naomi valero || district six || done

People are made up of little moments. Rights and wrongs done in their own company, under blind eyes. White lies that don't really matter, if you think about it, and kindness that earns no praise. If you want to know a person, look into her eyes and count the hairline fractures reflecting cobwebs into her skull.

She has her mother's smile. A gentle thing that has the left side of her lip curled up a bit higher than the right, warm as molten steel. She's of good stock, well bred and well kept, sent straight from the white picket fences plaguing suburbia. Her mother's kindness must have rubbed off on her, same as her habit of sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

"That shirt's a bit tighter on you than I remember." Her mother's voice trembled beneath the weight of the threat buried in those sweet syllables.

"You're right, mom." She smooths down the soft fabric and hates the way it feels against her skin. When evening rolls around, she doesn't bother coming to supper.

Her mother smiles at her in the morning and it feels so fucking good.

She doesn't see it much anymore, not since Warren left for the Academy and her father finally settled in the new apartment with their old neighbor. It'd be hard on anyone, but especially someone as fragile as her mother. Young love and reckless passion led to a life in shackles - two kids and a man who hadn't so much as kissed her since Naomi's fifth birthday.

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Warren made things difficult when he was around. He met snide remarks with gnashing teeth, always fucking arguing when he was obviously meant to keep his head down. It came as no surprise to Naomi that he enlisted after his last Reaping, kissing her forehead in the dead of night because they both knew Mom would make a big thing of it if he left in the morning.

Things got a lot heavier when he wasn't around. He would have stayed if she asked but she didn't. Then on, every moment she wasn't practicing a song or studying for an exam her mother paraded her around her social circle like a freshly minted doll. They lost most of their money when Father left but it was always really important to appear more than middle class.

Naomi played along, it was easier that way.

But the weight of high expectations split into spiderwebs eventually. She doesn't think of the little moments - like when she left the gate open to the neighbor's yard because their stupid dog wouldn't shut up. Not the time she let a boy kiss her because she knew his girlfriend was halfway through the door.

She felt bad after all of it! Naomi is gentle. She's kind. Charity comes as easy as breathing and it's not because she feels others deserve her pity. She wants to help.

Naomi Valero is a good person.

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Salvatore was her beginning. Her ugly pieces had long since gone rotten. Picking scabs is easy to do when no one knows to look for scars. Parts of her past may remain inescapable - namely Grady Sullivan because of course he's in Salvatore too - but she knows well how effective honeyed threats can be. It isn't necessary to say what you mean to ensure the words will cut.

She'd do what it took to be happy here, whatever it took.

Freedom comes with strings attached, but it's much easier to meet her mother's expectations when they only exist through pen and paper. Her mother's more proud of the daughter that lives in drying ink than the one weaving her out of white lies.

In exchange she paints herself a grand portrait, done up in pastels and heavy handed make up. There's a strange beauty to be found in everything but it's nice to be so brilliant you draw eyes. She doesn't revel in attention, just craves it. Who doesn't?

She's found her place in Salvatore, easy as a puzzle piece with open ends. Middle of the pecking order, below some but above enough. That night? The one she doesn't like to think about? She spent a little too long curling her hair or maybe she'd been touching up the makeup that ran after reading her brother's most recent letter. Whatever it was led her to Scarlet sobbing on the bench.

She knew what had happened, Naomi keeps herself well informed.

There they met, under blind eyes. A little moment chocked up to destiny or coincidence or a cruel joke gone horrible wrong.

She could have helped Scarlet,


It's rare that Naomi makes a choice of her own accord but that night? She did.