A Sort of Reunion [Chaos]

I look up and stare at her in silence for a moment. "Tammy..." She is really back. I was crying when she left and I'm crying now that she's back. Great. I wipe hastily at the last traces of the tears and stand up, pushing the chair back more violently than what would have otherwise been intended. I flinch when I hear her say my name and my breath catches in my throat when I see what state she is in. I can see that she's underfed and she's so much paler than I've ever seen her.

I narrow my eyes and turn my back on her. "Sit," I order. "I'll make you something to eat, you look hungry." I don't leave any room to debate and grab a copper pot from the cupboard, mechanically concentrating on hacking the bits of flesh from the rabbit I caught this morning and tipping them into the pot. I think that a stew will do.

"It's been a month and two days," I whisper, filling the pot with a thick gravy-like substance that I had prepared earlier. I don't know if she lost track of time, I don't know anything about what she had to go through in jail. I don't know whether I really want to know. "I thought I would never see you again." I tense as I feel my resolve weakening. I'm still angry. I'm angry at everyone and now that she is back, I have someone to be angry at.

But this is all wrong! I did not imagine it this way! I played out our reunion again and again in my mind... but then it always involved kissing and hugging and tears of happiness, not of grief and definitely not of resentment. "Do you want bread with the stew?" I ask hollowly.

There are sounds of shuffling feet coming from upstairs, but I'm sure that Trig won't come downstairs unless I call him. Plus, he's probably too mad to face me in any case. I consider just placing a plate of food in front of his door but then disregard that thought. I won't let him have his way and sulk all night. "A lot happened in the time you were gone." I don't tell her what happened, I want her to eat something first. Maybe my shaky nerves will calm down too once I eat something that isn't canned fruit and dry bread. With Trig in the way, I haven't had as much time to hunt as I would have liked. He can hunt a little bit too but I won't allow him to go to school and to work at the same time. He's supposed to have some freedom.

The stew is brewing on the stove, so I take a deep shuddering instake of breath and turn back around to look at Tammy. I lean my hands against the handle of the oven, the heat radiating through it and helping melt some of the tension. My eyes flash in warning before she can try and hug me or anything. "Please don't touch me. I don't want to be touched."

The kitchen is tight and cramped, there's barely enough space in it for two people. It fits the small kitchen table, four dingy stools and the old oven, broken basin and fridge. The light overhead flickers dauntingly, reminding me that I ought to have exchanged the lightbulb already. It's warm in the kitchen, thanks to the oven and stove. The bread is a day old and it's not as soft as it was yesterday, but it's of a good quality and I can't imagine that the food in jail was any better. I grab it and place it slowly on the table. Then I sit down.

The light fixture continues to flicker, but I keep my eyes trained on her face. She's skinnier than she was before but I don't find any prominent bruising on her skin. The only thing I see is a scab on her arm, it's rather wide. It can't have been a knife. My eyes widen when I spot it. "Are you okay?" Because I still do care. I promised I wouldn't leave her and I'll be keeping that promise.

I've changed. I'm hurting her and I can see that. My nails dig into my skin and I gasp when they finally break the skin. Again tears flood my eyes and I have considerable trouble trying to blink them away and determine as if I am okay. As if nothing happened. But being cold was so much easier than being myself. I've used it to protect myself over the month, to protect Trig. I avoid her gaze, but I can feel her staring at me all the same. I swallow down a lump that's risen in my throat and stare transfixedly at the pattern in the worn table, etched into it after years of use.

"You know I'd always come back."

I'm up in a flash, my hands automatically moving to my head as if I wanted to tear at the strands of hair there. But I don't. Instead I drop my eyes loosely to my sides. "You can't say that," I insist. "Damn it, Tammy. Prison is no joke, you could have been turned into an avox for all I know. Or else, what? Killed? You have no one, no one but me to prevent them from removing you from the face of the earth... but who am I? In the face of the Capitol I am a no one!"

I force myself to calm down. Try to remember that Trig's upstairs and that he needs to know nothing about this. "I know what you've done, Tam. I know what you're capable of. But what about next time?" My voice jumps an octave as hysteria mounts. "And don't you tell me that there will be no next time because they'll be keeping an eye on you. What about next time? What if next time they get you for something like murder?" No crying. No crying. No crying. I'll have to repeat it for myself. "I can't do this on my own again because I need you. And they'll take you away."

I shakily sit back down, stunned to see Tammy drop to the ground. She's writhing, it looks as though she's in pain and without thinking I'm on the ground next to her, the impact scraping my knees. But that's unimportant. "Tammy?" I shake her shoulder softly, the tears I was holding in before then finally spilling back over and rolling down my cheeks."Tammy...?" But then her eyes open again and I sigh in relief. While she stands up, I decide I might as well remain on the ground.

I look away as I speak. "Mum died. She got really ill, we thought it was a common flu. But Trig found her and well... you can imagine what happened." Poor Trig. Discovering his mother dead, blood from the horrible disease trailing down the side of her mouth. She was cold like stone, her eyes still open and unseeing. Trig still had nightmares and I could do nothing to chase them away. "He's my responsibility now. But I don't know what to do. He's uncontrollable now, traumatised, broken." My voice cracks on the last word. "I'm failing."

