avery mortuus, twelve, resub!

It took a while, a long while, but I finally got a little happier.

I think moving out of the house, out and away from the hospital, helped a shit tonne. Nobody was more surprised than me to see me go. Little Avery, all grown up. Nobody fucking took me seriously in that house anyway. I figured out what went on. I'm a slow learner, but I learn. In the end it didn't disgust me. I was so hollow I think it just went right through me. I was older. I wasn't a kid anymore. I'm not a kid now. I get it. What Hyacinth had to do. What the rest of them had to do to keep us alive. I just wish I had been smart enough to figure it out quicker.

That being said I was smart enough to get myself out. Of that world, of that house, of that fucking shitty hospital. It was never creepy to me back then, when I didn't know. I can still handle a dead body, even now, but it just felt... different. Not wrong, not right, just different. I'm glad I know. Without figuring it out I would still be stuck there delivering old people their medicine none-the-wiser. 

I've talked about it a thousand times with Lysette that I know she's sick of it, but damn... I really had no clue, did I? I know she's too nice to tell me to shut the fuck up, but I've always been one to talk through my feelings at a thousand times a minute. Hyacinth and Celia dying turned my volume all the way down but the words never stopped playing - just the noise. Around and around and around in my head until they spill out of me and there's vomit on the floor, again. I clean it up, disinfect it, bleach if I have to. Apologising over and over and over again, she wipes my chin and kisses my forehead and tells me it's fine.

It's not fine, but she's a good listener. 

("Oh!""
"who-"
"You're Olive's friend,
come with me!"
"where--?")

I've loved her since the day I met her. Olive's lucky he found her first, he's got that on me. I'll never let him live that down. I saw her, with her braids and her pink overalls, and I thought she was incredible. I wanted to show her my entire world - that was before all of this, y'know, the feelings. The love-love. I just wanted so desperately for her to like me. For her to be my friend. To be able to cheer her up with just my presence, to distract her from the fact that her dad was dead and my sister was dead by bouncing on creaking hospital beds and sneaking cookies from the hampers for the old people and being dumb idiot kids. She was the only friend I had, and then I turned fifteen and someone else fucking died, because they always do. But I didn't care, I just wanted to kiss her. I didn't tell anyone for months and months until one day I was so goddamn sad and I said,

"Ly, I need to tell you something" 

and she said,
"Yeah?"

and I kissed her.

("Olive isn't here right now

but don't worry,
you can wait for him with me."

"! Oh - I'm Avery!")

Whoops. Good thing she kissed me back.

I wake up in the night in a cold sweat and have to stare at her in the dark, making sure her outline is still rising and falling bunched up underneath the covers and listening so intensely I just hear ghosts where her breathing should be. Everyone around me dies, except her. And I'm just waiting waiting waiting for the inevitable moment when I wake up and find-

Bile in my throat, I swallow it back down. If I was smarter I'd stop letting my fear get the best of me. I'd be fearless, like the rest of my family. Guess I'll always be a dumb baby, deep down, as much as I try to surpress that girl she'll always be a part of me. It feels like a lifetime since I was skipping down streets and dirt paths with a wicker basket in my hand acting the fool but it also feels like yesterday. Tiny, gangly limbs, black hair sitting at my shoulders. I'm mostly the same - just taller now, almost as tall as Olive. Not sure what was in those cookies we ate as twelve year olds but it wasn't what they put in medicine. My hair's longer - I don't want to cut it. Short hair and bangs are for silly little girls. 

Part of me wants to go back to being her, young and dumb without a care in the world. But that'd mean I wouldn't have Lysette - not like this. Not in this way. And I'd die before I lost her. I'd die, I know it. I feel it. I've already planned how I'll throw my hand up in the air and scream my name if they call hers in the reaping. How I'll kiss her goodbye and kill everyone in that arena just to see her safe. I would. I tell myself I would, anyway. And if I can't, well, all I know is dying would be better than watching her leave me.

I know I sound nuts but I'm serious, I'm happy. A lot happier. She makes me feel warm. And yknow, my family isn't all bad. I've still got Olive - I don't think I could ever get rid of him, vice versa. Us three have to stick together and I've gotta respect that they were friends first. I think I stole her away for a while there, and then I felt guilty, had to learn how to loosen the reigns a little. I'm still learning, but I'm getting better. I've always been a little suffocating one way or the other and they both still love me for it. I don't deserve it, I don't think, but they do. And I love them back.

I have to. They're all I have left.