the room where it happens (jb).— [six/vasco]

V A S C O

By the eighth year, I’ve dispensed with the pomp and opt for the relaxed approach to the reaping. A crisp gray sweatshirt and jeans for me, and the same worn smile that’s heavier than the last year or the one before. I’m more a relic on the stage to most than anything else. Their mayor, the steady hand on a ship that’s seen riots, explosions, and fires and somehow not managed to run so far aground that we’re still standing. Despite the peacekeepers that march along the streets or that in eight years almost half the names of tributes have had Izar attached to them.

Lately I’ve had the thought of how much easier it would’ve been to stay working in the fields than trying to lead the district. About how we might’ve just gone as unnoticed as we ever had – even if it’d meant staying a part of the scenery. At least then we’d have had each other. Instead, we share grief in abundance, like we’re passing around a bottle that doesn’t empty. Some of us drunk to tears, others steeled to how heavy the world sits on our shoulders. And still others drinking, drop by drop, not yet spoiled by our fill.

When the peacekeepers open the door and I step through the threshold to where Six O’Malley is standing, the first thing I see is that the boy has been crying. The puffy red eyes are hard to miss, aside from his hair. And as the door closes, I put my hands into my sweatshirt’s pockets. It’s quiet, aside from his addressing me. The ‘sir’ still unfamiliar to me, as though what I’ve become is the silhouette of a man with any real power.

“Six O’Malley,” I say, furrowing my brow. I do my best to smile because as much as my heart could be breaking, we owe it to him not to add to his grief. That he deserves to know that no matter what becomes of him, he won’t become what the capitol wants him to be – an agent of grief and nothing else. That he can’t be turned into a villain or hero, or any one thing no matter how hard they’d try. For now, as he stands with a shock of red hair and wiping away tears, he’s a great many things, and could become so much more.

“Vasco Izar.” It’s the reason I don’t give him my title, because here, there’s no difference between us. The purgatory where we sit is about what might become rather than what we are. For him there will be pain and sadness. And for us, for me – the need to ensure safe passage for his return. That no matter how he comes back to us, his memory will remain, and grow, as he’d want it.

“I don’t pretend to know how it feels standing in your shoes,” I say making sure to hold my gaze to his, “But I wanted to come to listen to you. If you even wanted to speak. Sometimes there’s nothing left to say, and that’s okay, too.”

There needed to be someone to show the world was not so cruel.

“I want to help you, and your family. To do what I can, no matter what.”

V A S C O

I remember looking at Raquel standing in a room like this and thinking how those last few moments, all I could think of was how much we’d failed. That what we’d had was always going to be a memory, no matter what happened. And that no one would ever know what this pain felt like, searing right across my chest.

“You’re right, to feel that way, Six.” I say, hands twisting in the pockets of my hoodie, “Words didn’t mean much when I lost my daughter, no matter how many times I heard someone say I’m sorry.”

They’re just kids.

Children who’ll never know what it meant to live without all the pain and trauma. Always taught that violence could avenge just as fast as it could destroy. The capitol offering the old narrative that a person that made it on their own was a hero, and that there was no room for anyone but ourselves.

“But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to look every one of your brothers and sisters in the eye and tell them their loss is going to come in waves, and they have to keep kicking to stay above the waves, until they’re not as big as they used to be. That the fault’s mine, for not finding a way that keeps a single one of you out of this, and not theirs. To listen to them, and every hurtful thing they’re going to want to say to someone who’s supposed to be in charge. And own it, because that’s what a person should do.”

I never thought that bravery was about some great gesture, or single act. True courage was all the little things we did for one another, without being asked or needing to take credit. Without needing a title or a name to want to live for others. That took strength, day in and day out, to offer a part of ourselves without asking for something in return. Even when sometimes it meant getting hurt or being so tired of it you could weep.

But then you see the faces of kids like Six or Estelle, and you remember it’s about them. Not us.

“And I’ll give your twin a space they can sit and take in the rest of this world. And still feel as though they’re not so alone, when they feel like there’s no one else who’d ever understand.”

I step a bit closer to Six and lean forward to meet his height. He’s a few inches shy of me, and if he’d had another year, I probably would’ve been staring up at him. I take my hands out of my pockets and rest them at my sides.

“The hard part’s not in finding the right thing to say. It’s reaching out a hand and keeping it held out no matter how hard things might be for me. Because if we aren’t willing to listen to one another, or try to understand the good, bad, and everything in between, then what’s the point?”

V A S C O

"You don’t have to apologize. You have a lot of questions and none of us have any real answers for you, I’m afraid.”

“You know who you are right now is going to be different than who you’re going to be in there,” I say quiet enough to be at a whisper. Images of Raquel and her blade flash at the back of my mind. “They want you to believe in befores and afters. That time is different from the moment you do something you think will make you a terrible person.”

I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to do what Raquel had done, but it’s not something to know until the moment comes. And I’d have been lying if I said I didn’t want her to come home. Even I knew what that meant the moment they set off in the train toward the capitol. I’d just pretended to believe there’d be some other way out of it for her.

“We’re taught punish ourselves for the bad things we do – putting people in prison forever – for the entirety of their lives. Without a chance for redemption. Nothing else on earth acts that way. Except us. And no matter how many times we punish someone for the same crime, it’s not going to bring things back to the way they were before.” I shake my head. There’s no raising our dead, no matter how many times the capitol may have done it.

“I’ll do my best to make sure no matter what happens, how I see you, or how anyone else might see you, won’t make you any different. And that your family is looked after, as well as I can.”