A Better Place to Be [Cici]

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I can feel Time crawling his way through my shoes, healing the blisters that had weakened my pace and kept me far too close to my tarnished history. [/i]Time is funny like that. He’s a fast runner, that Time, and he doesn’t always wait up or make sure you’re following. But as long as you do, he’ll be there healing the pain, erasing the doubt, and helping you craft a new beginning from the scraps of your yesterdays. [/i]

Despite my poor physical endurance, I don’t complain about walking anymore. I’ve found better issues to waste my words on. I just look at the long stretch of trees before me and think about Time and the huge lead he has on us. If I don’t keep up with him, history will strike me like an inescapable expanse of poison ivy.[/i] And believe me when I say I do not want to go through that again.

The fact that there’s an us makes the situation much more satisfying. I must sound spineless in saying that if Rum Tum weren’t here, Time would be miles ahead and I would still be stuck waiting in history. [/i]But here we are, marching through the pain that our memories have left, despite the incessant isolation we’ve condemned ourselves to. But it’s not lonely – not really, not since there’s three of us: me, Rum Tum, and Time, who’s recently joined the ranks. We’re not trying to win any races with Time – oh please, we wouldn’t win anyways[/i] – but we’re not falling behind either. Instead, we’re merely walking through the everlasting present. Time doesn’t have any specific destination, and nor do we, but I guess that’s the beautiful part. I like to think that as long as the three of us stay together, nothing can go wrong.[/i]

“I bet we see snow if we head any further north. Have you ever seen snow? It’s just about the best part of trekking over these mountains.” Snow?[/i] Have I seen snow before? I stop in my tracks, but Time keeps walking forward. Wait![/i]

“Yes, I’ve seen snow before,” I say, almost monotonously. I’ve lived through fifteen winters, and the only one that comes to mind is the one I spent with Kormiko. I can see the icicles lining his shop, his face on the other side of the foggy window, my hands buried inside my pockets as I wait for him to close up.[/i] Winter was our season – it was our only season, really, after the Detention Center and before his disappearance. But now my brain is being forced to make room for new memories. In a year from now, the word “snow” may incite more than just images of Kormiko and I, and I guess that’s what scares me.[/i] It’s also part of the reason why I haven’t told Rum Tum these of these memories yet. They deserve a special space in my head, without the interruption of new thoughts hurling their way through the door. [/i]

“I don’t like it much – snow, that is,” I say shortly. For a few moments, there’s a soft hint of melancholy coating everything around me, as if my mind would rather exist in eternal despair than give way to conclusion.[/i] The sea of thoughts the simple word, “snow” has created is endless. Time is ahead…so ahead. We need to keep up. We have to. Keep walking, Freya. Keep walking. Don't let the past catch up.[/i]

“Let’s…let’s keep going,” I say, and I start walking again, gradually accelerating into a slow jog without looking behind to see if Rum Tum is following. Where is Time?[/i] The trees around me are slowly coming to resemble the trees of the arboretum where Kormiko and I used to spend some of our Sundays. However, I finally find Time at the edge of the trees, and the knot of memories I’ve conjured slowly comes undone. [/i]I squint to see the huge mountains before us and look back at Rum Tum before moving even further forward.

“What…what’s that?” I ask, stopping in my tracks, and then my eyes grow wide when I realize that in front of us are faces...actual faces etched into rock! “Oh man, I need to get this on camera.” I snatch the video camera from my bag, disregarding the fact that I’ve never shown it to Rum Tum before, having kept my midnight vlogs a private endeavor. He’ll be wondering what kinds of secrets I’ve been keeping, but I’m too awed to even think of explaining.[/i] I slip in a tape, click record, and zoom in as close as I can to fully capture this mountainous wonder. Although everything is still, I just keep moving the camera across the mountains so that it captures every inch. "Well, I was hoping we'd meet some more people out here. I guess I didn't imagine it'd be like this, but it sure is something! Who are those guys in the rocks anyways?

