Briar Noreen Lexington (District 10) (Finished)

Everyone say I look like her but I know they're lying. Instead of the dark curls I have straw blonde hair like my Pa. Chubby cheeks and rosy lips that chap so easily since I chew on them when I'm thinking might have come from her...but I doubt it. See its hard knowing that you're supposed to be someone dead and gone when you're not. The whole District knew my real Ma. Not the lady that helped raise me. And knowing I'm supposed to be a little version of her when I'm not hurts. I don't have her eyes either. Mine are more green like Pa's. And instead of being tiny and waifish I'm just sort of klutzy and awkward. My knees always have scratches and my nails are short and broken.

But its okay because I know if I looked like her he'd expect me to be like her.

And I'm not.

I'm just me. Ragged and blonde and grumpy too much with a little extra baby fat sticking to my ribs. And to me I'm okay with it. Someone told me I look like the old Tansy boy that drown in the River a few years back. It made my stomach drop and I didn't want to tell Pa. He hated that man. I dunno why but he did. We're not the richest in the District. Not by a long shot, so normally my hair is ratty and tied back. My clothes worn and mended time and time again. But its okay. I have Joshua and that's what matters. Besides, the games can't take me. They already had me.

The school teachers all say I'm "bitter" but I don't understand it. How am I supposed to be? How would you be if you saw your mother, with you still in her tummy paraded out year after year just to die over and over again. Her screams for a man you never really knew echoing through the screens and your father never really being able to explain why it happened. Why no one cared to spare her. So most the time I feel this ache burning just below my skin at the way people look at me and Joshua. Like we're always pitied. We're always going to be wounded.

And I hate it. I hate the way the other kids gawk at us and the way they make Joshua feel like he's dumb. I've already been in trouble for punching a boy who teased him about his clothes. I have to protect him. He's all I've got. Eventually I'll show everyone though. We don't have to be rich to have pride.

Thats not to say I'm stuck up about who I am. I don't pretend like I'm better than anyone. Cause here in District 10 we're all poor and we're all dirty. There isn't no one here better than anyone else. Thats what Gammy and Gamps taught us and I believe it. That deep down even those people in the Capitol aren't any better than us. Its why I study hard when I feel like it and why I make sure I walk with my held high.

Everyone knows the story of my birth. About how my mom was pregnant with me and Joshua when she got reaped and how my dad had a melt down about it and even got shot trying to see her one last time. They all heard about how we were born early and taken care of in the Capitol until we were strong enough to go home. That we were actually allowed to come home...and sometimes people even ask me questions about it. Like I should remember something, and of course I don't, but I'm one of the few people to have ever left the District, one of the very few to have been born somewhere else.

Growing up was strange. It was always like Pa was afraid we'd be taken back, or lost like our real Ma. He'd watch us real close and make sure that we never went too far. Joshua was my only friend for the longest time. We had Faith around and I actually thought she was my Ma until I was old enough to find out the truth...That the picture Pa kept hidden away of the sad lady with dark hair and bright eyes was my real Ma. 

I was 6 when they told me, they sat me and Joshua down and explain things they best they could but none of it really made sense till I watched the start of the games the next year. They showed little snippets of her on the big screen and it was almost as if I knew her, but not the real her. I like to think up stories of her in my mind, about who she was and who she'd end up being. If she'd won, if she wasn't reaped. 


Pa doesn't know that I found the garden with her name tacked up on a tree. I sneak off there now where its wild and overgrown and sit on the old broken bench and pretend she's up in the tree. That she's climbing higher and higher to reach something and eventually she'll have to come back down to me. 

Maybe someday though, I"ll climb up and find her.