.:Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil:. [Lorenzo & Salome]

You are homesick.

It was the silliest of things that broke you. Dinner meant all the gluttonous portions your small body could handle—steaming piles of mashed potatoes, fried chicken, all manner of foods you never even dreamed of—and for dessert, choice of sweets that would live on in fantasies forever. You wonder how any of them fit into their clothes with such rich flavors at their fingertips. Yet you eschewed the chocolate cake. Your palate wanted something lighter, but sweet. An avox hurried from behind one of the tall white columns to present a plate of strawberries, fresh as the day. A single taste triggers you into daydreams, and for a moment, you are back in district eleven.

We’re going to have our own farm. You and your sister Magdalena are barefoot, dressed in your overalls and straw hats, laying in the strawberry patch. The overseer is far enough away; you dawdle for a moment, and pass a strawberry to Magda, rather than put it into your bucket. She grins and hands one back to you—a trade of sorts, lest one of you have to be punished. You take a bite and let the sweetness wash over you. This is home, baking under the hot sun, dirt between your toes. Much like the strawberry, you are tough and resilient. Despite the heat and dust storms, there will always be strawberries. Your mother says they are common as weeds, sometimes threatening to strangle other crops. As common as they are though, they are loved as much for their sweetness as their strength.

You hadn’t noticed the tears before you’re wracked with sobs. They must have thought you such a delicate thing, crying at dessert. But then you don’t much care what others think, do you? You’re halfway to the elevator before you hear a muffled call from the apartment, but it’s too late for you to turn back. You want air—some place that does not feel as though the walls are closing around your body. The elevator hums with doors open, empty. You press a button marked R, and close your eyes, back against the wall. When you open them, the doors slide apart to reveal the bright lights of the city before you, with a whole span of plants dotting the rooftop.

Your few steps are slow, and you kneel down to press a hand against the grass growing below. There are roses climbing up over an arbor, and the gentle trickle of water from a fountain in the distance. You smile, and twist your fingers between the loops of your shoelaces. Your feet find their home in the grass, and you start to walk along the rows of plants. You miss home. It’s entirely normal, and not unreasonable. This is what you had wanted but that does not remove the ache you feel thinking about what was your home. Life is about far more than the grass between your toes; part of happiness comes from the longing you feel for what you cannot have. And yet—you are under the same stars, and the same moon.

You sit on the edge of the fountain. When you were home, it was so much easier living for other people. Now you’ve gone and volunteered for so many, yet will have to live for yourself. Will it kill you? You turn your head at the sound of the elevator, and give as much a smile as you can. Not yet.