madeline seung / district thirteen (fin)

I have only truly loved twice.

But I used to be a girl that loved too much. I was the girl that tucked dog-eared love letters into the school lockers and drew hearts around their delicately written names in my notebook. I used to fall in love with each graceful arch of their lips, with each gleam in their pearly-white teeth.

Then, I couldn't tell I was caught up chasing a dream, a fairy tale love. Maybe it gave me hope that one day someday I'll be loved as much as I loved the thought of it.

Mason was always there when those dreams slowly withered away, like the wilting of a flower, gentle and forlorn, until it fades with the wind. He was an echo of my soul, a carbon copy — a twin. I used to cry into the crook of his neck when the I finally cracked like the mirror when father punched it.

It wasn't until he was gone that I realized he was my true love, the other half I've been chasing my entire life.

The day he died was so vivid, practically carved into memory: the glowing overhead lights flickering across the stone floors, his shallow breaths mirroring the cadence of a broken record, I was too stunned, too scared to move. I remember the weight of his body in my willowy, trembling arms. I remember the dread in my heart, the way it sunk like a washed up ship.

Teachers used to tell me that I was too smart for my own good when I pointed out that something was incorrect — that one day I'll get caught up in my own head. I used to brush it off, so quick in telling myself that I would never let that happen. I was smart, but I was prideful, too. Too prideful to admit, in those moments, that they were right.




Tulips were Mason's favorite flower. He had a potted one, it was a bright orange and it was tucked in the corner of his room, sitting under the bright light of a lamp. It added a splash of color to the otherwise grey room, at least Mason thought so.

It's mine now.

It was a cycle, the way I watered it each morning like he did, like pieces of him lived inside the spring grass stems and gossamer-like petals.




School became my new home, I immersed myself in the work, in the ivory pages of borrowed library books. I made sure to use my subsidiary time studying or color-coding notes that I've read too many times. I was too scared to remember, but I was too scared to forget.

The boy I had a schoolgirl crush on, Matthias Tate, I got pregnant with his child right after graduating. I remember thinking to myself that things were finally moving on, but then he went off and got married, and I was stuck raising his child on my own.

I named her Mason—

and I saw pieces of him in her. The colors of her eyes akin to mahogany, just like his. In her I found redemption, a chance to rewrite the pages of history.




When I heard the whispers, the rumors spoken in hushed cadences around the office, I told myself that anyone who would volunteer was idiotic, practically suicide. I thought nothing of it for the next few days, until I heard it again, and again until my curiosity finally peaked.

These people weren't as smart as they thought they were, I was able to find them quick enough. All I had to do was listen, and it led me straight to them.

I told them no at first, that it was too dangerous and I have something that isn't worth the gamble. But it was precisely her that led me to them the next day. I don't know how it happened, but she walked in that afternoon with her jet-black pigtails bouncing with each step and her silky red ribbons shining under the strobe lights. And that’s all it took, the look of youthful innocence painted on her face.




I have only truly loved twice—
and maybe that makes me less of a mother, but I can't afford losing her too.