It's Reaping Day, and I wake up with the vague hope that I've imagined my life. No such luck; Ma is already out trading, and I'm left with a cold house and an unmade bed, which I fall back into like it's a luxury mattress. It gives an appropriate groan under my weight. The ceiling stares at me with that usual disapproving frown as I weigh my options: sit here all morning or move at a sloth-like pace. I go for option three: convince myself that I don't care while slowly, methodically getting ready for one of the longest days of my life. One more deep breath, and I'm out of bed for the second time, finding clothes I set out last night in a moment of optimism. The shirt is slightly less wrinkled thain the others, which makes it formal by my standards. I shrug into it, embracing the role of the underachiever, though my heart hammers in my chest, calling me a liar.
Once I'm dressed, I stare at the front door and its taunting scuff marks. I'm tempted to hunker down like some miner's mutt waiting out a thunderstorm. But we both know I'm going out there eventually, so I settle for taking my sweet time. I lean back in the only chair that doesn't wobble and give a good think to breakfast. There's bread on the table, which Ma forgot to burn this time. I tear off a chunk and chew as slowly as possible, letting the quiet of the house seep into my bones. The district's about as silent as it gets, every last person holding their breath, waiting for the clock to tick forward and seal some poor kids' fates. It's all so deliciously grim I could almost laugh if it weren't my life.
Ma left some coffee on the stove, weak as last year's District 8 tribute, but I drink it anyway. Anything to help me through the day. I consider following Haymitch's lead and drinking something stronger, but that's not a choice. The old drunk probably can't even stand, let alone handle watching another one. Especially since he was the Victor of the second Quarter Quell. I imagine him trying to remember how many times he's been through this. And this year's worse.
I could throw the plan out the window and spend the morning like he will, face down in some booze-fueled stupor. It's a tempting thought. He might have the right idea, if you're into the pickling-yourself-alive lifestyle. It's the kind of freedom I could get used to, if not for the nagging sense of responsibility and that thing called a conscience.
I wash down my last bite of bread with the sludge pretending to be coffee. Should probably get moving, but I need one more round of second-guessing first. Running a mental inventory on my preparations is practically a hobby. It's what happens when you know how the story goes. You start collecting details like junk and pretending they might matter. If someone saw my stash, they'd think I'm either the best-prepared seventeen-year-old in history or a Capitol fanatic with some strange fetishes. Either way, I lose.
I have more time to think than I thought I would, and that's dangerous territory. Before I know it, I'm picking at loose threads and letting my mind wander into the delightful world of worst-case scenarios. I run through them all, top to bottom, and I feel the tension tightening in my shoulders. When I realize I'm taking it too seriously, I try my best to act accordingly: like it doesn't matter.
That's how I cope. By making the world my stage and hamming it up for all I'm worth. In another life, I'd be on the big screen or the loony bin, or both. Here, I'm on a rickety chair with a knot in my stomach and a new round of dread churning inside it. The funny part is, I'm actually more prepared than I want to be. I can feel it in the way my pulse flutters, like an out-of-control camera crew has taken up residence in my veins. Even at my calmest, I'm more wound up than the rest of the district on Reaping Day.
The district: my audience, my judge, my reason for doing anything at all. Everything I've done is for them. Or maybe just for one. Either way, they can never know. The last thing I want is to be a hero, or worse, a martyr. I glance around our small kitchen, at the chipped counters and stained walls, the tiny details that make up a life. If someone looked close, they'd see how much I care. So I make damn sure no one does.
The noise outside starts picking up, like we're all doomed to keep up this annual tradition of surviving Reaping Day. Maybe it's time I stop being so tragic and start moving. If I spend one more minute brooding, I'll be the next District 12 drama queen, stealing Effie's crown.
I let the thought of Effie and her puffy wig drag me out the door. It's a visual strong enough to propel me down the stairs and onto the streets. Folks are shuffling around with that look that says "today could ruin my life," and I'm doing my best to fit right in. Maybe if I think about it hard enough, I'll make it true.
The sun's climbing higher now, and so is everyone's tension. Me? I'm about as tense as a wet noodle. I make sure they all see it too. If they don't, I've failed. At being what they expect, at convincing them they don't need to worry. At convincing myself.