“Wait a second. Did you make this, Rum Tum? Did your mom make this?!” I stare in awe at the carved faces. If he carved this, he must've had either a lot of help or a lot of time. Or probably both. “Whoah! Can you teach me how to do that?! The one on the right kinda looks like you, you know...Is it you?...Eh, he looks a little old to be you...maybe not.” Realizing how many words I've just thrown at Rum Tum, I quickly stuff my video camera back into my bag and wait for a response, slightly unnerved by the fact that I there are now ten eyes on me.[/color][/justify][/blockquote][/size][/td][/tr][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

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Preface
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
- William Faulkner

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A sort of sadness fills me as I look at the carved faces before us, wondering how many eyes have had the opportunity to see such a marvelous beauty. We could spend a lifetime building a castle in the middle of the woods, and there would still never be a kingdom: no eyes to see our architectural perfection reaching towards the sky. What if we were stuck out here forever – what if they found our dead bodies years from now in the middle of the woods? The Adventures of Freya Hanig and Rum Tum Tugger would never be written into the storybooks. Deval Izar and Kormiko Lazarov would just be washed away with the rest of the forgotten names. Suddenly, Rum Tum’s words cut into my thoughts, almost too relevantly. “I wonder how long it’s been since we got here,” the sharp girl with the pale blond hair says, but I merely retreat further into my corner of the bottom shelf and lean my head against the wall, wondering what lonely souls are on the other side. “I don’t know,” I say, letting the cold metal scrape against my shoulder. “Long enough to be forgotten.” [/i]

“Freya, stay here for a second,” Rum Tum says with urgency, moving a finger over my lips. His eyes are wild with both fear and fervor as he puts a finger to my mouth, ever so gently suppressing the ferocious words that never seem to cease. “Freya, I need you to listen to me. I love you, Freya.” I love you too, Kormiko. I love you too, and I promise I’ll stop leaving and breaking and hurting and taking, and you know, I’ll even learn how to grow up. A tremor runs through me as he wraps his arms around my back, brings my head to his chest, and as Rum Tum pulls his finger away, I tremble. He grabs his walking stick and starts heading in the other direction, oblivious to the memories he just harvested directly from the soil and left scattered across my mind.

He says something else, but I can’t hear because Kormiko’s eyes are like raindrops, little pieces of drizzling feeling scattered across my senses until it all pours across my heart at once. “I am here because you make me feel like none of them did,” he says, but how?! How can he find happiness in me when I have none to give, when it’s been torn away with the rest of my senses by the peacekeepers who never even had to lay a finger on me before I was already giving them my Screams fill the air so abruptly, and I quickly pull my fragmented senses back together, running towards the horrifying sound of Rum Tum’s voice. “Rum Tum!” I cry. Luckily, Memories doesn’t have the same seventh grade track-and-field experience I do and thus, cannot keep up with my swift pace as I run directly into whatever disturbing reality I am about to encounter. What a fool I was to let myself get distracted in the first place.

I tumble down a steep, rocky decline until my ears are struck by the familiar ”hissssssss, daddy. Hissssss. Snakes go hissss?”

“Wow, good job Freya! And what do other animals make? What does a cow make?”

“Cows – cows go moo and piggies go oink oink! And tributes go boom.”

“The canon boom?”

“Yes, boom boom” doom is evident the moment I see his body in the mud. If Rum Tum Tugger dies, there will be no boom, no picture in the sky, no recap video with his name in the credits, no interview, no rolling camera, no casket to be sent back to his family, nothing, nothing, nothing but a crying Freya. I start running towards him but only stop myself when I see the creature lashing out at him. That’s…

That’s me. Mine.

My stomach feels upside down and my heart is telling me it wants to fall through my chest through its unsteady use of Morse code heartbeats. My entire body is trembling, and I suddenly feel like a goldfish in the ocean, struggling against the salt water as it fills my lungs. “Did you know that fish have scales, Daddy? You see the picture I drew, Daddy? It’s a fishy, you see? But the swimming fishy wanted wings and legs and he wanted a big long tongue that could go hissssss. So I gave him all of them because I’m a nice person, right Daddy?”

He laughs. “Yes, Freya. You’re a very nice person. And you’re smart too.”

“I know I am. But my teacher says I’m not. She said my fish was wrong, Daddy because it isn’t a real animal.”

“But it will be,” he says, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms around my tiny shoulders.

“Pinky promise, Daddy?” I say.

“Pinky promise,”[/color] Rum Tum says as the wind rattles the rusting coaster beneath us and for a moment there is nothing and no one but us and the single promise to always be an us. But what if there is no such thing as an us what if I just ruined that promise everything is a lie everything is a lie and I’m the one who started it I’m a liar and a thief I take people’s hearts and slip my name in through one of the veins because I want to be loved I want to be loved and yet my name is too big and too long and once you can hear its echoes in his heartbeats that’s when you know that’s when you know it will soon find its way to the arteries and he will die because he whispered my name the name of a liar and a thief of a girl who recklessly stumbles through life and thinks she can have everything even when she gives “Nothing will beat it, Daddy. He can scratch with his claws and kill with his teeth and his poison and you know, I wish I could be like him, Daddy, because then I wouldn’t have to be afraid of anything.”

His mutter is barely discernible.

