ash owens [d11] [resub - fin] | Hunger Games: The RPG

ash owens [d11] [resub - fin] Jul 12, 2021 13:55:43 GMT -5

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Post by lyss on Jul 12, 2021 13:55:43 GMT -5

a s h o w e n s

i was dancing when the music stopped

Ash Owens always used to boast that she was “not like other girls.” She thought being a tomboy was a phenomenon unique to her, as if she was the only girl in Eleven that rejected femininity and had too many brothers. Her relationship with her mother had always been tumultuous, so maybe she developed this complex to prevent any other females from negatively impacting her life. Or maybe it had started to form after her dad died as a defense mechanism from letting anybody get close to her, for that matter. She no longer could pinpoint when she picked up the phrase, but she knew she had let it rule her life for far too long.

As she entered high school, she began to see how fictitious the phrase was. She met plenty of girls who had just as many brothers as her or had the same likes and dislikes as her. The difference was that those girls didn’t make these characteristics their personality traits. They had friends that they could eat lunch with or visit after school. They had the life that Ash began to realize she actually wanted, and she didn’t know how to do anything more than envy them.

She had never learned how to have a stable relationship with other girls. She had friends when she was younger, back in the early years of elementary school. Her house even used to be a place they would sometimes play at, mostly because the other girls had a crush on one or more of Ash’s older brothers. Those friendships could have blossomed into something worthwhile, but Ash built a wall of steel around herself after her dad died.

and in the disbelief i can't face reinvention

Her dad had been her best friend in a way that she never thought could be replicated again. If her dad hadn’t been around during her formative years, Ash had no idea how she would’ve turned out. He loved Ash more than her brothers in the same way that she loved him more than her mother. She was the youngest and the only daughter, making her daddy’s little girl and subsequently the target of endless torment from her brothers. Her mother made it well known in the Owens household that she never wanted a daughter, nor did she plan on having more than 5 children. Her dad tried his hardest to dispel these statements as rumors, but her mother’s actions proved how she truly felt. She showed her favoritism blatantly, which Ash supposed she couldn’t fault her on, as she and dad did the same. In her mother’s eyes, Elan, the eldest, and the twins were gifts from Ripred. That left Ash and her two other brothers to vie for the highly coveted spot as their mother’s 4th favorite.

Ash, however, was content with her spot as her mother’s least favorite, so long as her dad was around. He made sure to make the most of every moment he spent at home. He’d take her out to their small farm to play hide and seek or tag whenever her brothers would institute a ‘no girls allowed’ ban. Whenever she was assigned chores too arduous for her age, her dad would be at her side doing the majority of the work. He took her clothes shopping, gave her the first helping of dinner, brought home knickknacks that reminded him of Ash. It was so easy to forget her mother’s games when her dad was around. It was those few hours where Ash was home and dad was at work that were hell.

Early on, her mother would generally ignore Ash. With six young children running around, it was hard to keep your focus on just one person. It wasn’t until Ash got sent off into the world as a scrappy kindergartener that her mother started to take notice of her. Everything bothered her, from the clothes she wore, to the way she talked, to the way she played with her brothers. Her mother grew up in a strict traditional home, where no girl would ever “dress like that, act like that, talk like that.” Her mother never bothered to buy her the clothes she thought she should wear, or teach her the manners she thought she lacked. It was Ash’s problem that she did these things. It was Ash’s problem to fix these things.

when did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

One breezy Friday after school, Ash and all of her brothers were out front playing football to bide the time until dad got home. The flimsy, barely inflated ball they played with rarely ever went where they wanted on a regular day; on a windy day, it was a particularly dangerous weapon. Her brothers tried their best not to tackle Ash when she was younger, but no promises could be made about where the ball landed. That day, the ball truly had a mind of its own and landed everywhere but a pair of wide-open hands. One particularly bad lob ended with the pointed end of the ball smacking hard into Ash’s eye. The force of the ball and the shock of it all knocked her backward, causing her to scrape her palms open on the hard dirt behind her. A blood vessel popped in her eye, causing the white of her eye to turn as red as the leaves falling around her. When they all rushed inside, none of the boys were faulted, not even Delano, who was behind the bad throw. It was Ash who was yelled at for being injured. It was her fault for playing that game, her mother scolded. You should know by now that you are not meant to do the same things that your brothers do. You are not their equal.

Ash was sent to her room until her dad came home. He checked her vision and cleaned up her scrapes. He sat on her bed next to her and held her while tears furiously rolled down her dirtied cheeks.

“Why does mom hate me?” Ash choked out between sobs.

“Oh, sweetie,” her dad sighed, wiping away Ash’s tears with his thumb. “I promise your mother doesn’t hate you. She… she had a complicated life before she met me and had you. I’ll tell you about it one day, but you don’t need to worry about it when I’m around. I’ll always be there for you.”

there'll be happiness after you

Life after her dad’s death both passed too slowly and too quickly. She couldn’t piece together anything meaningful for years after, but she could still recount every single detail of that life-altering day.

It had been a beautiful Sunday- the perfect day to sell crops at the market. Late that afternoon, Ash’s dad had taken what meager haul they had to sell and promised he’d bring back a treat if he made enough of a profit. Ash and her brothers kicked around a lopsided ball in the front yard while they waited for their dad to return. An hour passed of them kicking the ball without the return of their dad. Her brothers turned to tossing the football around, leaving Ash to sit in the grass with her own thoughts, since her mother was watching out the window. Another hour without dad passed, but Ash wasn’t too worried. She was turning nine later that month, so she was hoping that her dad was secretly buying her a present while he was already out.