On Reaping Day, we all have roles to play. I take a deep breath, find my character, and stroll out into the world like the indifferent, charming bastard I need to be.
=====
A kid kicks my shin, and the pain's got me feeling alive for a split second before I remember where I am. They swarm around me, buzzing with terror and excitement. Above their noise, the screens project the same empty promises as every year. "May the odds be ever in your favor," they blare. Yeah, right. I scan the growing crowd, catching sight of familiar faces pretending to be braver than they are. Nobody's brave on reaping day. Not the old man who thinks another drink might save him, not the girl watching me like she knows my secrets. Definitely not me.
The whole district's gathered, even more than I expected. Fear's a great motivator for showing up. Or maybe they're all here for the free entertainment: a couple hours of drama with a lifetime of tragedy.
I find my spot in the crowd, surrounded by kids who are about ten seconds from panicking. Their parents are even worse.
In front of us, they've rigged the screens to broadcast the whole show to every corner of Panem. Giant and looming, they remind me of the Games themselves. There's no escaping either.
I catch sight of Ma, waving from where the other parents huddle in false comfort. Her smile's the brave kind, and I love her for pretending. She probably loves me for the same reason.
The younger kids shuffle into their groups, and I have to fight my way through a sea of arms and elbows to get anywhere. The older ones have learned the hard way: cling all you want, it won't help. But these little ones, they still hope for something. Or pretend to, just like me.
Once I've staked my claim, I let the crowd carry me on its tide of fear. It sweeps us all toward the Justice Building, like it does every year, like it's supposed to. Like we're powerless against it.
Haymitch would say we are. Right now, he's probably feeling pretty smug, if he can feel anything at all. Or he's drowning in his old memories of his own games.
Effie finally takes the stage. If she were any more Capitol, she'd be illegal in all twelve districts.
The reaping starts with a grating speech and some high-pitched laughter that sounds more like it should be paired with a saw. "Happy Hunger Games!" she chimes. I try not to barf.
The silence that follows is the real killer. I'd take a scream over this any day, even if it's mine.
She flounces over to the giant glass balls full of names and drags out the first slip. I brace for it, knowing I won't be ready.
"Primrose Everdeen!"
Someone screams in my mind. Me. It's the loudest sound I've ever heard. The quietest too, because it's supposed to be that way. It was in my head.
The world lurches. My insides twist, and everything I planned unravels before my eyes. This was supposed to be last year's story.
I see the girl. Not the bow-wielder, but a tiny blonde. Staggering forward, slow, deliberate steps. Like she knows she can't escape but doesn't have the sense to run.
Before she gets there, another shape rushes past. A shadow, fast and certain, like an arrow through the air.
"I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"
It's her. It's Katniss. Just like it should have been last time. Just like I knew. But it still tears something inside me, the way it's happening, too real to be real. Then I hear Prim's screams of utter despair, clinging to her sister. Gale comes to the rescue to sweep Prim away before the Peacekeepers even touch her.
Katniss takes the stage. They barely know what to do. You'd think someone just set them on fire. Their horror's that complete. Effie asks for her name and Katniss barely answers in shock.
"Katniss Everdeen! Well I bet that was your sister!" Effie chirps. What gave that away? I don't know if she's oblivious or playing dumb. With Capitol types, it's hard to tell. I watch as the crowd holds its breath. The name ricochets off of everything. Off of me.
"Let's give a big round of applause for our very first volunteer!" Effie beams. If I had any stomach left, I'd lose it now.
The crowd's too shocked to move, too horrified to do anything but stand there. I catch Haymitch out of the corner of my eye. The old drunk's halfway up from the ground. More than I'd hoped for.
"Isn't this exciting?" Effie trills. No. It's worse than that. It's the past rising up to strangle me, and I feel it tightening its grip.
Katniss stands there, brave but maybe regretting it. She should be. She will be. She searches the crowd. I follow her gaze to the sister she's just saved with her mother. To the life she's given up to protect. They clutch each other, and it's too much for me. Too close, too real, too everything. I turn away, swallow the bile creeping up my throat.
"We need a boy," Effie says. I snap back to the moment, back to the present where it still makes sense.
Please let it make sense. It must be Peeta now.
I'm not shocked anymore. I can't be. I wait. I brace. I let it happen.
