is your heart alive? yale

I always get kind of fucking weird around this time of year.

I know that, I try to make things less obvious, keep face-to-face conversations to a minimum, always stay at least ten feet away from anyone else kind of deal, but it doesn't always work. I get a little messy, a little bit not like myself, just kind of fucking weird.

It starts with the reaping.

I stand there with the rest of the kids my age, right at the very end of the line and in spitting distance of Ai who's a whole year older than me but you know, alphabets.

Anyway, I stand there and I stare at the stage and it's kind of like she's there. Nowles is there, arms crossed, looking annoyed with the whole thing. I remember she elbowed me on the way up to the stage, "Uncle Mourn'll fix it," she'd promised.

Okay, sure, except her body's definitely like, rotted away fully by now in her grave on the edge of the district so I doubt it.

Funny thing though, Storm's on the stage. He came home, no problem. Well, a little bit of problem, like some things exploded, he had to kill some guys, you know. Thing is, he's not Nowles and I kind of just want her, she never even cared that I was weird as hell, she didn't care about the smiling.

I'm smiling again, grin stretched ear to ear in the doomsday silence of the square and I know I look like a lunatic. I don't know how to stop though, anytime I'm feeling anything, it's always just a smile.

There's probably something wrong with my head, well, that's a given. That's what Nowles would probably say anyway. I turn, look at the crowd of watchers and I count up all my aunts and uncles but when I look for Sal, I can't see him. It's not like I was expecting to but I still wonder if he's okay. I still wish he was here for just in case.

If I get reaped, there won't be enough time to find him before I have to get on the train and there's like, a hundred and one things I need to tell him. Someone needs to know about Joanne and about all the things she likes to eat and he's got to know about the leak in the kitchen under the sink. I keep meaning to fix it but I also keep forgetting it's there until I open the cupboard door and the bucket's overflowing onto my socks.

But it's fine because I don't get reaped.

They call someone else's name and I watch Storm turn around on the stage to go off on the train again for a few weeks so he can come back even lankier and messed up in the head than before. It's sort of like a reverse spa trip I'm guessing, I don't know, I don't really care I think, I'm too busy.

Can't even feel relieved, honestly. I stand there for a few extra minutes, milling around with my cousins as they talk about boring things like handguns and whether or not Rhys and Gunner are gonna make it home. Like, I dunno and do I care?

I'll have to think about it.

"What's got you looking so damned pleased?" says the voice that belongs to the fist that's twisted itself up into the front of my shirt. My heels lift off the ground a little and I'm looking at a face I don't really want to see right now. Dumb tall kid from school who I sold icing sugar to last week with the promise that coke is supposed to be sweet.

"Oh hey Dave," I say, "This is just how my face is, remember?"

He doesn't, or at least that's what I got from the fist in my eye. Got him good back though, knuckles looking skinned from punching and punching and punching until hands tore at my arms like claws from behind and pulled me off of him.

Yeah, I got a black eye but also Dave's got a brand new nose, kind of looks bad though. You can't just punch a nose into mush and hope for the best, but that's how I do things. Ever since I started school it's how I've always done things. No one's gonna do it for you, you know?

No one's gonna take care of me.

Still, my face ends up hurting so bad that I just wedge myself in-between my bed and the wall in my room and stare up at the stucco ceiling until it gets too dark to make out the little stalactite drips of plaster above my head.

I know that even if Nowles was still here, she'd probably just be off doing her own thing too anyway but it's easy and it's nice to idolise my dead sister. She's like sixty percent less disappointing dead than she was in life.

Warmth cuts into my bedroom through the open door so that means that the hall light's still on and Sal's still not home. It's really easy actually to die in Nine. There's like, twenty different things at least that can happen to a normal person on their walk home but Sal's not normal so for him, I think you gotta double that number.

I reach my hand up onto the bed, searching until my fingers claw into a pillow and I pull it down on top of me. Standing up feels like more effort than it's worth, my face is just a slow and steady beat of pain and my body feels like it's drifting a little. Can't sleep yet though if Sal's not home. It might be like how it was mom and Nowles though, he might just not come home ever.

Then Kade will die of sadness and I'll smile because that's all my face knows how to do.

Sometimes it already feels like I'm the last one left anyway, so it's not all that big of a difference if I have to go keep four graves tidy instead of two.

I planted some bulbs I found in the spring on mom and Nowles' graves because I was pretty sure they were tulips but when I went to go check on them a few days back they kind of looked more like garlic scapes. Maybe I'll make dumplings next week with them if they're ready to harvest.

And for some reason, that's when the tears come. Something about the garlic being grown by my mom and sister for me when they're not even here anymore ruins me a little. The salt hurts as it rolls over my tight shiner and that makes it all worse. I wish that Nowles were here to pop her stupid big head over the side of the bed and tell me that at least I'm less ugly for once.

And I remember that one time when I skinned my knee, my mom kissed it and stuck a little bandaid on the raw bits of skin and I wish she was here to kiss my knuckles too.

I raise my fist to my lips and kiss them myself, mouth trembling so it's a little sloppy, "All better," I whisper hoarsely, "See?"

But it doesn't work, it's not the same and I can't sleep because I was too fucking weird and squirrelly to make dinner and I still haven't heard the front door open and Sal stumbling in and he might never.

Silver lining is I'd have another spot to plant garlic for next year I guess.

I'm really good at looking on the bright side of things, at least I usually am. Except nights like this lately have spanned days and it just all makes sense a little, the times when Sal's stuck on the living room floor for a week at a time. I think the older I get, the easier it is to understand my dad.

That's a little sad, I guess? To wear my mom's face and then be too much like him.

I think I'd probably hate looking at me too.