“Anything but yourself.” [/color]

With panic setting in, I can gather very few, sensible options in terms of what to do next but finally settle on taking my dad’s advice. If you were the most powerful species in the world, you’d have no choice but to be afraid of yourself. I could see it in my father; even he was afraid of what he could do. Thus, I take my chances and allow a loud “hisssss” to escape my lips as I take safety behind the nearest tree. I let out another hiss and then take a peek at my muttation – the Sile, as my father named it – watching its startled expression as it turns around and searches for the source of its own sound. I close my eyes and wait in the silence for a few moments before releasing one last hiss. I can hear the fear in its step as it moves closer to my tree.

Quietly, I slip my satchel off of my shoulder and hold it in my two trembling hands. I can feel it moving closer, closer, until the footsteps finally cease and a loud crash resonates through the air. I open my eyes, having not noticed I’d closed them in the first place. Blood splattered across the ground before me, my satchel lies atop the now dead Sile’s body. The relief of witnessing its demise does not stop the trembling in my body as I come out from behind the tree and throw myself towards Rum Tum. I fall to my knees in the mud, too terribly unnerved to cry or scream or even whimper out of fear. He’s breathing, and he’s alive, but that’s not what I’m worried about. Alive and well are two words that don't belong together.

“I’ve…I’ve got you, Rum Tum,” I say, trying to sound calm and composed, despite the chaos that has ruptured my insides. “You’re alright,” I whisper. Now if only I can convince myself that it is in fact that truth. “Just hold on, okay?” Although it takes me a few tries to get my shaking legs to support me, I move to Rum Tum’s backside and wrap my arms around his chest, dragging him out of the mud with the little bit of strength I have. Finally, I lean his body against a tree and kneel down in front of him. “I’m sorry, Danny. I…I didn’t mean it. Do you want me to get your mom?”

“You bitch, get away from me!” he says, holding a hand over his bleeding nose while using the other to push me away. “You’re gonna get locked up for saying shit like that.”

“Shut up, Danny. You shut up or I’ll do it again.”

“And you think I won’t hit you back?”

“I said I’m sorry, Danny. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, Rum Tum. Oh god, I didn’t mean it.”[/color] I can barely look at the boy before me without feeling my insides breaking down from the sight of this destruction brought on by my own hands. And the blood – oh god, the blood. I can’t look at it without getting that abnormal, tingly feeling in my toes, a sudden urge to chew on my tongue, and the itch to scratch at the insides of my Hands are on my shoulders as I rock back and forth in my comfortable seat in front of the television. “Honey, why are your hands all red?” I don’t answer her, my eyes plastered to the screen before me as I scratch at the insides of my hands. “Freya, honey, are you alright?” I hear her concerned whisper beside me, and I shake my head.

“I don’t like the blood, Mommy,” I say, my eyes never leaving the screen.

“Alright, maybe you should go to bed then.” she says, turning to my father. “Do you think we started her a year too early, Tom?”

“No, no, no!” I whine. “I want to keep Watching[/color] the blood seep from his bite, tears fill my eyes, because I know I need to do something about it even though every nerve in my body is screaming “I can’t!” I carefully wipe some of the mud from Rum Tum’s arm. Then, I grab his backpack off of his shoulders, open it, and pull out his water bottle, pouring a small bit over the bite. Tears escape my eyes and fall down my face as I try to steady my trembling hands; I am no storybook hero, no survivor. I am weak, spineless, and soon enough Rum Tum will be dead – and I will be too. I should have never left home; I should have stayed inside my lonely little heart forever.

Blood still flowing from the bite, I slip my thin sweater over my head, my torso clothed in a mere camisole. I shiver against the chilly morning air, knowing that by sacrificing my sweater I’m sacrificing my last bit of protection against this brutal weather, but I think I owe at least that much. I wrap the sleeves of the sweater around his arm and tie it tightly, blood quickly staining My sweater is suddenly caught on the handle of the drawer I’m standing upon. I struggle to pull it off, climbing further up onto the counter before slipping and falling to the carpet beneath me. Erupting in tears, I wait for my mother to enter the room with her gentle voice and her soothing expressions.

“Oh Freya, what happened? Oh my god, are you hurt?”

“Ailia’s hurt, Mommy! The girl on TV! I need to get her a Band-Aid!”

“Well now you’re the one who needs a Band-Aid, Freya,” she says, pulling me off the ground and seating me on the table while grabbing a bandage from the drawer I’d been trying to reach.

