Anna Fletcher | D7 {Resub} FIN

The fallen do not return as they were before, and that makes me ache.

Instead of returning alive and well like one would wish they would, they return as a lifeless body, never to be full of joy and energy ever again, no matter how much they were before.

When I was younger, Marcus was the one person who was always there for me. After mom died, dad went on a rampage, attacking and damaging anything and anyone who got in his way, whether or not said things or people did actually did something wrong to him. This was when he hurt me, paralyzing me from the waist down, causing me to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. The excuse that he gave to the Peacekeepers was that I'd fallen out of a tree. This was a blatant lie, but I didn't fight it, as I was tired of all of the chaos occurring in my family's lives.

Before dad calmed down, Marcus and I lived with some friends for a while. Eventually, we moved back in with him and he'd treated us a bit more properly after that. Now, however, our family's numbers have started to dwindle again. When I was nineteen years old, I lost my brother. Marcus volunteered himself for the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games, and, at first, I wasn't quite sure why. I thought, at first, that, perhaps dad or I did something to turn him away from us. Then, when the Games began, I truly realized what it was.

Marcus volunteered so that he and another boy, Seth, would be in the arena together. Although, surely he had to know that only one of them could even possibly come out of there, right? Regardless, neither of them did, and now, I'm left with another gaping hole in my heart, this one where my brother used to be, the first being for my mother. It seems that those I'm closest to always end up leaving, in the end.

Maybe that means I just don't deserve love.

Other people deserve love, though, which is why, after I became trapped in my wheelchair, I decided to become a nurse. I wanted to help those around me who needed it, as I really could have used help at many points in my life. People don't deserve to be in pain or distress when there's something that can be done to fix the situation, and if I can be the one to help, I want to be.

I've been told that I've changed everyone that I've met, and that makes me happy. I love to be able to make a difference in people's lives. I just hope that more of the differences I make are positive, rather than negative, as I don't like to cause harm to others. Others seem to like to cause harm to me sometimes, though, whether it be physical like the harm my father did to me those several years ago, or more emotional harm that one may consider bullying, which I have continued to receive even after my school years. Before I was restricted to a wheelchair, people would make fun of the disproportion of my weight and height, being about 120lbs and 5’10” tall. They’d tease me about my vibrant red hair, asking how I even know I was really my parents’ child when no one else in my family looked that way. I would try to explain the concept of recessive traits to them, but they never really listened, so I gave up on it and just let them tease me.

I used to be one who could be considered weak, both physically and emotionally, at least, until the more recent happenings in my life. After being confined to my wheelchair, I began to gain more upper body and arm strength from not being able to use my lower body for day to day and work-related tasks anymore. I also became more emotionally strong as I started to realize how fragile life was. I’d lost family members and I had lost patients in my nursing work, but I wouldn’t let it break me down.

No matter how much I lost, I’d stay strong.
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696 words