hold you in the dark / ines & felicity.

ines izar

I remember a time when I couldn’t breathe.

It was a Tuesday night, in the middle of Spring. There was nothing significant about the date – no Reapings, no anniversaries. Just a typical Tuesday night, until it wasn’t.

There’s this feeling deep in your chest. It starts off so small, so inconspicuous, you would only feel it if you went searching for it. You live with the discomfort, like you’ve always done, even as it grows into a bolus that unfurls beneath your heart, spreading venom into your bloodstream. Then suddenly, there’s the pain – sharp, stabbing pains that feel like your ribcage is splitting open and cracking under exertion, even though you’re laying immobile in the same bed you’ve slept in for two years now. And you try to breathe through it, but the air is too thin, and your heart is beating too fast, but you can’t make a sound to warn someone that you’re about to die when the limited oxygen in your brain is working so hard to keep you alive. You don’t know why it’s happening; you don’t know what to do. All you know is terror.

I don’t remember falling asleep. Don’t really remember waking up, either, but I remember how it felt to have all the energy sapped out of me as I looked around expectantly at the world to see if it had stopped on its axis. But it hadn’t. There was no pause button in sight. The world was coated the same beige undertones it had always been. And so I told myself, if the world hadn’t stopped for me, I wouldn’t stop for it.

I pushed down the feeling. Pretended it wasn’t there.

I think the air has always been too thin, but being in the Capitol is like breathing through oil. Every day I walk past the faces of my soon-to-be killers and have to pretend like the weight on my chest hasn’t come back again. That it’s not getting heavier and heavier.

I guess there’s only so long you can keep lying to yourself.

My bones are weary, weighed down by restlessness and the three hours of sleep a night I’m running on. The fatigue creeps in, burrows deep into my psyche. It was only a matter of time before the breathlessness caught up with me.

The clock reads 2:27am. It’s the hour of panic – I’m fourteen again, breaking apart for the very first time. Only this time, staying in bed feels impossible. My fingers twitch beneath my covers, fists curling and uncurling to try and stimulate a feeling other than choking.

At 2:29am, I make a run for the corridor.

Leaving my room feels illegal, but I can’t exist in the cramped space a moment longer. There’s just running, carpet under my feet which turns to concrete as I push through a new door and I’m out of breath in record time, the hyperventilating taking up all the usual empty space in my lungs. I collapse in the musty stairwell, bringing my knees up high to my chest and throwing my head between them.

There’s no clock to tell me how much time passes in the stairwell. All I know is that the world hasn’t stopped. Never has, never will, I know from experience. The tears pour out of me, a week’s worth of walking on eggshells and feelings of inadequacy and suppressing any thoughts that weren’t solely focussed on how to stay alive. I try to tell myself that the feeling will pass, like it did all those years ago. That I’ll find my way to sleep and wake in the morning and all will be forgotten, all will be okay.

But tomorrow is the day I’m slated to die.

And that kicks me back into overdrive, head whipping up to send the room into a spin and I’m seconds away from hurling the empty contents of my stomach all over the stairs below me until I hear the unmistakeable echo of footsteps. Coming closer, and closer, coming to take me back to the room I can’t breathe in and the tears are coming faster, and faster, but I can’t move –

“Woah, hey–” it’s the gentle kiss of the wind materialising in front of me, but how do you appreciate the lightness of Summer when you’re in the eye of a hurricane? I look at her – try to get to my feet, to get away, but I can feel them shaking under the thought of bearing my weight. I resolve myself to my sad perch on the stair, eyes flitting nervously around the cramped space.

I want her to stay. I want her to leave.

She sits down beside me. It doesn’t help the issue of breathing.

I see her hand rise in my periphery and flinch away. Reaction to an action, but it doesn’t deter her. She pats my shoulder uncertainly, and I try to focus on the sensation. The long fingers. The sweaty palm.

I want to lean in to her. I want to pull away.

“Here.”

I’ve never tasted alcohol before. Never smoked, never kissed another person. I’m the golden child for good manners, saying please and thank you and certainly never breaking the rules.

And look where that’s gotten me.

There are two halves of myself at war with each other, fighting for the air I can’t breathe. But for a moment, they are on the same side, weapons thrown down, now-emptied hands reaching for the peace offering.

I drink deeply. Too fast. The liquid chokes me as it slides down my throat and I cough against the potency of the new experience. The burning in my chest is replaced by a lighter warmth.

“My name’s Felicity.”

More of the moment comes to me. The scent of ash. The cool of the night on her clothes. The easing in my ribs.

“My name’s–” I hiccup through the tears splashing angrily against the concrete. “I’m sorry.”

I’m Ines.

You might have saved my life.