You Should Be Sad | Paris Vanburen
Jun 24, 2021 21:22:46 GMT -5
Post by dars on Jun 24, 2021 21:22:46 GMT -5
brown guilty eyes and little white lies
yeah, I played dumb but I always knew
that you'd talk to her, maybe did even worse
I kept quiet so I could keep you"
yeah, I played dumb but I always knew
that you'd talk to her, maybe did even worse
I kept quiet so I could keep you"
She wore gold.
Pink had always looked better on her skin, but this night was not about her. And weirdly enough she was okay with it, standing near the mirror and checking to make sure her face was perfect one last time. A knock sounded at the door and Paul Vanburen stepped inside, dressed sharp as ever. Parker had always looked more like their mother, with the blue eyes and the pouty lips. Maybe that's why their father had always been so much easier on Paris, because people could look at her and know who she belonged to, as if she would've ever let someone walk out of a room without telling them herself. Still, if Paris had ever done anything to make her parents proud, they'd spared her the knowledge of it.
Until now, apparently. Her dad had always been quicker to show affection than her mother, but that wasn't a large feat. He closed the door behind him and smiled.
"You're radiant, Princess. That dress is lovely!"
She spread her arms and gave him a twirl. Of course he thought that; he'd paid for it.
"Are the guests all here?"
"Still incoming," he started, crossing his arms over his chest, "but the turnout is already better than you hoped."
That couldn't have possibly been true. She'd been organizing this sponsorship benefit for Julian ever since they'd kissed goodbye in the Justice Building the day of the reaping. Even though that had only been a week or so ago, she felt like an entire lifetime's worth of living had occurred in the meantime. Absence made her heart grow fonder for him and if there had been any amount of doubt before, it was gone now. She loved him. And maybe she didn't know him perfectly yet, but she would.
Her trainer had given her the entire week off to prepare- Daisy and Syrena had also taken off to help decorate the ballroom, and Paris had knocked on every single Upper Elite door in District One personally to invite them. Not for the Le Roux tributes, no. For Julian. Her boyfriend. Her love.
Her reflection smiled at her father, who stood behind her with an expression she hadn't really ever seen.
"What is it?" she asked after a pause, turning to face him.
"I'm proud of you, Paris."
She smiled and played it off like it wasn't a big deal, but it was. She'd only heard those exact words one other time in her life, and it was for the career tournament. Which, sure, she'd done a great job obviously, because she was honestly a pretty phenomenal athlete- Jules had even said she was stronger than him once- but this was different. This was her taking the initiative. This wasn't her mother breathing down her neck to do something to keep up appearances. This was... Well, dare she call it an act of love?
Her father took one of her hands into his own and brought it to his lips for a chaste peck.
"You're all grown up, and your mother and I are proud of the young woman you've become. I mean it."
Everyone had always known having Julian was a win for the Vanburens, but this, now... This was proof that the Le Rouxs had no idea what a Vanburen could accomplish too.
"Thank you," she said simply, walking away without another word. For a girl who craved attention so much, she sure was quick to deflect it any time it came to her. But she stopped short of the door so that he could open it for her, which he did, because this was District One and kings didn't ascend to their thrones without learning proper etiquette. She nodded a quick thanks to him before making her way to the ballroom.
Daisy and Syrena were waiting for her when she got there. Daisy wore an understated light pink number, which stopped just above the knee and brought out the color in her cheeks. Syrena wore white sequins, because what kind of a Fray would she have been if she didn't try to claim a spotlight that didn't belong to her. She excitedly greeted them while they sized her up.
"You missed Flickerman's introduction," Syrena whispered, "but I think the interviews are going to begin soon!"
The ballroom had always been her favorite of the many. She remembered it being used much more when she was a child, descending the grand staircase over and over hoping some charming prince would come and swoop her off her feet. Of course, eventually, one did.
Currently, the expansive room was filled to the brim with white circular tables, plush white cloth and ornate golden candelabras. White and gold silks hung from the walls. The champagne sparkled like the twinkling chandelier above, and a string quartet played softly on the side of the room nearest to the terrace. Even from here, the smell of her mother's rose garden made her feel as if she was living in the wrong century, and she longed to be in a simpler time. She pictured herself as a princess in a tower, and pictured Julian as her knight in shining armor, storming the castle, and begging for her to take his hand.
Of course, they didn't have running water back then, so she was perfectly fine with the current timeline as well.
The center of the room was taken over by a large screen, visible from all sides, and currently displaying a live broadcast of the 88th Tribute Interviews. And there he was, the golden sun, the golden son himself. Everyone in the crowd cheered. Daisy squeezed Paris on the shoulder, and Syrena leaned in close to her ear, "He's so handsome! The two of you really are perfect." Paris gave her an empathetic look.
"You'll get this too some day, I'm sure. Both of you." She didn't need to point out that she'd gotten it first, and they didn't need to point out that they wanted different things from her. The main reason she was friends with them both was that they were similar enough to her that she wasn't annoyed by them, but different enough that she wasn't threatened by them.
They were talking about something menial now- something about his hobbies, or his talents, or whatever. Honestly, she wasn't paying much attention because she was too busy returning the looks of passersby as they congratulated her, or were jealous of her, or wished him luck, or whatever they may have been doing. Honestly every person in this room could've hated her guts with envy right then, and she wouldn't have cared. Because, in that moment, she was just truly, incandescently happy. And scared. And hopeful. And excited. Because of the maybe of it all. Look what she could do! Look at the people in this room, all gathered by her, all with pockets full of money, and she would've done it a thousand times for him. For that beautiful, golden-eyed boy captivating all of Panem right at that very moment. She didn't want to jinx it. And she didn't want it to ever go away. This was bliss. Every little thing was absolutely perf-
"What about romance? Cute as you are, I bet there is someone back home waiting, right?" The girls squealed and clutched at her as she excitedly giggled back to them. He was about to talk about her. Not a Vanburen. Her. His girlfriend. His love.
"Yes," he said. God, his voice was like rain on the roof during a warm summer night. She could listen to it forever, she thought, "but we decided to part ways because the Games aren’t very certain."
The silence was the worst part. Now no one, not a single person looked her way. Every color except red drained from her face, she felt heavy, and her desire to completely disappear was so strong that she thought she actually might for a moment. She didn't dare look away from the screen. She didn't dare show her broken heart. She didn't dare.
"But Cupid is a trickster, and he seems to have struck my heart yet again."
She reacted to this like it had been a physical assault, shocked backwards where she stood hard enough to send her running- well, walking as briskly as she could in six-inch heels- away. She locked the door to her room and she didn't answer it when any of them came to knock. She was a fool. An idiot. All those people- her parents, fuck, her Dad! He would be so disappointed in her! Her friends would all talk about this when she wasn't in the room, forever the sad girl Julian dumped on national television as his first move of stardom. She cried until her mascara ran in two black streams down her face and her brow was sweaty and her hair was a disaster and her knees got strawberries from her being on them for so long. She sobbed. And she sobbed. And somewhere along the way, she decided that there was no way in hell that he would get away with doing this to her.
In a manic rage, she raced across her room, delved into the walk-in closet her father paid for as her last birthday gift- and furiously flipped through several drawers until she'd unearthed a pen and a tiny pink notebook shaped and colored like a unicorn. Right there, in her bedroom floor, she began to write with a fervent passion that could only be described perfectly in one single, solitary word:
Vengeful.
lyrics: traitor by olivia rodrigo.
