go easy { d12 train }
Jun 11, 2022 23:17:34 GMT -5
Post by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽♂️kaitlin. on Jun 11, 2022 23:17:34 GMT -5
The years go by, and I never seem to get any better at being a mentor to teenagers.
My younger self was too abrasive, too interested in them believing me better than, well, anyone else. Everyone else. Crueler. More indifferent. Everything awful, I sought to be the best at. In hindsight, sometimes I wonder exactly how much of that was me being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole, and how much of it was self-flagellation. It's hard to avoid responsibility for one's own self-inflicted prison of pride when age brings both sobriety and mandated therapy thanks to the new high council.
Something about early trauma, they'd said. I'd avoided the visits until a doctor showed up at my hotel room and threatened to put a tracker in my arm so they could have sessions whenever they wanted to show up.
As if I don't already have one.
But I flexed my prosthetic and rolled my eyes before ultimately, begrudgingly, accepting. Last thing I need is to have my therapist show up knocking on the front door of a one night stand's apartment. There's no way in hell I'm ever going to process that with them out loud.
Still though, years down the line, I frustrate myself with caring about them. I go to sink into the couch opposite the pair of them when I finally manage to make my way into the carriage. I'm late to the party, managed to keep myself busy enough after the reaping to avoid Carter's eye's with phone calls to sponsors in the Capitol. I don't know how to apologize for missing his birthday, again, or how to explain I'm still figuring out how to keep my head above water by burying myself in things that make me feel like I'm doing something. That I don't know how to stop treading water. So I get Caroul's people on the phone instead of thinking about it, and I don't give in until Cresent herself comes to the phone. Twelve's tributes are going to kill the opening ceremony this year.
Before propping either of my arms up on the back of the sofa, I fuss with my pant legs as I sit down, adjusting them so they lay correctly. It takes me a moment before I look either of the children in front of me in the eyes.
"So," I begin, ever abrupt. "I figure you both have questions. Let's start there."
My younger self was too abrasive, too interested in them believing me better than, well, anyone else. Everyone else. Crueler. More indifferent. Everything awful, I sought to be the best at. In hindsight, sometimes I wonder exactly how much of that was me being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole, and how much of it was self-flagellation. It's hard to avoid responsibility for one's own self-inflicted prison of pride when age brings both sobriety and mandated therapy thanks to the new high council.
Something about early trauma, they'd said. I'd avoided the visits until a doctor showed up at my hotel room and threatened to put a tracker in my arm so they could have sessions whenever they wanted to show up.
As if I don't already have one.
But I flexed my prosthetic and rolled my eyes before ultimately, begrudgingly, accepting. Last thing I need is to have my therapist show up knocking on the front door of a one night stand's apartment. There's no way in hell I'm ever going to process that with them out loud.
Still though, years down the line, I frustrate myself with caring about them. I go to sink into the couch opposite the pair of them when I finally manage to make my way into the carriage. I'm late to the party, managed to keep myself busy enough after the reaping to avoid Carter's eye's with phone calls to sponsors in the Capitol. I don't know how to apologize for missing his birthday, again, or how to explain I'm still figuring out how to keep my head above water by burying myself in things that make me feel like I'm doing something. That I don't know how to stop treading water. So I get Caroul's people on the phone instead of thinking about it, and I don't give in until Cresent herself comes to the phone. Twelve's tributes are going to kill the opening ceremony this year.
Before propping either of my arms up on the back of the sofa, I fuss with my pant legs as I sit down, adjusting them so they lay correctly. It takes me a moment before I look either of the children in front of me in the eyes.
"So," I begin, ever abrupt. "I figure you both have questions. Let's start there."