“But Mommy”—

“They’re supposed to get hurt, silly,” she laughs as she puts the Band-Aid over my scraped knee. “You’re just getting yourself more hurt trying to help them, Freya.” And here, I’ve centered my entire life on the world outside the Capitol: the people we throw into the games and the families that only have one loaf of bread to share for the entire week, and now the last living person I care about is going to die. Who knew that beneath her many layers of make-up and her thick accent, my mother was actually a genius?

Having taken care of the bite – at least as much as I can– I know it’s time to face the hard truth I’ve been trying to avoid for the past several minutes. “Rum Tum,” I whisper, looking into his eyes, but they don’t seem to be focused on my face. I feel a choked feeling in my throat – the same choked feeling that had invaded me the time on the top of the roller coaster when I thought Rum Tum was going to leave me for his real family. “Can you see me right now, Rum Tum?” I don’t even bother wiping the tears from my eyes because I already know the answer. I put my hand on his arm, still kneeling in front of him. “Can you hear what I’m saying? Do you feel my hand?” Maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s already gone – I don’t know how this works but ”One thing I do know is that the poison won’t kill them.”

“Why not, Daddy? Don’t people kill each other in the Hunger Games?”

“Exactly, Freya. Their job is to kill each other. Our job is to make a good show out of it.”

“So you think my poisonous mutt will make a good show?”

“Yes.”

“I think so Too[/color] much – this is all too much for my fragile brain to handle. How am I supposed to tell Rum Tum that I just killed him nonono I did something even worse than that much worse than that and how am I supposed to admit that to myself and how am I supposed to live knowing that even despite the years I spent trying to redeem myself from that life I’d almost fallen into, the little monster girl and her big monster daddy won they won they won they tore away all my dignity and they won the moment we set that building on fire. We tricked ourselves into thinking we were champions, if only for a few moments, before they grabbed us off the star-paved street and threw us into a much darker darkness – did you know there is more than one shade of darkness? – where you couldn’t look down at the ground and see a dim reflection of the stars and I’m still in that darkness and I don’t know when it’s going to end when will it end where am I going, the stars are Traitors are supposed to be the evil liars, the ones who don't tell the truth, who say they're someone they're not. But I'm not a liar, I can't be a traitor, the monster who started all of this – I don't know her.

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that the boy with the loud snores and the big heart is slowly, but surely leaving me. I try to push that reality away, but the panic never ends. At this point, I make no attempt to stop the tears that are streaming down my face, guilt eating away at my heart until there's nothing to fill it but tears. Soon enough, he won't feel anything. It's only a matter of "Time out, Freya."

"But whyyyyy?" I moan, stomping my feet as I cross the kitchen.

"No questions, go to your room." I stumble up the stairs.

"But I don't like time outs!" I cry, turning around and folding my arms. "Daddy's friend is making a poison, and it's gonna give all the tributes and the bad people in the woods forever time outs! ...So I hope you get a time out too, Mommy. I'll show you, and I'll show them, and" I showed Rum Tum all too well. An eternal time "Out! You can get out!" The peacekeeper pries my fingers from the metal shelf, but no no no, i can't go. i want to stay here where it's so cold you start to feel warm where it's so dark you actually start to see the horrors we hide so readily when we turn on the light switch where everything hurts so much that at some point the emptiness starts to feel comfortable and you just want to stay in it forever. no i can't go i can't relearn my life where even is my life i can't find it i don't want to remember what is there to remember but pain and love and aren't they the same thing and i can't try to be myself again because myself is just an empty shadow of my parents and i will be never be anything else nothing else leave me alone – soon enough he'll be trapped all alone in his mind with not a feeling left and right, their hands are everywhere but i keep struggling let go of me let go of me theres a girl screaming let me help her i think shes calling someones name i think shes trying to tell you something like don’t take him please don’t please stop please please can you hear me please i love him i promise i do im not a liar a traitor maybe but not a liar never a liar im sorry kormiko im sorry this is all my fault keep fighting even when they tell you to stop feeling even when you forget how to spelling the word emotion don’t let them take away your thoughts and your pain and your love and all twenty of your senses like the way im taking rum tum’s because it hurts not to hurt and im sorry im sorry “im sorry im sorry im sorry” i cant see anything why cant i see anything theyre taking my senses away too help me help me never mind my eyes are closed maybe i should just keep them closed so thats what i do but my mouth is another story

"what do i do"
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Preface
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
- William Faulkner

[/center]

“Freya,” Rum Tum whispers, in the way that everyone wants their name whispered – the single word dripping with the sweet scent of honeysuckle, as if dandelions are the most beautiful of flowers and Pluto the most vital of all planets.

