little miss salutatorian >> billie, 94

Foolish of him to think that a wolf could hide among rabbits but tell Avriel Baptiste himself and he wouldn't know what you meant. People rarely see growth in themselves, especially when it's gone as twisted and gnarled as his has.

He stands there in the bleachers of the balcony, a camera in front of his face like every other proud parent around him. There's a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and the hoodie he wears is dark and nondescript. Still, faded scars peek out from under the cuffs of the sweater every time he raises his hands and there's an aura to him these days that never was there before. He doesn't belong there in a family setting.

Funny, sort of, how he's only ever gotten worse at being in crowds.

Before he won the games it was because he didn't like the feeling of being blocked in on all sides by strangers. It felt like being swallowed. There was some relief though in the way that being in a crowd used to feel like being in a melting pot. All of the things that made him an individual seemed to fade away, and people don't notice you when you're standing invisible in the middle of a group like that.

But that's not so easy anymore.

Someone three rows behind him leans over to their partner and whispers something about the career in the front row behind their hand. Avriel hears nothing, eyes forward and focused on the stage, just close enough for him to make out subtle movements. Two large screens stand on either side, magnifying everything times ten. So he sees the exact moment that Billie steps up to the podium to make her speech.

At least he thinks that it's her. But it’s been so long now that he doesn’t really remember what his sister’s voice sounds like and her features have gotten kind of blurry in his head. Av keeps photos of her and Duke on the mantle but it’s not the same. It’s like looking at a caricature.

They said her name, 'Billie Baptiste, Salutatorian of graduating class in the year of the 94th games.' That's a strange thing to hear tied to the name of his kid sister. All their life she'd always just been Billie and he'd always just been Avriel. Now they have all these things attached to them, anchors dragging at the sand, pulling them down instead of up.

Salutatorian and Victor.

Avriel stares at the screen to the right of her because it's closest. Her hair is longer than she kept it four years ago. It's done up right now but he can tell by the tendrils that frame her face. There's a sharpness to her features that wasn't there four years ago and a darkness to her gaze. He used to know the ins and outs of her but looking at Billie now he doesn't at all.

His camera shutter clicks anyway. Hesitant at first, then again and again. Clicking through her whole speech.

Sometimes it feels like he could call her and she’d answer like she used to. Pick up the phone, take a breath against the static, "What's wrong?” she’d ask, tone flat, steeled against bad news.

He'd pause because somehow she knew even how to read the way his breath fell from his lungs. Avriel would say, ”Nothing,” then shake his head even though she couldn’t see it from all those miles away. ”Just wanted to say hi.”

Billie will probably never forgive him. Duke might, eventually, he’s soft like that but Billie won’t and that feels right. Feels deserved. Part of him likes the grief that's hung off of him for the last decade anyway, at least he doesn't know what he'd be without it.

Her speech ends and Billie steps back into place, a face in a sea of people dressed in black robes and oddly shaped hats. She gets a special sash to set her apart from the rest and he wonders if people envy her for that. He wonders if now she knows what it feels like to be separate like that.

Maybe it all feels a little more empty than she thought.

He doesn't take his eyes off of her for the rest of the ceremony. They do it all in alphabetical order and she walks across the stage near the beginning of it all. He raises his camera again, gets the exact moment when Fenwick hands her a diploma.

She doesn’t want him to be there, he knows that. If she did, she would have reached out. There’s a social norm for this, a set of rules he’s supposed to inherently know but he doesn’t and the one person who used to nudge him and tell him gave up on him four years ago.

And he’s so proud of her, not because their parents can’t be but because he just is. She was always better at school than him, always the smart one, the better of the two of them. If anyone was going to do great things, he always figured it’d be her.

He just thought he'd be there with her.

The ceremony ends. People start milling around, heading down through the aisles to find their graduate. Avriel just stands there, finger still resting on the shutter button. He borrowed the camera from Duke's room. There was dust on the viewfinder and a half roll of film still in the chamber. Avriel took it out and developed it after reading a few books.

He turned the downstairs storage room into a dark room and watched familiar faces fade into view. A red checked blanket, his own face through tall strands of grass, Scout standing on a rock in the middle of a stream, Billie with her hair in front of her eyes, reading a medical journal. A crisp looking apple pie, Avriel's crown hanging on the coat rack, and then finally Duke taking a picture of himself in the mirror.

Avriel stood there in the dark and watched their life bloom around them with the same eyes that saw it wilt.

And knew that someone had to be there to see Billie graduate.

The room starts to empty and Avriel stands up. Billie's still down there, waiting maybe for someone that's not him. He hesitates there in the half dark of the dimly lit theatre, hands braced on the banister. A current runs through the back of his throat and he opens his mouth. Avriel thinks about calling out her name.

A shudder runs over him lightly, he squeezes his eyes shut and bends forward almost as if in pain. It’s been a year since his quarantine now but he hasn’t been able to move past it. Avriel’s let the memory dig in and twist inside him, grow and take from him, hungry, always burning.

”Psychopath,” Billie whispers in his head.

He flinches.

She'd never want him here.

He’s been so good at staying away up until now. In the end this is just another way that he's failed her. Maybe in another universe he could have played the proud big brother. Bought her flowers, slung his arm around her shoulder and puffed his chest out with pride, do all the things a big brother should do at their sister’s graduation.

Instead he watches her slip out a side door.

And it's like he's woken up to her empty room all over again.