annisa morrisen, district four | fin

When I was younger, my biggest fear was that I'd search the ocean of faces for my Father's eyes at one of my dance recitals and he wouldn't be there and I'd start crying in the middle of a relevé. I used to have nightmares about it. I'd wake up with the sound of my heart pounding against my skull, my chest heaving with shallow breaths and beads of sweat clinging onto my skin. Life had been so different back then, so much more trivial.

Or maybe I had changed, maybe I was the one that was different.

Axel and I used to play in the sand together, we chased the cobalt tide when it receded from the shore and we collected buckets full of seashells to put on one of the many lopsided sandcastles we had built together. I told him that I was the queen of our sand empire and he was the prince and that we'd rule over them together.  He went to all of my recitals, always sat in the front row because he thought that would be the best view. I could always pick his big, dumb, sunshine grin out of the crowd and somehow it would make breathing feel easier. We were bonded at the hip, I was only a few months older so we were practically right by each other's side since birth.

But now there's something inside of me, something spiteful and callous that hates him. That despises him. The way his voice cracks and goes an octave higher when he's nervous and the way his palms were too soft to ever hold a sword correctly — all of it makes my blood boil and I don't know why. And then there's that part of me that remembers him when we were kids, those memories wash over me like ice and all I can feel is regret. But I wasn't one to admit that I was wrong, so I'd push those feelings down deeper and deeper until I could pretend they didn't exist.

Things with Anton were different, I'd never felt close to him, or anything remotely like that. Even calling us siblings would be a stretch. He always had his nose stuck up in the air like he smelled something funny, like he was somehow better than us. I don't remember a time when he wasn't full of it, even now the only words that fall from his lips are total horseshit, and sometimes that pisses me off more than Axel ever could. I was a match and Anton knew all the perfect ways to light it, to make my insides burn and churn and seethe with rage until all that's left is something hollow pounding in my chest.

And Annie is the same way.

I was only nine when she won but even then she stole something from me, something precious and made of gold: my Father's attention. Every daughter wants to be the apple of their father's eye, and I wanted to be everything he raised me to be — intrepid and as sharp as a blade. I thought that nothing would be able to stop me. I grew up nipping at his heels and doing everything I could to see that look of pride painted on his weathered face.  And she took that from me.

Everything became about her when she came out of the arena, still alive and adorned with a crown of gold. A victor. It was always Annie this and Annie that and it never settled right in my stomach. She was never that special. She didn't even kill anyone, there's no blood on her hands, everyone in her games lived. That's no accomplishment. Her only talents now include drinking and taking up oxygen. Also, her hairline was receding like the tide, I felt like that was important to point out.

Can you imagine how that felt? Being so obsessed with proving your worth in a family of careers and your father's eyes shift to her when she walks in the room and he holds up his hand to your face like you were just an afterthought? All for her?

It's agonizing.

I've felt my bones shatter underneath the weight of another's fists and my skin has been stained with watercolor bruises that throbbed with every small movement and  I've felt serrated blades tear through my skin as though it was a piece of fabric, but somehow being second place burned worse than all of those combined.

I wasn't born to lose but somehow I was never first.

And maybe that's what changed me.

Maybe it stirred cruel things in my chest and poisoned my bloodstream and left me hollow. Or maybe it unearthed what was always there.

Maybe I'm not meant to be good.

And maybe I'm just heartless and cruel because that's all I am.

All I can be.

come get herrr ryan