sew me up // elegant

I never thought I would miss the way the window screeches as it’s pulled up to accommodate a human. That noise use to be something that would make the pit of my stomach crawl and my eyes clench shut to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. My heart would stop every time I heard it in the months prior. It was always a sign that I wasn’t enough, wasn’t seen. He would always go out through it, despite the fact that no one would care if he went out the front door. No one would know either way. It’s not like Ty would show up to all of our training bouts anyway. He skipped often enough that mother and father gave up expecting him to always be there, or always be home, or always be anywhere or anything. He was nothing if not inconsistent. (The days when he would shake it up, slip back into the room and curl around me and refuse to leave my side the entire next day, holding my hand and whispering tips in my ear and re-positioning my arms to perfect form while shooting and smiling and holding me were the worst.) He knows it, too.

Now, though, there is no body slipping in beside me to hold me tight. There is a thud on the floor and heavy movements just feet away, but I can’t bring myself to look. (How many times have I dreamed that I have come home and he has been there and we have been whole again only to have it shocked away with the flare of a breaking rib, a wrenching shoulder, a singeing knee.) How can this possibly be real after everything? My breath is caught in my throat and my lungs feel all wrong again, as if I’ve punctured them once more with the jagged ends of my cracked ribs.

(Being here is all too much after everything I’ve felt.) Sometimes, I wish that they had simply let me die instead of repairing the wounds that brought me to the brink of that endless cavern. That darkness was so peaceful on those days when I was too weak to even open my eyes or breathe properly on my own. It used to scare me half to death at first, but it grew to be welcoming. If anything, it was more welcoming than the pit I had been thrown in to die in the Detention Center. Anything was better than there. Other days, I wished they would simply chop off my tongue and be done with worrying about me, sell me off to the richest of the rich in the Capitol as an Avox. Never did I think I would want that, but when your lip is practically hanging from your face with how hard you’ve bitten it and your ears are bleeding from the droning high-pitched scream of a machine and your skin is being burnt away touch by touch, losing your tongue would be an easy alternative. Being here, being back, is suffocating.

I don’t know if I can handle this.

This life was always so difficult, even before the stupid Gang Wars. I was never the warrior like my brothers were. I wasn’t the strong one or the tough one or the witty one. I was the smart one who read books to escape from impaling a dummy for the hundredth time. Being ignored by Ty and ridiculed by the rest of my family and hated by the other citizens for being a part of this family is (not what I wanted in life.) I wanted so much more, but I will never have it.

(They’ll always be watching me now.)

Being released isn’t the end of being in the Detention Center. I won’t be alone for the rest of my life. An uprising cannot happen. The Capitol can’t risk possible rioters being set free and left unchecked or unguarded for the rest of their lives. From now on, I will have to play by the rules of their Games even more, make sure my footsteps are in line with what they want, check myself every step of the way to guard those important to me. (I wouldn’t be surprised if I somehow, coincidentally, die on some mountain in an Arena far away from the lands of District One in the coming months.) The Capitol will do anything to maintain the control they have over us. There’s little we can do. I don’t know how that makes me feel.


“…Quin?”

There’s a shake there I’ve seldom heard, a hurt deeper down than I can reach. I feel my heart quicken in response, blood pumping through my veins and trying to force warmth back into my body. It hurts, like being stabbed with hundreds of little pins and needles that have been set over a fire for days until they’re practically molten. My breath rasps as I breathe in, eyes stinging against the onslaught of unshed tears. I feel sick, my head swimming as I push down the covers that are draped over me and let my unfeeling legs fall from the bed. I’m quaking like a leaf by the time I cross the few steps between our beds, but that doesn’t quite matter when I’m able to reach out and pull at the blankets surrounding Ty. My fingers just barely graze an arm as I tug at them, uncurling his cocoon just enough so I can slip in. Despite all of this time, ignored and apart and breaking, I still fit under his chin like a perfect puzzle piece and my arm still sinks into place around his middle and my legs still knot with his like they were meant to be. I let my eyes slip shut then, breathing in his smell with carefully measured inhales, before breathing out all I can manage to say.

“Hey…”