I stare in disbelief at her for a second. No one's said something, anything like that to me before. Though I'm sure that my mother loved me, any sort of affection was usually withheld. I know that Tammy's not the emotional one and the words mean a whole lot more to me than they would to most people. Not to mentiont hat walking from the Capitol would be quite a feat. I want nothing more than to hug her but considering her state, I decide that I would do her more harm than good. I don't want to touch upon bruises. I reach out for her face, where I can see any bruises and can try and avoid touching them. "Thank you."

I tense when she mentions the reaping. I almost had forgotten about them and probably would have if my neighbour hadn't warned me. I'm still in danger of being reaped, but at that time it had seemed the least of my worries. I blink when she mentions the name of her cell-mate. I had seen the name on televsion but hadn't given him much thought. A big, burly guy from district 5 who was bound to get far if he was as witty as he looked strong. I glance curiously at Tammy as she mentions him, not exactly jealous but with a slight twinge of apprehension.

I plant a gentle, affectionate kiss on her forehead but move away abruptly when I see slight movement out of the corner of my eye. There's a flash of green and red and I am reminded that my brother is still in the house. I follow Tammy's calculating stare and then there's another crash of the door falling into place. I bite my lower lip nervously when she says that he's not broken. "I don't know. He's seen things he really shouldn't have. I mean... the abuse and God - he found mother dead. I'm so lost sometimes, Tammy." My eyes widen is shock when she practically collapses onto one of the stools. I can see her face contorting from pain and I subconsciously bring a hand to my mouth to stifle my groan of remorse. Oh, God... I suck at being a girlfriend. I was being selfish this whole time while she was in pain?

"What did they do to you?" I ask. My voice is harsh, on edge as I crouch down beside her, glaring at her as if challenging her to downplay her pain. I saw her grimace, heard her hiss and I'm a lot of things, but not stupid. I know when someone is hurt. Really, really hurt. My eyes wander from her face to her torso and I look back up at her warily. "They didn't..." My voice is a hushed whisper. But they might as well have.

Nimbly, my cold fingers lift the hem of her shirt. I don't have to pull it up very far to see the damage made to the rather pale skin. If it looks this bad on the outside, I don't want to think too much about any internal damage. "Were you planning on remaining stoic?" There's panic and anger in my voice as I let the fabric of her shirt go and withdraw my fingers. "Did you mean it when you said that you'd - you'd move in to help me with Trig?"

I frown, still not entirely happy with the thought of letting her walk half way across the town by herself when she's in this kind of state. But I also know that no amount of convincing on my part will work, so I shoot her a worried look when she leaves the kitchen and with it the security of the house. Because I need to do something with myself and don't feel like facing my brother just yet, I focus on the dishes, pouring the leftover stew back into the pot before.

I worry about Trig, he never used to be this bad. He used to be polite and open to most strangers. Sometimes he would be a little too trusting and this was a completely new side to him. This blatant disrespect towards Tammy and the repulsion in his eyes as he left the table, practically knocking over one of the dishes on his way. I sigh and decide to clean the table a little later. I can't very well continue to put off talking some sense into Trig - or at least attempting to do that - just because I am too much of a coward.

There are exaggerated scraping noises issuing from the upstairs that sound very much like furniture being pushed across the room. I quirk an eyebrow and walk upstairs. When I push down on the handle, the door does not budge. I'm able to put two and two together and I realize that he's barricaded the door. "Trig?" Annoyance creeps into my voice, mingled with desperation. "Come on, I just want to talk to you. Open the door. Please. You're being silly." I lean against the door, talking urgently to it and hoping that he will give in and open it already. But he doesn't.

So I let out a strangled shriek of annoyance, aim a punch at the door and cry out in pain when my fist rejects the movement and sends a jolt of white-hot pain up my arm. I rub my bruised hand, glare furiously at the door, turning on the spot to walk back downstairs. There is no use in continuing talking to the door when he is quite clearly ignoring any attempts I make.

When did this bad attitude start? I remember him going rebellious a few days after mother passed away. He started coming home late, making up strange excuses for being out after curfew as well. In the beginning I believed him, just glad that he did not smell of alcohol or smoke or, dare I even think it, drugs. After a couple of more days the excuses began to get more and more obscure and I my suspicion mounted. Then he began to get sullen and moody and even aggressive.

Having reached the tiny living room, I sit down on the worn sofa and rub my temple with the fist that isn't bruised. Great, now I'm even getting a headache. My day can hardly get any brighter. I hope that Tammy will come back tonight but I can hardly blame her if she decides differently. Clearly the prospect of staying with a rude child isn't very tempting. But I'm hooked, I can't cut ties with Trig and there is no way I'm handing over the care to my father, no matter what Trig does. He doesn't deserve that.

Maybe Tammy won't want to be with me anymore because of him? It'll be difficult to handle, two people at once. No one wants to be stuck with a kid this early. Especially not someone as free as Tammy. Flight. Worry draws lines into my forehead, where there really shouldn't be any creases as of yet. I glance worriedly at the doorway. Yes, maybe she decided differently.