“Freya… I don’t… ever want to have to see you be torn from me again.” Kormiko’s eyes are a wildfire of endurance. His warm hands on my shoulders calm the shivers that have been rushing down my spine ever since the moment they pried us apart. If only my hands were warm enough – my heart strong enough – then maybe I wouldn’t [/i] want you to worry.” Rum Tum keeps going, but every word he speaks calls for a greater level of discipline, every ounce of my inner strength fighting not to fall to Rum Tum’s side and hold him close to me for the rest of this short eternity.

“I want you to know that you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, ever. Please don’t… please don’t hurt him oh god please this was all my fault i made him do it i made him come along with me please take your hand off my mouth so i can scream so i can save him i know you can hear me screaming the silence is so loud dont you hear it just don’t hurt kormiko don’t blame…” Tears flood down my cheeks, and it is all I have to keep the screams from taking over. I want to wrap my arms around him, but to think that the best thing in his life is the one to cause his demise – at least by now I’ve learned that I break everything I ”Touch that dress with dirty hands and you’re getting another time-out, Freya! The Compsons are coming over tonight and I don’t need you looking like a mess!” I sigh and skip to the sink, ignoring the untied ribbon on my new purple dress. However, as I enter the kitchen, my tasks are interrupted by the sight of Anna, our Avox, preparing dinner for tonight’s special guests.

“What’cha cooking?” I ask, not expecting an answer. “Can I help?” Curious, I stand beside her and watch as she takes out a bag. She doesn’t say anything when I take my elbows off the counter and follow her to the stove where she seems to be bringing the bag. She starts pulling out lobsters, and exclamations are immediately flooding from my mouth. “Whoah! Can I hold one, Anna? Please, please, please? At least I’m not alone. You’re never going to know what that means… means to me…” I nearly break when he says this, choked sobs escaping my lips.

None of this is fair: the fact that someone with such a big heart may never get the chance to share it with anyone but me, of all people; the fact that somewhere out there is a lonely girl wandering her way through the world – a girl as good and as genuine as Rum Tum, a girl he was meant to marry someday, meant to be his real best thing! And yet he’ll never know; and no one else will ever know either – about the boy in the woods named Rum Tum with a bigger heart than he ever got to use. Of all the undiscovered treasures I’ve found out there, from the carnival to the faces in the rocks, Rum Tum is by far the best. I can’t sit here in front of his lonely self any longer. In a moment, I’m beside him, arms wrapped tightly around his waist as I cry into his shirt. Every moment sustained in this warm embrace only brings a new level of guilt to my mind. He can’t say I’m the best thing that happened to him, not until he knows that I’m actually the worst.

If only I had just let the mutt kill him instead of left the both of us to this prolonged pain as his senses disappear. A destroyed hope is much worse than none at all. Maybe I should open his bag and find his kn -- No! Why would I even think such a thing why why why "can't they all just die, Kormiko!? I'm so" done being a monster done done done but i don't know "how many people did it kill, Daddy? Did I do a" good why can't i be good like rum tum “Stop,” I say. “Stop saying things like that. You’re not going to die, Rum Tum. You’re not going to die and” — At least I was being honest about Something crosses her face before she shakes her head and drops them one by one into a large pot of boiling water, her hands trembling ever so slightly. “Why are you putting them in there, Anna? Are you…” I can see one of the lobsters’ claws hooked over the side of the pot like a person hanging off the side of a cliff, but Anna anticipates my move and stops my hand before it can reach for the creature.

“He wants to get out, Anna!” However, she ignores my pleas and puts the cover over the pot, waving me away in attempts to get me out of the kitchen. However, the next few moments are filled with the sound of scratching, rattling, and clanking. “They want to get out, Anna! You’re hurting them! You’re killing them!” I scream. There are animals being boiled alive in my own kitchen! The sound brings Tears having ceased momentarily, I let go of Rum Tum, my entire body quivering. If only I still had the strength in honesty that had been mine as a child; if only I could stop killing things and instead ”Save them! They’re trying to get out!” I reach for the stove but Anna holds me back as gently as possible until I throw myself to the floor, my cries immediately escalating.

“They’re hurting! They’re dying! You’re a killer, Anna!”
“What is going—Young lady! Why are you on the floor in that dress?” My mother rages as she rushes into the kitchen.
“Mommy, the lobsters are screaming! Don’t you hear them? They’re screaming!”
“That’s just the steam from the stove. Now get off the floor right now.”
“But Mommy! Anna’s killing the lobsters – they can’t”—
“That’s how you cook them! You’re being ridiculous, Freya! Get off the”—
“But they’re”[/i] Hurt pushed aside, “Rum Tum,” I whisper. “There... there are a lot of things I haven’t told you about me." I sigh, meddling with my hands. "The first being the fact that I… I created the creature that just attacked you.”

