like the match you strike to incinerate

I haven't been able to sleep in days. 

Just naps, ever since it hit april. I've been tossing and turning and I feel like I'm cuddle buddies with dust bunnies behind the living room love seat. I've had the 80th games going on repeat, the reaping's coming soon, and Lorenzo Pevek can't get reaped again sure, that kid is dead and away rotting in wherever the hell Hollywood is.

but I still can. 

And I can feel it, in every ounce of my muscle mass, I've been working so hard. I've been working out for fucks sake! Not just cardio, I've been lifting with Kieran and helping ma around the house and I finally got to the point where I have a family. I'm worth something now, I am something now and I just, I can feel Snow's eyes on my neck.

I can feel the time ticking, the life I've lived, like I've been nothing more but a character arc for them. I'm the only one in my age group, Wander is already out of the reapings and they got them last year. The twins have already been reaped on both ends, and I'm the only one of the younger ones still walking, untouched. Unreaped, better off than ever before. 

Even worse, I'm Mace's child now. And he treats me well, and I need to stop being so mean to him and Kieran. I know that- like, sure, it's funny, but I think I'm the only one laughing at this point and I just don't fucking get it. 

I don't understand why I'm the only one around here who fuckin' gets it. Maybe they do! Maybe they understand it all and look at me and regret ever fucking adopting me and I think about it all the time that I should just run away. Go live with Beck or something, live in his little sail boat on the west side of district four and shit, Wander can send my letters to Temple and tell ma that I'm still alive and she can take those letters and go oh, Lorenzo, again? Aw, cute, and throw them the hell away. 

And so I just sit here, as fucking always, Saffron understands I need space and I don't even know what to do with it. Space for fucking what! I haven't been working recently, haven't been helping Paige with her kids, haven't been helping Kieran or Regalia with the mayor orders- I'm sick and fucking tired of being useless. I'm sick and tired of being the pity son, of Mace looking at me and still seeing that thirteen year old boy who got killed.  

Of looking at me and seeing Temple's dead district partner. 

She fought Bette, she fought in the bloodbath, she was the one smart enough to leave me for dead. 

I can't stop watching it, over and over again, of Wander attacking me in the bloodbath and Temple not doing anything. I convince myself over and over again that her and Mace wanted me to win just as much as I wanted her to, but- but I know it's not true. That Temple was the tribute, and I was on screen for her character arc. 

She tried to kill Bette, she fought dragons. 

And now that it's just me, an isolated boy, I can't help but fucking hate it. To hate her and myself, to hate Mace for adopting me- it puts me at risk. I see Violetta Salazar, Eden Turner, too many damn Lowe's to name, Cedar fucking Halt, and I stand behind him as he cleans dishes and he's my father, and I'm his son, and in my heart I know I'm going to die in three hundred days because of him. 

and I- 

"did you mean to adopt me?" I want to yell it, does he think I am actually even his son. Did he only take me in for the character development, so Snow would look at me and not Kieran in the reapings. 

Am I just Kieran's shadow? 

I grit my teeth, because I feel like I know the answers before Mace turns around. 

"I mean, did you even want to."