bow harvard. d2!

If I were any more delusional than I already am, I'd say that Harvard House is a temporary situation. Lucky for me I'm a pretty realistic person. It makes the abandonment issues easier to swallow. The therapist my parents tried sending me to said understanding your trauma helps you to beat it, 'cause then you've got a starting point. It's about the only good thing they ever said to me in those sessions, but I'll take what I can get.

It's not that my parents are homophobic. They're just heterosexuals, y'know? Grown up on binaried reapings and the ideal male/female tribute. Muscly and handsome, lean and beautiful. They never quite understood me and I never quite understood them and they sure loved what the Capitol stood for - except the flamboyant culture. If I did so much as mix up my colour palettes they said I was being 'anti-District'. I know what they were actually saying. Like I said, I'm a realist. I'm only a little delusional!

Thank God for my guncle Fee - short for Phoenix, he got me like no-one else did. I loved living with him, free to do what I wanted if I told him where & what time I was going out. He cycled through men like nobody's business, but it was his only real problematic flaw. Except the part where he left me in Two after promising his Capitol gig was only gonna be six weeks long, and four months later the Keepers came knocking and I had to scramble out the back window. Like hell was I gonna be a foster kid!

So I grabbed what I could: clothes and make-up, a few pairs of shoes, candy bars I'd stashed away, medicine and a rainbow xylophone Fee got me when I was five. The keyboard wouldn't fit in a backpack and I hate to think of it sitting in our apartment collecting dust, breaks my heart, it really does. But it was me or the sweet, sweet sound of music, and if there's one thing I've learned in the last decade is you've only got yourself to count on.

I ended up pounding on the front door of Harvard House hollering as loud as my little voicebox would allow. Something along the lines of "HELLO?? IS THIS THE GAY ORPHANAGE? OPEN UP GAY PEOPLE THE HOMOPHOBE KEEPS ARE GONNA GET ME!"

Fell face-first into the entrance hall, but hey - I was inside!

In an attempt to normalise me (such a strange, stupid word 'normal' - normal here's foreign anywhere else in Panem) my parents put me in Career Training. Lasted all of three years from eight years old to twelve, but I learned enough to keep my wits about me. I can throw a punch without breaking my thumb, I can turn anything into a weapon with a little imagination, I can walk on the balls of my feet to stop the floorboards creaking.

I thought that I'd have to act tough here, staring down kids at the breakfast table scooping cereal into my mouth so they know even though I'm 5ft no inches they shouldn't mess with me. Turns out next to nobody here wants to harm me. Funny how we've spent our whole lives in defense mode, you think even your peers are out to get ya.

Instead someone just asked me for my pronouns and another how I feel about gender. I shrugged. "Somewhere far-flung", I've never had to explain it before. With my parents I didn't bother, and Uncle Fee just got it, no questions asked. Apparently that was enough to get me a bed and some spare clothes, a trip to the Justice Building to sign away my surname into the custody of Harvard House. I couldn't wait to get outta there so I just signed without reading.

Here's hoping Delilah didn't scam me outta the next three decades!