haisley seth // d1 // wip

You know how they say, "May the odds be ever in your favor," or whatever? I'd sort of worked it out awhile back that those odds were never going to be in my favor—in our favors. It didn't make sense, but every year it felt like my class doubled in size or as if time had simply halted just a hair's breadth away from our final Reaping.

It sounds crazy, I know—I had counted the lunch lines from behind a fancy lunchbox, recounted over and over again during my track events, written it all down in a notebook I labeled 'proving invincibility exists: the statistics that prove it' that I used as a protein shake coaster to keep my uncle from ever looking inside—but I wasn't worried.

We would age out. We'd float blissfully away on the breeze, our joyful whispers dancing in the wind. Senses dulling, thoughts fading, peacefully drifting—a forever dream.

She should be here. Everything that I had, all the information that I fucking had—I wasn't wrong. The odds weren't in either of our favors.

I laugh at how perfectly twisted the thought sounded now, swear I hear her laughing up at me from six feet under—but that's just an idiom, isn't it? They don't dig graves that deep anymore. She's actually a lot closer, no doubt stubbornly scrabbling for the surface in the hopes that a cigarette will have settled itself into the grooves that spell her name across her headstone.

"I was gonna leave the whole pack," my breath billows out in front of me as I stand shivering against the cold in my too small jacket and too big boots. "But you are kinda dead and I think one is enough symbolism." I sniffle, curse under my breath and swipe angrily at my leaky nose and eyes. Took me an entire minute just to pull the cigarettes from my pocket without my fingers forgetting how to work and now I was already a pathetic, sobbing mess.

My apology about missing the funeral is left unspoken as my lip quivers and my hands shake—what kind of sister does that?

It's a funny thought, considering. I'm sure she'd laugh. I can't manage one, but it'll come later, I'm sure. Seemed that's just how all my emotions surfaced lately, scattered and out of order. I've chalked it up to the change in routine and the lack of sleep.

No more gyms, no more training, no more cigarette burns between my shoulder blades—haven't held a sword or glaive in over a year. I've never had so much time on my hands before. It was like the years before Mom died when making 'science projects' in the sink and watching reruns of The Bachelorette were all that seemed to matter. Carefree, freeing.

Still run every morning though. Can't get rid of it all, I guess. They say something about old habits, I can't remember.