moles, lighter skin - from Mom, and Dad's Mom too, I'm a washed-out photograph compared to Abuelo. Where I lack in richness and melanin I make up for in my jawline as sharp as Aisha's tongue, my slouched posture, the same sized shoes. Anything and everything Abuelo could find, I'd find too. I smashed photographs and mirrors, blood on swollen knuckles, hid myself underneath loose clothing and hoods of sweatshirts. I even fried my hair blonde with a bottle of bleach until it fell off in clumps and I cried in the shower at fifteen, Mom stroking my back and managing to save what hair I had left.

It grew back slowly. Barely touched my shoulders and inched its way closer and closer with every month that passed, strange looks from kids at school and mortified questions like "What happened?!" and "Who cut your hair off?" Mom said I was lucky I had a jawline that suited long hair but I still pinned and pushed it back in the mirror until my reflection blurred and swam in my frustrated tears.

I know grit is supposed to make you stronger, something about proving our enemies wrong and rising up in glory of those who doubted us is painted above the entrance to the training center. But fuck, it gets overwhelming sometimes. I should try be more like the others, try and stand out. Try to mesh with them. Not snap back, not roll my eyes, not make fun of them when I think they're out of earshot. But it's in my blood to revolt, in my nature to repent, in my very being to rebel. When Abuelo was on his death bed I took his hand in mind and he whispered our prayer - the one I used to pretend I didn't know, pretend I couldn't grasp the words. I rebelled against my own lies and recounted them, one by one, with him.

The prayer sat on my tongue, heavy as my heart.

"Angel di mi guarda dulce compania.

No me desampares, ni de noche, ni de dia.

No me dejes solo..."

His breathing stopped, as did his words. I finished it for him.

"Que me perderia."

In that moment, as he passed from this place toward his sister and I broke down in tears into my father's arms I realised something. That try as I might I can't shake who she was and how much of her is in me. So I'll be Vera, descendant of Aisha. But Vera first and foremost. Being unafraid of who I am.

I like to think she'd be okay with that.