“My father is a muttation engineer…and when I was little, I liked to draw pictures of animals for him – my own set of animals.” I swallow ”Hard to beat that one, Freya!” My father says. He smiles and I smile and the world is perfect. “And so sometimes my father would take me to work with him and we’d show his boss my ideas along with my father’s more… official layout of the muttation and then he’d buy me a hot chocolate and…” ”Freya, you know you don’t have to draw pictures if you don’t want to.” “Oh, but I do Daddy! Can I come with you to work again tomorrow? Please, please, please?”
“Come on, Freya. You have school tomorrow!” he says, laughing.
“But my teacher doesn’t like my drawings!”
“Well, you draw me out a whole book of ideas and then you can miss all the school you want,” he jokes.
“Daddy, I’m going to need you to sign your name here,” I say, putting my notebook in front of him seriously. He laughs.

“You've learned "Well, we’d walk home and imagine up the most dangerous muttations together and I…I didn’t realize or maybe I did. I...I was never afraid of monsters under my bed like all the other kids... but I think the most dangerous monster is the one...the one living inside of me."
“The lobsters are fine, Freya.”
“You’re lying, Mommy!”
“Do you want a time-out again or are you going to”—
“You’re lying, you’re lying, Stop lying and avoiding and get to the point already, Freya!

"But the thing that just attacked you" tears tears stop get out of my throat i have to tell him "...it's called a Sile and it...it injects a poison which, as you're starting to...experience..." i cant do this i cant be this my hands are shaking i cant i cant this isnt me i didnt do this im sorry "...gradually destroys your senses until you just can't...anything...anymore..."

“I’m sorry…I…” With every word, I move a mere millimeter further, further away from the destruction brought upon this world by “Freya, it’s a lobster for goodness sake!”
“Lobsters have feelings too!”
“Well, pretend that they don’t or else you’re not going to have any food on your plate tonight.”
“I’m not hungry anyways!”
“Freya, you’d better learn how to behave and accept things for what they are, or else you’re going to run into a lot of trouble. Now go to your room.”

Taking a glance to my right, I see that Anna is Crying won't help and neither will accepting this disaster, because there are no such things as villains and heroes, monsters and angels. The storybooks were filled with lies because no -- there are just human beings: human beings who can be lovers and traitors and lobster lifesavers at the same time.

“I'm sorry, I...I’m going to fix this. I don’t know how but…” The shaking hasn't stopped.

"I will."
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[/i]

Preface
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
- William Faulkner

[/center]

The arms wrapped around me are so comforting, so luring. I can’t help but get lost in them. Rum Tum is so quiet, so frighteningly soundless, almost as silent as ”the boy over there – that’s our Avox. You can leave the cooking and cleaning to him; just don’t leave him alone with the kids. I don’t fully trust that boy – not yet.” I give him a momentary glance before Mrs. Edgars grabs her purse from the table and flashes a final smile at her children. “Alright well, we should be off. Be good, girls.”
“Thanks, Freya,” Mr. Edgars says politely, before he follows his wife into the garage.

Why is he pulling me closer? He should be pushing me away, out of his life, telling the monster off before it ends up destroying the little he has left. And yet, I don’t have enough strength to make that call for him – to push away his arms and stop watching him dig himself deeper into a hole that contains no buried ”Treasure hunt! Let’s play treasure hunt, Miss Freya!”
“No, Phoebe. It’s time to sleep now,” I say, guiding her back into her room for the third time.
“But…what about Cammy? I need Cammy!” The young girl says, falling to the floor in tears.
“Okay, what does Cammy look like?” I sigh.

“She’s a cammeelin,” Phoebe says, wiping the tears from her eyes. Of all the foolish innovations I’ve seen, the newest chameleon plushies are surely the most absurd. A stuffed animal that blends into their surroundings – how am I supposed to find it? You can imagine how the next thirty minutes of the night go, until I finally find the barely visible animal sitting on the top of the storage shelves in the basement. Really? This is worth much more than eight dollars an hour. Without a complaint, I start Climbing over the tricky realities that I’m not totally sure Rum Tum is comprehending as they flow from my mouth, I keep my arms around him, my hand clutching his hair. I can play pretend for at least a little bit longer, right? The world is suddenly so Surreal images cloud my vision, and I put a hand to my head. Why am I staring at the ceiling? Where did I just – what did I just – I think I’m crying – why does it hurt? – I was just climbing the shelves, wasn’t I?

