luca palermos. / district 2 (fin)

your sweet, sinless sensation is not my style
and i'm not giving up

    You grew up on the poor side of town—or so you were told—not as well off as those you went to school with, but a middle-class family with two kids and central air. But even back then, you felt like a big shot. When your father had his booming hardware store, giving your mother the luxury to stay home and cater to her kids. You had the nicest house in the neighborhood, the greenest lawn, the best toys. And for a time, it was just you, an only child. A mother’s golden boy, who could do no wrong, nor ever possibly break her heart. To her, you were perfect. The shining light in her lonely life. Your father, however, had wanted a man and received a mere boy in his eyes. One who cried when he scraped his knee and cheered when he was overcome with joy. A child who felt things, pain and sadness and occasionally, much to your overly stern and stick-in-the-mud father, happiness. Something he never approved of. If you're enjoying yourself, you're wasting time. Get to work. Those were his famous words, seared into your brain from the moment you could comprehend them. And in his house, anything less would not be tolerated; and disobeying was unacceptable and, as you quickly learned, punishable. So you obeyed as best you could, did all the things he wanted you to do, but no matter how hard you tried to get him to love you, to treat you as anything more than an utter disappointment, it never worked. You always fell short, and would continue to trip and stumble for the rest of your—as he likes to so nicely put it—miserable little life.

    Not long after you, your sister was born, wide-eyed and screaming for attention, and for two years that’s the only way you’d see her: as an annoyance. A thing that moved into your house and took the affection away from the only parent who’d ever given you any at all. You were hurt, betrayed by this new life you were made to call your sister. A girl you were told to love and were assured loved you, too, but all you saw from her were tears. Every time she made a sound, your mother went running. As if she was more important, more worthy of your mother’s love. Naturally, you remained skeptical, you kept your distance, even refusing to hold her for the first three months after her arrival. But that was the year everything had changed. That was the year a bigger, better store decided the open lot across the way from your father’s was the perfect place to set up shop, effectively ending any and all profits within eight months by undercutting his prices. He stole his customers first, then his dignity. Family dinners became a thing of the past as he spent the next year searching high and low for a job with no real education to his name. Forcing your mother as well, with no real experience, to learn a new trade so she could beg her way into a sad minimum-wage job, otherwise your home would no longer be yours anymore. You remember it well, that year. It was the same one your father started using the back of his hand to teach you lessons, the same one year you decided to never beg for his love again. But most importantly, it was the year Lola said her first word: brother.

    On your first day of junior high, your shirt was riddled with holes, as were your three-year-old socks; your jeans were dirty, ripped along the cuffs and knees; your shoes had no laces and you tripped walking in the door. But it was nothing new to you, it was all your parents could afford now. This was all your life would allow you: bad luck and even worse karma. For reasons unknown, but it wasn’t as if you were trying that hard to rise above circumstance. Your teachers all called you lazy and unmotivated, not a disruption, just a waste of space who absorbs and cares about absolutely nothing; and looking back, you’d say they were right. You had no interest in diagraming a sentence or mastering long division. You didn’t want to learn or focus on the words before you because it just didn’t fucking matter. In truth, what did you even have an interest in? What did matter? You had no skills to speak of, no hobbies that brought you any comfort or pleasure. In your spare time you read, you wandered around in places you shouldn't have been, you skipped school to get high for no other reason than because you could, but you never quite found a passion, nor a purpose. Ripe in your teens, you enjoyed yourself, though. You experimented, took all kinds of drugs. I’ll try anything once, you’d say, but then one hit of a joint became every morning before school; one bump of something Xander had paid a pretty penny for under the bleachers became a casual Friday night ritual. You had fun, you fucked around, you did absolutely nothing. Just like they all said. It was better than facing the future. Better than listening to another lecture from your father about what a pathetic piece of shit you were compared to Lola because you knew it was true. She was perfect and kind, the spitting image of their gentle and loving matriarch. Gilded and sparkling with a light unmatched to the darkness you wear so well. She's one person you can truly say loves you. Now that your mother's gone.

