avarice le roux /1

a v a r i c e .

"When I'm dreaming tonight, I can do anything
When I'm dreaming tonight, I can go anywhere
When I'm dreaming tonight, I can be anyone
So don't wake me up, don't wake me up"

Six minutes into the games rerun and Lena is trying to use my face as a seat again which is cool 'cause I told her if she did my homework I'd eat her out. Fair is fair and I've seen the sixtieth like, four times, who hasn't right? So I shimmy down and she braces herself agains the back of the couch and I get down to it.

Thing about a library is there's books on everything and good old dad is less a collector, more a hoarder. There's a whole section in that thing about pleasure, giving and getting it and I've probably read ever single word. Hey, dad said that we could read whatever we wanted as long as we got through a book-a-day and so what if I've read She Comes First: The Grammer of Oral Sex three different times?

Doubt it? Get in line, I'm almost done here.

Lena kicks me out right after, guess her boyfriend is coming over and she doesn't want him seeing me around, which works fine for me. I can take Bruce on any day but kids don't call him 'Brute' for nothing. Even though there's no way I can lose to him, I'll still make it out with two many bruises than can be excused. 'Nah Pop, I wasn't brawling again, just fell down a step or two or five!' That didn't work last time, guess I just need a better lie. People use walking into a door a lot but as it turns out, it's pretty impossible to get a black eye from that unless you've broken your nose.

Yeah, I read more than just books on fucking, take that.

I like the books on war and stuff too and I've probably read The Book of Five Rings as much as the good old Karma Sutra. None of that is good enough for dad though because I'm not my cousins and I'm not supposed to be, I'm supposed to get in line like goody-two-shoes Isaac and read boring shit that doesn't matter. Like, who cares about how they did taxes before the dark days you know? That world is gone, poof, doesn't matter.

Also, I hate the library, got locked in there once when I was little and realized after three hours that I was gonna starve to death if i didn't do something so I threw a book through one of the big stained glass windows and saved myself. Dad still reminds me about that and how the window was priceless and the room was locked on purpose because it was a test blah, blah, blah. Show me one games where the tributes got locked in a puzzle room and I guess I'll give a shit.

I'm not smart, not like that. Like, I'm smart but not the kind of smart my family thinks I should be so I don't fit and when I was little I used to hate it. I couldn't do anything right, couldn't sit still, couldn't focus on a book for longer than ten minutes at a time and when I asked to stay after training for extra time, I always got a fat, 'No, it's time to study.'

But if I have a giant paper bird flying right for me, is knowing the geographic locations of all the world's tallest peaks gonna be my armour?

Fuck man, I watched Emmett die and he was, you know, a lion with a mane and everything. It's been three years since I started skipping study sessions but dad's finally started to come to terms with the fact that I'm a failure, thank-god, it's been sixteen years of him trying. I was starting to feel bad for my old man you know?

Mom says I've only gotten wilder by the day and I guess she loves me in a way that only a mother can because sometimes when I get home late there's a cloth in a bowl of warm water on my bedside table and a little box of plasters. It always makes me smile seeing that, like I'm six years old again and she's putting a plaster on my knee as I cry crocodile tears. 'My little hero.'

I did read a book once called Scout: National Hero about this search-and-rescue dog.

I could be that I guess.

I mean not the dog part, but the search-and-rescue hero part, like that sounds kind of nice, helping people. There's a lot of little trails in the foothills around One and people get lost in them sometimes but I've spent so many hours scrambling through there, I could never. It's not a Le Roux pursuit though is it? Kind of beneath the name, according to one-cousin-I-shall-not-name-because-they're-dead-to-me.

I think it could be fun though, I could get a dog and train it to help me out. I even read dad's collection of dog training books to prep for it. I've got a lead on a puppy too, Ciena told me her dog's about to have puppies and I could have one if, you guessed it, I let her sit on my face next. What can I say? Word gets around.

And yeah, it might be a little hard trying to hide a whole puppy from dad but I'm eighty percent certain I'm dead to the man at this point anyway. I'll just raise it until he's a dog and it's too late, everyone loves him, can't get rid of him anymore.

I mean, that's what happened with me right?

Shit, wait, that sounded really fucking emo. Yeah, that isn't me. I fit in like a sewn on thumb but man, I couldn't care less. I learned young that I was never gonna get dad's approval and once I figured that out, I became invincible. Nothing can touch me, no one can slay me, I'm a lion, king of the Savannah, baby.

I'm gonna name the dog Max.