percy volante, district six | fin

Venus, Aurora, and I.

We all had one thing in common: we were never wanted — not until the Volante's came around at least. We weren't born from the same blood and we don't share a single strand of genes, but we are sisters through and through.

Nothing could ever change that.

The orphanage brought us together. We had no names before we arrived there, no place to call home, and no one to lean on. Venus had been there the longest, her parents left her at the front steps when she was just a few weeks old and never looked back. I think that's why she's always latched herself onto anyone that gives her the slightest bit of attention. She was the first person that I met, apart from Ms. Mirabelle. On the first day, I was assigned the bed right next to hers' and she jumped off her bed with her violin tucked in her arms when I walked in. Her eyes were wide, bright, and comforting and a part of me felt safe trapped in her gaze. We became best friends with our first words.

Aurora arrived a few months after I did. She was quiet for a while after her arrival, always stuck to herself curled up with a book, and never said a word to anyone. During our mealtimes, she ate in the far corner where no one else sat because part of the window was slightly busted and blew wind straight into your face, but we aren't supposed to talk about that though. Ms. Mirabelle said it's because it's not up to code and its better for us to act like it doesn't exist, so act like I never said anything. Anyway...I don't know why, but I felt bad for Aurora. I knew how hard it was to get adjusted to a new life, especially since back then we were just kids. Just kids that were alone and scared in a big wide world that threatened to swallow you whole. I think I understood that the most.

And then there was me. Persephone, but everyone always called me 'Percy' for short. I was born in the Slums, the place where all the throwaways stayed in half-built shacks where ripped blankets were bedsheets and tossed out coffee tables were our beds. Most of the district lived privileged lives with enough food and jobs that kept their families afloat, they even had a fucking roof that didn't leak after every storm, not us though. Maybe back then I despised them for it, for being born with everything I never had, but then I had to remind myself that hate never got you anywhere and it sure as hell wouldn't make my life any less shitty.

We made it work though. Papa did every odd job he could get his hands on and Mama picked up crocheting so she could sell whatever she made. But one day Mama got sick and Papa got arrested to steal just a little bit of medicine and then I never saw him again. It felt as though I had to grow a decade in a few weeks, picking up every job I could just so I could put food on the table. But even then, no matter how hard I tried to make everything better, I came home one day and Mama was curled up in Papa's favorite chair with no heartbeat. I couldn't do anything, that was the first time I felt entirely powerless.

No one was going to care about a poor, sick woman from the Slums with no money to her name dying. And no one was going to care about the street rat daughter she left behind. So I left with nothing but the clothes on my back that night. I spent the next few nights on the street, sleeping in the alleyways and finding digging through the trash that was left on the streets. That's where Ms. Mirabelle found me, on the streets with wide eyes and no home to go back to.

Venus and Aurora became my family after that. The world had all broken us but we put each other back together. I don't think there was a minute that we didn't spend right next to each other.

When the Volante's arrived everything changed. Ms. Mirabelle told us they were looking for a daughter, that they weren't able to have children of their own and they wanted to adopt. Venus, Aurora, and I made a pact to do nothing to stand out, nothing that would make them separate us. But when it was my turn to go and meet them, Venus and Aurora had already gone, I pushed what we said earlier to the back of my mind. I painted the biggest smile I could on my face before I walked into the room, this was my chance to make something of myself. I couldn't do it here, the orphanage wasn't exactly the best place to start your life.

But when they decided I was perfect, that I was the daughter for them it all came flooding back. Venus' face lit up like the stars when we first met, Aurora's first smile after I pestered her for days to get to know me, the laughter we shared underneath the covers of my bed late at night. I couldn't give them up. Leaving them would be like giving up a part of me.

"I can't go with you. Not unless my sisters can come with me. I promised nothing would separate us."

I still remember their faces, taken aback but still filled with warmth at the same time.

"Well, I guess we are going to have to buy two more beds."

And the rest was history. The orphanage faded into the background on the car ride to our new home, to our new life. But I was here with my sisters, my blood through and through, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

With the Volante's I could be something.

I will be something. I promise.