a chance encounter.— [cleome/prop]

Rumour had it that Prop O'Malley got into it with Kassandra Nerys and that she almost killed him. You knew he was never the type to shy away from danger - after all, you had just patched up him a week prior after he refused to admit defeat to you playing Five Finger Fillet. Prop put a cigarette to his lips and you left him behind in the smoke of District Ten.

You wouldn't see him again until he stood on the stage of District Eleven after your district's escort plucked his name from the glass fish bowl. A lump formed in your throat as you watched someone volunteer for him - someone younger, someone less alike to him - waltz up onto the stage for him, hailing the same name as Prop but lacking the signature O'Malley complexion.

You weren't sure why the Capitol suddenly took an interest in the O'Malley's, but they were certainly determined to pluck each one out, one by one, from the District. 

Seeing Prop in person sent shivers down your spine - it was like looking in the eyes of someone who you had witnessed nearly face death. But he was like a car wreck - you couldn't keep your eyes off him, even though the thought of him approaching you and finding out anything about your condition terrified you.

Yet, you knew he would as soon as he spotted you. That was the thing you had noticed about yourself - it was impossible to lay low, to be invincible in the crowd. Somehow, you attracted people, despite not wanting to.

"Prop," she echoed back, swallowing back the lump in your throat as you nervously shuffle around in your seat. Of all places, this is where we reunite? Awkwardness rose throughout your body. You were unsure of what to say to him - did you acknowledge the events just a week prior? Or did you leave it be? He seemed to get upset over your acknowledgement of Six's death.

The elephant in the room was almost so unbearable that you decided to shoot it down right then and there.


"Broken leg and being reaped?" you say, leaning back in your chair a bit. "I think God may be trying to tell you something."

You accidentally bite your tongue when he asks what's wrong with you. Shit, that's what I get for being so curious, you think as you pause, while Prop looks at you with curious and well-intended eyes. The thing was - you weren't ashamed of your diagnosis. Cancer had bitten its jaws into your skin and you had long accepted it.

On the other hand, you didn't want cancer to define you. You were more than the shitty hand you had been dealt - before the diagnosis, you were popular, you were lively and full of life, you were fearless and ready to take on the world. Yet, cancer had taken all of that away from you - and you were prepared to hang onto the last remnants of yourself, even if it meant isolating yourself from the life you once lived.

You click your tongue as you think of what to tell him. You could lie - tell him you were here for a routinely check up, that nothing was wrong. You knew this was the wrong choice - you weren't a big believer in fate, but there was a reason you had run into Prop after the fair, and you believed that if there was anyone else in the world who had been dealt almost as unlucky of a hand as you, it was Prop O'Malley. And a part of you wanted to see him again - to feel the heat of his skin against  grazing against yours as you patched him up at the country fair once again.

You know the obvious decision, so you unbutton the first two buttons of your top and reveal to him the familiar lump just above your heart on your chest.

"It's a tumour," you tell him, looking down at the lump yourself. You had grown long accustomed to the growing skin on your chest, yet looking at it felt different now that you had revealed it to someone other than a doctor. "It fills up with fluid and I have to come about once a week to get it drained."

"Cancer," you add, as you button your shirt back up and stare intently into Prop's eyes, trying to decipher a reaction from him. You sent a silent prayer above that he wouldn't give you sympathy - that he would accept you for who you were, and not the cancerous cells multiplying by the hour inside your body. "If it means anything, I think God is out to get me, too."

You have to resist the urge to cringe as he limps over to the garbage can and makes a scene of throwing out his cigarettes. Does he know you don't have lung cancer? "I don't care if you smoke, Prop," you told him, pursing your lips firmly together. In all honesty, you were jealous. He had the privilege of his health - the privilege to treat his body like shit, yet you were stuck being poked and prodded, IVs stuck in your veins so you could even have the chance of living for a couple more months.

But Prop wasn't the enemy. He was just young and stupid, just like you would be if you had the luxury of time. He could afford to smoke cigarettes, to drink alcohol regularly, to ride horses and to play Five Finger Fillet whenever he wanted. He was just as much of a victim as you were, living in the poorness of District Eleven in Panem - you just happened to pay the price of poverty more than he did.

Prop didn't need to know how little time you had left, though. That was a secret you could keep to yourself.

"Prop, I'm not strong," she said as she leaned back in her chair, "I'm just a girl with cancer who has nothing left to lose." But you do, Prop, you want to say, but you bite your tongue in fear of saying the wrong thing. You have 14, no, 13, siblings who all look up to you. You have a family. You have time left.

Then an idea pops into your head.

It wasn't too late to experience what cancer had taken away from you.

"Say, have you ever heard of a bucket list?" you ask him, your hand shaking with nervousness. This was the first time you had told anyone of your list - one that exposed your lack of life experience, the little things you were robbed of from your late teenagedom. "Horseback riding... it was on it. That was my first time on a horse. Ever."

"I guess God doesn't hate me that bad that I could survive a horse race, right?"