blooms every hour • gryphon • blitz

elena carroway

I pick a flower every day for my sister.

Sometimes I buy bouquets and wreaths and flower crowns. She'll never know that they're from me but that doesn't matter. There are days when I want to spell out my name in petals across her front yard or ring the doorbell in the hope that she might get a glimpse of my head, running through the gates of the Victor's Village and back to anonymous safety. There are days I'm glad she has no idea I exist. But I visit the florists so often that they know me by my name and my smile. Perhaps one day she'll bother to ask who spends all their money on her. (Perhaps not.)

Today I hold a single flower in my hand. It's a white rose - no particular meaning at all, just what I could pluck from our garden at home. It's one of those days when I'm mad at her, mad at my parents for letting her go, mad at myself for being mad. The thorns burst the skin on my fingertips and I hiss in response, about to throw the damn thing to the ground. (Fuck this, who needs a flower anyway, I don't even know if it's true if she likes them could just be some Capitol bullshit to make us like her more, well fuck that she doesn't even know they're from me, why do I even bother.) Flowers on a doorstep don't mean anything.

Flowers in person, however, do.

There's a girl in my view and I'm desperate to get rid of the damn thing, so I walk with haste towards her and thrust the rose into her personal space, beaming, as I always do when I meet strangers. (My sister is a stranger and I'll probably never meet her.)

"I like your hair," I add through my teeth. "Here. For you."