    By age fifteen you learn cancer can rip an entire family apart. It's ruthless, heartless. It never tires and fighting it is futile, no matter how much money you spend on answers to its relentless persistence in killing every part of a person. First her hair, then her body, then finally her mind. Everything they ever knew, every good thing you and your sister ever had taken away in a matter of months. No, life has never been kind to you, and perhaps that is why you have never been kind back. You drifted away, started drinking to dull the ache of never seeing your mother's face again; started smoking more to tamp down the hopelessness that had made a home in your head. Seeped into your the edges of your soul. Depression lives in the hollow chests of broken boys and you were no exception, just as susceptible as any of its victims. So you withdrew into yourself, made a plan to get out of this house—this place, this town—and packed your things, leaving only a note for Lola behind. Don't look for me. Please. On the back of a picture of the three of you, a little tattered at the edges but one of the best memories you have captured forever in time. You, her, and your mother. It was the most precious thing you owned and leaving it with her was cutting away the last piece of you that was left. I'll be back, you wanted to add. Desperately. Just to give her a little hope. But it would be a promise you couldn't keep and she deserved better than that at the very least, for always believing in the best of you. Despite the evidence otherwise. You leave in the dead of night, kiss Lola's forehead while she sleeps before you go, and don't look back

    He finds you passed out in a gutter after a night of drinking once again, harder than ever this time though. It was the anniversary of your mother's death and you'd seen a little girl alone on the street who reminded you of Lola when she was little. That was all you needed. That little jolt of shooting pain in your chest at the sight and the memory it elicited was enough to send you on a bender with Xander and a few guys he runs with. Other wannabe tributes at the Institute. They all pump themselves up and feel brave whenever they hang with Xan, like they're actually tough and can hold their own because their dealer is foolish enough to mix pleasure with business. They're idiots and you wouldn't be caught dead in their shoes, wasting away as nothing but mindless weapons for the District's glory. At least that's what you tell yourself—told yourself. And if someone had said saddled up right beside them for 8am training is exactly where you'd end up a year latter, you would have called them a liar. And yet you did. Teddy finds you on the streets you'd come to call home and tells you that's not where you belong. Convinces you it's not where you're meant to be. He shows you that there's more to the emptiness, more to life than wallowing in a pit of darkness no matter how much you've grown to love it. You may as well be dead. He's right, and though the notion does sound appealing—Maybe I could see my mother then. We can wait for Lola together—you know he would bring you back just to kill you himself if you gave up now. Not after everything he's given you. The problem is you just don't feel it. Deep down you know he's right, that everything he says is true. Life is worth living and making your time here in this place, training to be the best possible tribute, the best possible version of yourself is meaningful. Here you have a purpose. You have strengths you didn't know you had and skills you would have otherwise never been aware you could possess. Here you are a better you. But that emptiness calls to you like a siren enchanting a sailor. You miss indulging the darkness; it felt like home. Without it, everything else is just numb. The praise. The violence. The man who cares for you like your father should have. It's everything you ever wanted, isn't it? So why do you silently resent it? God only knows.

    You pray Lola isn't as fucked up as you. You hope she learned from your mistakes, knows better than you now. She always was smarter, far more clever than you ever were. You make a plan to see her again. To tell her you're sorry for leaving. To ask her to forgive you for being the piece of shit your father always knew you were. Unreliable. A coward. Maybe seeing her will fix everything. Maybe she's what's been missing this whole time. You make a plan. You say a promise to yourself. I'll find her. It's a lie and you know it, but it makes you feel better for the time being. It stops you from running away again, from looking for comfort at the bottom of a bottle or the prick of a needle. You pray Lola is nothing like you. You hope she's well-adjusted. Free from the insanity and harshness that was their father. You want her to be happy, seeing the good in everyone and everything just like their mother. Far away from the darkness, clinging to the light. But you never expected to see her a week later at the Institute, two years older, porcelain skin turned to steel, and ready to become the perfect soldier for District Two.

    It seems all your prayers go unanswered, and for the first time in your life, you're shocked. At the world and its twisted idea of fate. At your father and his hand in this; you know he put her up to coming here. At your mother, however little choice she had in the matter, for not being here to help you, to show Lola this life wasn't meant for her. But instead you choose anger, focus on blind hatred pointed at the universe and its incessant ability to be an utter disappointment.  Just like you.

i can't run to you, father; i need love
i can't talk to you, mother; you're gone