Suddenly there’s a boy’s face right above me -- the Avox boy. Did I fall? The boy is gone – oh no, please don’t leave! Now it’s lonely again, and the pain in my head can’t even compare to the pain of loneliness. Ow, my head. Ow, oh gosh it hurts. I close my eyes until I feel something cold being pressed against my face, and then reopen them. Smiling at the familiar sight of the boy, I sit up carefully. His eyes are concerned, his hand gentle as he brushes away a strand of my brown hair so he can move the ice to the other side of my face. This is the part where he leans in, putting his hands on my face blindly, his lips only inches from my lips are supposed to come in contact with his, where us two strangers are supposed to have our happily ever after; at least that’s what all the fairy tales are Saying nothing, he finally does It isn’t that I love him or know him or think his eyes are particularly entrancing; it’s the fact that we’re two lonely people – lonely beyond explanation – that drives the kiss that recklessly escapes my lips and plants itself on His body is so cold, but his lips are so warm. I don’t want anything more than This moment isn’t beautiful – not like the romantic kisses in the storybooks or the magic they say is supposed to come with a first kiss – because the moment the hollowness of his mouth, I know I’ve done something Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is all wrong.

I can pretend that we are each other’s happy endings – I can pretend all I want – but I have to know better than That wrongful feeling is soon reiterated by a gasp. I quickly pull away and turn around, only to see horrified little Phoebe at the edge of the stairs. “Phoebe!” I call, but she’s already racing up the stairs, grabbing the phone from the table. “Phoebe, it’s okay!” But she doesn’t listen, tears streaming down her face as she dials her mother’s number. I snatch the phone from her hands, beads of worried sweat forming along my hairline.

“I need to call my mommy!” She cries, but I stand in front of her when she tries to run.
“Phoebe,” I say firmly, hoping she doesn’t see the feebleness in my eyes as I put a hand on her shoulder, in effort to both calm her and restrain her. “You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?” My words can barely keep up with the swift pace of my beating heart. “Just go to sleep, and I promise everything will be okay. I promise.”

The crying girl retreats a couple of steps, away from my hand. The Avox boy is nowhere to be found – is he still in the basement? “But what about Cammy?”

“We’ll get Cammy tomorrow. Just go to” Sleep[/color] washes over the boy I am now responsible for in every which way. I keep holding him tightly, letting his head fall limp to my shoulder. Shivering against the brutal and oncoming winter, I quickly let go find shelter for my bare arms beneath his jacket, restoring the embrace. I wish I could stay here forever, staring at the intricate patterns that litter the ceiling, trying to avoid the sea of shame that threatens to eat me whole. I would if it weren’t for the creak of the door that interrupts me. I sit up, watching as my mother walks in and sits at the edge of my bed. I already hear the words pouring from her mouth; I already know what they are.

“Freya, I just got a call from Mrs. Edgars.”

“I know,” I say gravely, looking down at my bedspread, wishing I could drown in the patterned zig-zags and the swirls. What I asked Phoebe to do for me was wrong. To tell a lie for me? Haven’t I been fighting for honesty since the day I was born? It’s good that she told the truth…it’s good that she…

“Freya,” my mother says, struggling to express herself. “When things like this happen, I…I want you to tell me, okay?” She looks at me seriously, but her hands are still fidgeting. “So why don’t you go ahead and tell me what happened.”

“Well,” I say, tracing the pattern along my bedspread with my finger. “I was trying to reach Phoebe’s stuffed animal and I was climbing up the shelves…and then I fell and I don’t know; then, the Avox boy brought ice and helped me up, and…I wasn’t really thinking right – actually I wasn’t really thinking at all – so I uh…well I kissed him…”

My mother looks down, clearly processing what I’ve just told her. “So, he pushed you off the shelf and then…kissed you? Did he do anything else to you, Freya?”
“Mom, I just said” –
“Oh, I heard what you said. Now, did he?”
“He didn’t do anything! I kissed him! I made a mistake, and I’m sorry!” I stand up from the bed, towering over my mother who is still sitting calmly.
“Freya, none of this is your fault. I know how much you care about others, but you don’t need to lie about it.”
“I’m not lying!” I scream.

“Freya,” my mother says feebly, making me wish I hadn’t screamed. Tears fall down her cheeks, and I sit back down on the bed. “Freya, I love you – you know that, right?” She puts a hand on mine. “And I don’t ever want to see you hurt. I never everI want to see you hurt.” She puts her arms around me, my arms around the sleeping boy never letting go and for a few seconds I cry into her shirt and she cries into mine because we’re two lonely people in a big lonely world: my mother, with a huge heart and an even more massive mind, dumbing herself down every day with thick makeup, a thick accent, and a thick layer of lies just to fit into the crowd; and me, just like her, with only a few less lies stacked in there. However, I know the reason for my tears is not completely identical to my mother’s. She’s crying because she’s scared: maybe she’s scared of losing me or maybe she’s just afraid of losing her status; I wish I knew the difference.

