romily sorokin, district seven escort / capitol (finished)

/ i am the memory of a girl,
i am nothing more than myself /

In her mind, she prefers to skip over her childhood like stones on water. Trees fade into skyscrapers, ambition progresses into success. If there is a trade, then Romily will come out the other side of it a winner. But for all of her strengths, she has always had a terrible habit of repressing herself — her fears, regrets, all the scary things that could convince her to stop trying as hard as she does. Name an obstacle in her way, she'll name a victory.

She ties up her hair, wakes up before the dawn, steps out into the apartment hallway and stares back at the dark room she's leaving behind. The bed and the silk sheets, the ghost of her mother locking herself in her room for days on end. It stays with her even when she leaves. There's a scent of lavender on the air, the echo of an object that broke long ago, a vase shattering against a wall, peonies dying on the floor. It could be beautiful if it didn't keep her up at night. If she couldn't see through her own smoke and mirrors. Her memoir will be a tailored story. Romily has made her peace with that.

When she shuts the door, she shuts out the silence, too.

On the bad days, music distracts her from herself. She hones in on the future, her goals, sinks her nails into the possibility of a thing and pretends like she doesn't feel the breath of reality warming her skin. It's like a cold fever, jogging through the streets of an empire she wants desperately to belong to. Her education exceeds expectations, a work ethic just like her father's, like the endless shifts at her new job can hardly phase her — like she's a glorified grave-digger staring down at her own tomb. She buries her father before she buries her mother, before she graduates top of her class, before she trades her soul to make a name for herself.

When fate tries to cheat her, to deny her from the destiny she's worked so hard to achieve, she takes the reins in her own two hands. Grabs that golden thread and turns it into a noose for all her enemies to share. It's like glancing over her shoulder, staring at all the past versions of herself. Thirteen, washing the blood off her knuckles after breaking Mandy Cullen's nose for telling a joke at her mother's expense — eighteen, a whole bottle of wine and dancing until 4AM, the night blurs until all she can hear is, "you deserve more than this, but you can never have it." She bides her time until she can finally make the gamble. Between death or greatness, the choice is easy. The payment is made.

A boy with freckles smiles in the candlelight, devils and deals looking like oil on canvas, and Romily thinks she notices the pale girl by his side frown.

Weeks after the fact, she sits in a Capitol bar, throws back a shot of whiskey and laughs with the elites of society as if she will ever understand their private language. It's clumsy on her tongue. "I'll tell you a secret. I wasn't born here. Seriously, I mean it, I had to sneak my way in." She holds up her palm, reveals the callouses like they're a party trick, giggles at the ridiculous things she's saying as if they're just another harmless prank to be pulled during the witching hour. Her peers love her stories, her playful schemes, the way there's somehow always a hint of mystery around a woman that's so brutally honest. "You ever rode horseback in the mountains? Been there. Never again."

For all the truths she presses down, there are flowers that grow from the softest parts of herself. In the absence of the girl that wanted more, the girl that cheated the system, she steps into the street of a bustling city and glances back at her penthouse suite. It's all so much more than she ever thought she would have, a dream that makes her pinch herself each night — lock the door and shut all the windows, wait and pretend and trick herself into believing no one will ever figure her out. She's Romily Sorokin before she's anyone else, heiress-turned-orphan of an old forgotten fortune, that's the script she's sticking to. Clever as they come, ready for any challenge, a phoenix that has flown so far away from her ashes.

But the truth will out, as they say. One moment she's a girl with too many aspirations, feet against the earth, the next she's got her own office in a high-rise — then, ultimately, she's in handcuffs, sunglasses to mask her emotions, staring down at the flashing lights and the reporters and the news that's been printed across every front page. Eventually, all the rumors start to bleed into the truth. This is the fine line between a mystery and a scandal. "Who is the real Romily Sorokin? Where did she come from? What's the story we're missing?" To which she'll smile in reply, take her hopes into her hands and guard them with every ounce of fight she has. She gets back up on her feet like she has a thousand times before.

This changes nothing.

"Why don't you read for yourself and find out?"