After a third hour had passed was when the worry began to set in. The two eldest brothers were sent out to go find their dad, while the remaining siblings distracted themselves by helping prepare dinner. It didn’t take long before their front door was flung open by their neighbor, revealing Elan and Delano stumbling up the steps with their dad propped up on their shoulders. Blood soaked through the front of dad’s shirt, and his breath was shallow and ragged. The neighbor helped the brothers gingerly lay their dad on the sofa before he tore open the bloody shirt to inspect the wound. A deep, jagged cut stretched across their dad’s abdomen.

The neighbor tried to work through the details with the younger siblings and their mother, but there weren’t many to tell. He had been at the market too when he saw the boys frantically running around. He helped them search the area, and they eventually found him in an alleyway near the black market. He had no idea how their dad had gotten there, how nobody had seen what happened, or even how long he had been lying there.

The neighbor pressed his ear against dad’s chest, listening as his heart slowed.

“I think he’s lost too much blood. I’m not sure that there’s anything we can do.”

That didn’t stop the siblings from doing everything in their power to keep their dad with them. Towels were pressed against his wound, ice rested against his forehead, a cocktail of whiskey and medicinal herbs were thrown together in a last-ditch effort to ease his pain. Ash desperately wanted to shake her dad awake and beg him to stay with her. He couldn’t just leave without a goodbye. He said he’d always be there for her.

All of the Owens siblings and their mother huddled around dad as he took his final breath. His eyes had already been closed from the moment he was brought home, so it was as if he wasn’t even there to experience his death. They weren’t sure if this made it any easier or not.

but there was happiness because of you

Ash was the first one to be able to go through dad’s belongings. She felt it would bring her comfort to be surrounded by things that her dad had once treasured. And it did, until she found herself digging into the pockets of the pants her dad wore that day. She retrieved a marble with swirls of green and brown, nearly identical to her eyes, and a handful of leaves plucked from an ash tree. She sunk to the floor and sobbed until her tears ran dry.

both of these things can be true

Ash really leaned into her brothers for support following their dad’s death. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened like her teachers wanted her to or how her friends expected her to, so, one by one, she began to shut out everybody who wasn’t her brothers. They talked about it enough with each other, and they could at least go toss a ball around afterward to lighten the mood. Her mother cared less about Ash playing football with her brothers or wearing their hand-me-downs to school. Ash made sure she was “one of the boys” so that when her brothers were around, she never felt left out.

there is happiness

One late night, a few days from the start of a new school year, Ash and her brother Bay sat on her windowsill, enjoying the night breeze and some of the last moments before school took over. The twins had just graduated a few months back, leaving just Bay and Ash to age out of school and the reaping. While their older brothers still lived in the house, the dynamics of their relationships had changed, bringing Bay and Ash closer together than they had ever been. They often had late-night chats, but that night, Bay was eerily quiet. His focus was anywhere but on Ash, leading her to ask,

“What are you thinking about?”

Bay paused, thinking about if he really wanted to say what was on his mind. He shifted positions and fiddled with his shirt before turning his gaze from the night sky to his sister.

“You’re not the only one who misses dad, you know,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Ash to hear.

“Huh? Of course I know that. Why would you say that?” She pushed herself away from her brother, pulling her legs into her chest defensively.

“Because…” he started, nervous to continue, “because you’ve let it consume you so much that it’s turned into your personality. That, and how you’re “not like other girls”,” he said with air quotes, gaining more confidence as he dove in. “That’s all anybody has known about you for years. That you miss dad and you’re too cool to be bothered with other girls. That’s all I knew about you for years, and I lived across the hall from you, for fuck’s sake.”

“What’s your point?” Ash growled.

“Have you ever thought maybe there’s more to your whole complex than that? Like, yeah, you miss dad, and that’s fine, and you like to hang with your brothers and do the things they do, and that’s fine, but why should that stop you from having friends that aren’t related to you? Why have those two facts somehow built an impenetrable wall around you?”

“I… I… don’t know,” she stuttered, not realizing her brother had been psychoanalyzing her this whole time.

“Look, it’s okay if you don’t know right now. I had my own wall built up too, and it took me a while to figure out how it got there in the first place. All I’m saying is that, maybe, it’s time to start taking your walls down.”

Ash knew her brother meant well; it was evident from the nervous smile on his face. She had never had anybody call her out like that, and she didn’t know how to take it. She anxiously toyed with a strand of her hair, tying it and untying it in a knot, while she pondered how she should respond.

“Well if you know me so well, why don’t you tell me why I’ve built these walls up, then?” she scoffed.

Bay let out a sigh of relief, coupled with a smirk. “Oh, that’d be too easy. You’re on a journey to find yourself now, and I wouldn’t dare stand in the way.”

Ash rolled her eyes and chucked a nearby pillow at Bay, sending them both into a quiet fit of laughter.

sorry, i can't see facts through all of my fury

Those words laid heavy on Ash’s heart during the days that followed. She knew Bay was right, as she had begun to catch onto the ridiculousness of her “complex” herself. She just didn’t know how to look deep enough into herself to figure out what truly laid beneath her steely exterior. She didn’t know how her brother could see easily see what she was missing, or why he couldn’t just speed up the process and tell her what she needed to hear. Little did her brother know, that conversation had already chipped away at her exterior, leaving her vulnerable and open for attack. She didn’t know who she was anymore, and that was utterly terrifying.

i haven't met the new me yet