heartrot, ringside { lex | 87th }

She shouldn't've deferred her work trip to Five. She was supposed to leave Saturday and spend three weeks replacing the floorboards and restoring the counter in an old butcher shop that someone's turning into a bar, even though she could get it done in a week and a half if she wanted to. Two nights ago, after Lenox speared Syd Scoria and proved she meant it when she said she intended to live, Lex biked to the justice building on impulse and pushed it back a month. Family emergency, she'd said, and in a sense it was. She'd be surprised if the job doesn't get picked up by someone else in the meantime. She still needs to tell Denali she won't be there.

She's an idiot for being so certain about it, but Lex wanted be in Seven for Lenox's homecoming. It sounded like a great idea at the time. She feels fucking ridiculous watching the bullet tear through Lenox's throat, and twice as ridiculous still hoping with her whole sinking heart that the girl with half her life spilling down her shirt still pulls through. It was always a long shot, but — it's just that she thought —

She thought what? She'd bike down to the train station? Hang around in the back, away from the crowd, where her dad had waited for her seven years ago? She'd wait for the fanfare to subside then casually catch the victor's attention? She'd shrug like saying "I told you so" even though back in the justice building she hadn't said much of anything? She'd give Lenox another handshake and tell her she's glad the girl was wrong about dying? She'd mention she's got a casket for Lenox to do whatever she wants with but she was thinking it would be fun to turn it into a couch or a coffee table or a kitchen island, especially if the stock furniture in all the houses allotted for victors is as tacky as what came with Mom's? That when the new victor inevitably had other plans and actual family to reunite with, Lex could tag along with Mackenzie and tease him about adding another kid to his clan and how maybe she'll have to adopt this one to make him a grandma?

Now what's she gonna do? Wait on Mom's porch, tapping in the loose nails until he gets home? Pester him with reminders that it's not his fault in order to distract herself from feeling like it's hers?

She's quiet when the cannon fires.

The tiny television set in the Lionels' basement celebrates by itself in the corner, static and fanfare mirrored in the cracked glass of the antique hutch that's been awaiting restoration for so long that Lex's mother had been the one to bring it home originally. In the last two decades, all it's done is collect fellows. Its dusty shelves are heaped with hand tools and small pieces all beyond functioning. There's a mismatched set of handplanes, rusted and bladeless; a cedar tray with flaking varnish and half its marquetry missing; a solitary panel of a room divider; three-quarters of an ornate frame; a footstool with moth-eaten upholstry; lidless boxes, splintering stands, patinated drawer pulls, tarnished hinges — all manner of miscellaney languishing in need of restoration.

The rest of the basement may be storage, but despite the reflected "VICTOR" chyron hanging like a celebratory banner mirrored on the cabinet's smudged glass, this corner is undeniably a graveyard.

Her fingers twitch against her palm, that familiar reflex in search of a hilt, a hammer, a fist — something to grasp with all her strength to keep her from losing her grip. She picks up the rusted head of a jointing hammer. Its handle is missing entirely and there's a big chip in its face that needs to be ground out, but with a bit of attention she could bring it right back to life, no problem.

Not a graveyard then. A vault.

Squeezing the hammer head like trying to get water from a stone, she breathes through her teeth and focuses on the impressions its imperfections leave on her palm.

She's twenty-four, she's an adult, shouldn't she be over this by now? Shouldn't she have felt this before now? She should know better by now, shouldn't she? Should she? She should. She should know better than anyone. How arbitrary it is. Who gets to live. Who gets to die. Who has to make those decisions. Whether it makes any difference.

Fuck. She didn't even know Lenox — she'd almost made a point of it, if it were possible to make a point of something unintentionally — it's just that —

Six years ago, she stood in the crowd, eighteen, mortal. A notebook full of designs and cut lists for traps and shelters and fortifications and siege engines burned a hole in her pocket: evidence of the thousands of hours of practice she'd put towards making good on her promise not to die this time, proof of her conviction that the name on the slip of paper would be hers. It wasn't.

And when Diana made herself a human shield for a stranger — when no one did for Lex — when no one would for Lex — she made Lenox something, too: a synonym for the bitter mix of resentment and worthlessness that Lex would feel year after year, as Haana Dartons swapped themselves out for Jenny Sycamores, as Willow Oaks stepped up for Jennifer Roses, as Hellemine Cauchemars died (twice) in place of Mana Bauers.

