jorge bernardio . d1 . fin

I've always been painted as the clumsiest of the triplets. Yeah, I said triplets. There's three of us: Hernando, Jorge (that's me!) and Bruno, but we don't talk about Bruno. At least, that's mom's rule. My family kind-of pushed Bruno out of the picture years ago. They don't like to acknowledge his existence. If I'm being completely honest, though, I really do miss him.

Nowadays, Hernando and I spend a lot of time together. He's the fearless career who seems to be insanely coordinated and never able to mess anything up, whereas I'm the clumsy kid who's too oblivious and accident-prone to be a career. I'd probably accidentally cut my thumb off with a knife or something if I tried to throw one. The last time I tried to cut vegetables with a paring knife I sliced part of my finger open, and let me tell you, that absolutely sucked.

I wish I wasn't so easily hurt, though. I mean, emotionally I'm pretty strong. I get bullied a lot so I can take quite a few verbal hits, but physically? I crumble pretty quick. It makes me terrified of what would happen if I ended up in the Games. Sure, my brother Hernando insists he'd be my safety net and volunteer for me if that happened, but I'm not sure that's what I'd really want. I wouldn't want him to risk his life for me. Granted, I'd risk my life for him if he got chosen, even if he says he's not scared of going into the Hunger Games.

Honestly, I think Hernando probably is scared. He says nothing shakes him, but I know that can't be true. Everyone is scared of something. I mean, I'm scared of a lot of things, but still, as an example, one of my worst fears is not being good enough for my family. I don't want to end up like Bruno, pushed away and not even mentioned because of doing one little thing that they saw as wrong or harmful to the family.

Some days, I feel like I live with a bucket on my head. Now, I know that sounds like a really freakin' stupid analogy, but hear me out. It's like I'm trying to protect myself from the world, but as a result, I can't see a lot of what's going on. I'm oblivious to a lot of things, from what I've been told. It's like I'm far too sheltered for my own good. My family tries to hard to protect me, and it makes it so I don't know all the harsh realities of the world.

The only harsh reality I suppose I've really been exposed to is the Hunger Games. I've had to watch it on the television for the majority of my life, and there's really no way to go without hearing something about it at school, or out and about in the District, or even at home, especially when your own brother is training as a hard-core career.

I've been told recently about how a lot of people in the lower districts are starving to death, and I suppose it's just hard to see when we live somewhere as wealthy as District One. It just doesn't sound realistic, I suppose. It doesn't seem possible when you see the people on all those Capitol TV shows like "Young Love in Panem" just thriving and living the luxury life. To think they'd just let people in Ten, Eleven and Twelve starve while they're living life like that doesn't seem right.

I guess I live a lot of my life in disbelief of what reality actually, truly has in store for us, and what it's giving to us now, too. None of it seems right, or fair, or just. It all seems too strange, like it just can't be what's actually happening. Then again, when you live in a world where things like the reaping and the Hunger Games happen, I suppose there's got to be a lot of other terrible things going on, too, right?

I don't like to believe it, since I've always been an optimist, but I guess there's nothing I can do to really change that.

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