violet pryce | district seven | cb fin

86th — 96th


She is who she is in spite of who she was supposed to be instead. Even now, even so young that her name isn't yet in the reaping, she stares out the kitchen window and wonders why her mother chose to be there, and not here. The memories of when she was younger and her parents were still together are starting to blur together and sometimes she's not sure which parts are real and which parts she's imagined, but the one thing that always stays the same in her mind no matter how much time passes is this: there was a day when her mother left and did not really ever come back.

She's seen her for visits, of course. Every couple of months they go on shopping trips and pretend like things are normal, like she's just a little girl and her mother is just her mother and when they're done with this they'll just go home together and continue living their lives. But as she gets older, Violet wonders why her time with her mother is so limited and has begun to piece some things together: she knows her dad doesn't want her around any of the Salazars, she knows her mom tried sneaking in a visit with her grandpa once and that when Dad found out they got into a huge screaming match from across the fence that divides their yards. And she heard once that her mother had a real tendency of going away in a sense: of disappearing when things got hard. But its hard to stay mad at someone who stays gone- it's easier to think her dad is just keeping her away from her family and to resent him a bit for it.

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96th —


Violet sees a glimpse of her as she walks across the yard, and for a second she's excited that her mother is back home from the Capitol. She turns to race down the stairs but stops before she's even out of her bedroom. Hesitation. She stands in the doorway for several seconds, considering. Then she closes the door and returns to her desk to finish her homework instead.