And when Diana almost lived and then died anyway —

And when Lenox was spared, she wasn't spared —

And when Lenox shed the resignation to death that cloaked her in the justice building and forged herself into a real contender, as objective and remorseless and hellbent on living as a victor needs to be —

And when it looked like she would actually —

And when none of it — none of it — mattered in the end —

It's just that —

It's just that how the fuck is she supposed to feel?

When she catches a glimpse of the instant replay reflected in the dusty glass of their basement's vault, and thinks instead of watching Denali — a real contender, more objective and remorseless and hellbent on living than anyone Lex has ever known — burning to death face down in the mud, and realizes that none of that mattered in the end either,

When she unfurls her fingers and watches the hammer's decapitated head clatter to the floor, and the rust covering her hand looks like dried blood next to the brighter places where it broke skin, and the useless tool bounces behind the top of a school desk covered edge to edge in absentminded chip carvings, and she crouches to chase after it, and she must've squeezed water from it after all because a few drops made circular pools in the sawdust on the toes of her boots,

When she's spent the last few weeks methodically working through it on the jointer, the planer, the table saw, the router, the scroll saw, sanding down the silver maple and the black walnut inlays and the guilt and the anger and the grief all by hand,

When she thought she was past it all, that this was a closed chapter, that she could stop caring about the shitty things that happened to her, that she'd always be too focused on herself and whatever's directly in front of her to lose her shit on behalf of a stranger,

Except they weren't strangers, because none of them have ever been strangers, because how could they be strangers when she's been all of them? When she could've been any of them? When everyone is caught up in different flavors of the same harrowing shit? When it all goes beyond her, or Lenox, or any of the others, or the district, or the Games?

How the fuck is she supposed to feel when they're all still reaping what none of them have ever sown? How the fuck is she supposed to feel when she's doubled over in her basement, her hammering heart and heaving lungs a monument to capricious despotism?

Angry seems like the obvious answer. It's never that simple.

Is she supposed to catch a glimpse of herself in the desilvering table mirror and become a stranger passing in the street? Should she stare until resentment flickers in her own eyes, watch her reflection begrudge her that one lucky break at the end of a fucked up situation she should never have been in to begin with? She had no control over any of it — not the dying, not the undoing. She never asked for her name to be drawn. She never asked to cheat death.

The realization that she'd spent six years begrudging Lenox the same has been devouring her from the pith for weeks. Heartrot is a slow process, anyone who's grown up in the forest knows it. First the heartwood softens, and then it's eaten away inch by inch while the tree still stands until one day it breaks without warning and takes whoever's nearby it out with it. Maybe a family of bluebirds will make a nest in the hollow in the meantime. Wouldn't it be nice to think so?

Shit. The last couple days, she thought she'd get the chance to... she doesn't know. Apologize? How stupid is that? Even if she knew how to say sorry, what difference would it make? It's not like one stranger's abstract, festering grudge would've changed anything, even if it had somehow reached Lenox's realm of awareness. That's why she didn't say anything in the justice building. Asking for absolution in that moment would be too selfish for even Lex, and it's not like it would be much different later, but it's the sort of remorse she doesn't know how to work off if she can't pay her penance one favor at a time.

She stands up too fast, head spinning, wondering what's wrong with her that she can't even muster grief without being selfish about it. Steadying herself on the corner of the busted hutch, the tips of her fingers dip into purgatory, and before she knows what she's doing, she reaches for some other broken thing to hold. Hovering over each item, she hesitates; all things being equal between them, it's too hard to choose. She could pick anything — cover her eyes and grab one at random, doesn't matter which — and take it into the woodshop, give it her full focus for a few hours while she puts it back together, and feel a little like she did one good thing.

She could. She might not be a visionary or any kind of genius, but damn it, Lex Lionel can fix anything. She could sand the rust off the jointing hammer, she could replace the frame's missing rail, she could polish the hardware, she could reupholster the footstool, she could refinish the tray even though sanding the cedar would have her sneezing for hours afterward. She could keep at it for months and restore every damn thing down in the basement. But what's the point? Too much is broken. And even though she's too stubborn to think that anything is beyond repair, fixing a basement full of trash doesn't put dent in what's outside.

With one hand wrapped around the back of the hutch, she chooses: one solid shove sends the whole thing crashing to the ground, creating a cataclysm of antique splinters and shards of glass at her feet. The fallout envelops the whole basement; a small piece of debris even manages to tink against the lightbulb, which swings wildly on its cable, casting shadows in the dust cloud. Hypnotized, Lex watches it spend its momentum oscillating back and forth, frenetically at first, then slower and gentler, until it eases itself back in place. The television celebrates to itself in the corner, oblivious to the carnage settling in front of it.

No, not angry then. If she were angry she'd feel better.