But we’re the same, really: both readily willing to lie to ourselves if it means not being lonely, I know Rum Tum is lonely, so lonely that maybe this is all just a beautiful lie hence the fairytale kiss that got me stuck in this sob story. My mother finally pulls away, the two of us wiping the tears from our eyes. “Freya, now can you tell me the truth, so I can call Mrs. Edgars back?” She puts her hand back on mine. “Please?” And I know it’s not the truth that she wants. But I think I owe my mother enough to give her just that. I hope she knows that I’m lying for her and only her, because I can’t imagine watching her hurt…and also because I’m not sure I have any other choice.

“Yeah, he kissed me and I…I didn’t agree to it,” I say shortly.

“Did he push you first?” She asks, although her vigorous eyes – so contrasting to the fragile beads they were only moments ago – seem to be telling me that this isn’t a question.

“Yes,” I say, looking at the floor, but if I had any more tears to shed, they would be waterfalls down my cheeks. “Yes, he pushed me off the shelf and started kissing me and…and I tried to push him away…and that’s when Phoebe walked in, and he stopped.” The hole in my stomach is vaster than ever. My mother gives me one last embrace as the tears begin to stream down my face, but i dont want her to hug me i want her to go away i want everyone to go away because i am a killer and a liar and shes a liar a beautiful intelligent liar and i dont want to hurt people anymore i never asked to hurt people never but the destruction of loneliness comes at a high price theres a price for everything everything everything in order to keep people from getting hurt other people are gonna get hurt somebodys always gonna get hurt everything hurts everything will always hurt i will always hurt stop hurting please stop it hurts to hurt but it hurts even more to not hurt so please let me hurt not him dont let him hurt let me hurt i should be the one i deserve it why did i save my mother from hurting she should hurt too liars should hurt we deserve it we deserve it more than anyone

“Thank you, Freya, for telling the truth. I love you, you remember that. Now, let me go call Mrs. Edgars, and then I’ll be back up with some more ice for you, okay?” She pauses when she reaches the door. "This isn't confirmed yet, but we might have some peacekeepers visiting later with just a few questions. Just remember to tell them the truth -- just like you told me." I nod frigidly, hugging my lonely self as she closes the door behind her. Yet, I can almost hear my mother’s voice through the walls. I can almost hear what she’s really saying beneath her shallowly crafted words:

“You play reckless and you’re not the only one who ends up with a bruise.”
“Stop caring about others and start caring about yourself a little more.”
“You’re doing more harm trying to help people.”
"I hope you’ve learned, Freya."

Or maybe that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.

My mother or myself: is there really a Different thoughts plague me: does he really love me – monster and all – or is this just a beautiful little lie? If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s the fact that lonely people will take desperate measures; lonely people will do anything to escape their own solitude.

We’re both such lonely people – how easy would it be to fall asleep right now, right next to him and escape terrifying reality?
However, I force myself to remember that Rum Tum is blind, blind enough that he can’t see the monster I claim to be. I don’t think he understands. I don’t think he hears what I’m saying. Maybe it would be easier to be blind – to hear and feel everything around you and perceive it as you want to, but neither of us can afford any more of that right now. Rum Tum needs me: he needs my sight. And I need him, more than anything. He thinks he loves me, but who knows if he's just lost sight of who he is, what he wants? Discarding my selfish desires, I shake Rum Tum’s shoulder, my sweater still wrapped around his arm.

“Rum Tum, wake up,” I speak urgently as the idea develops in my mind. “We have to go – we have to go right now.” I stand up, putting his arm over my shoulders. Seeing as how poor his leg looks, I’m not sure how walking will work out, but we have to at least try. I’ll carry him if I have to. “We’re going to the Capitol,” I say. “We're going get this venom out of you as soon as we can. I'm going to help you, but you're going to have to help me too by trying to walk. I know where we're going. As long as we ”Just follow the sunset, Freya. Follow the sunset home.” The odds are against us; we won't last long in this oncoming winter weather. Shivering against the cold, it's a wonder I haven't yet frozen to death in the mere cammy covering my torso; but with my sweater being used as a bandage for the bite, I'll just have to bear it.

"You're gonna be okay, I promise."

The kiss still lingers on my lips like a debt I have yet to repay. "I'm sorry," I whisper once more, because the shame never is never erased. And now I'm asking Rum Tum to join me in walking right into it.

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