"Tam Wells!" she calls.
A sob cuts through the air. More pain, more agony. Like an animal that knows it's trapped. And me? I've never been more caught.
=====
The words are out of my mouth, raw and stupid. "I volunteer."
Twelve years of work, flushed down the drain with two words. What the hell am I thinking? But I know exactly what I'm thinking. I've been here before, and if anyone's got a chance of surviving it, it's me. Not the kid standing next to her. Tears in his eyes, but he's too proud to let them fall. Brave and scared and everything Peeta would have been if he was picked. Tam looks at me like I've already done it. Like I'm the older brother who never let him down. My memories blur, and for a second I'm back in another time, another life, promising the same impossible promise. It should be Peeta standing there, not Tam. I remember this moment all too well.
Katniss is staring, Effie is beaming, the cameras are devouring it. I don't care. I do care. The word drills into my skull. Volunteer. It's supposed to save the weak and doom the strong. It's supposed to mean one thing. I'm proving it means something else.
The silence after I speak is massive. The kind that suffocates. All eyes are on me, expecting, hoping for another sound, another crazy word. I walk toward them, this new path I've just cut. They're watching me like I've got an extra head or a death wish. Guess I do.
Tam's eyes are wide, scared, the look of a boy who's learned too soon what sacrifice means. I know that look. He shouldn't have to. Not yet.
"Got this, buddy," I say, shoving him gently in the direction of his family. "Think you can handle the world without me?"
He stares, not quite getting it. Probably in shock and waiting until I tell him it's all a joke and take back what I said. Then it dawns on him like a sunrise, and he's bolting toward safety. The place I'm leaving. The place I'd rather be.
My legs keep moving, automatic, programmed by something in me I didn't know was there. But it was. Always has been. This time I listened.
"Another volunteer!" Effie shrieks, her hair the only thing bigger than her excitement. "What a banner year for District Twelve! For the third Quarter Quell!"
If this is a banner year, I'd hate to see a regular one. A sane one. The year I was expecting, just once in my damn life.
Up on stage, I turn. I'm floating in a sea of disbelief, of shock so real I can taste it. Salty and bitter and everything I didn't want, but chose anyway.
Katniss is watching me, the same way I watched her. Like she can't believe what she sees. I give her a nod, casual as I can manage. Can't let her think I'm cracked. I am cracked, but that's beside the point.
In the crowd, they're stunned, quiet. You'd think a bomb dropped, not a name. I guess it did.
No one can make sense of this. Two volunteers. Two people stupid or brave enough to risk it. I'm not sure which one I am. I see the girl again, the sister saved. A reminder, just like Katniss, that this can be done. That it should be done. I take what comfort I can.
Haymitch picks that moment to stagger upright. I thought the other half of the double-volunteer might do him in, but he's up. Or nearly.
"Greatest goddamn show I've ever seen!" he howls. "Where's my camera?"
Too bad I know where his bottle is. He'd probably hand it to me if he weren't downing it himself. Maybe he will, if I make it back.
Effie's all smiles and sunshine, patting my shoulder and asking my name. I tell it to her. She plays the crowd and the Capitol with that painted-on charm of hers. "Our male tribute, Ashton Ember!"
Katniss stands beside me, less shaky now. More sure. But sstill surprised, and I wonder what she's thinking. About me, about this. If it's anything like my thoughts, she's in for one hell of a ride.
Effie calls us remarkable and made us shake hands for the camera. Katniss's eyes are made of stone, mine of air. That's what it feels like when she stares, drilling me for answers I don't have. We're both frozen, both still. She stares at me like she's still trying to figure me out. I give her a lazy grin. Someone snaps a photo. A memory. The kind you keep in a book to prove you were once alive. Effie's loud and plastic, rambling about volunteers and drama and something else. I'm not listening. Haymitch is up and laughing, or just up. Hard to tell which. It's a bitter sound, a cracking sound. I'd know it anywhere. We're standing like statues, awkward and out of place. The stars of a twisted show neither of us wants a part in.
I'm already the winner, and I don't mean the Games. I mean this staring contest, because she finally looks away. Her gaze lands on the cameras and the people and the thousand other things that are safer to see than me.
Me? I look everywhere. But mostly at her.
She's just as I pictured up close. Seam eyes that drill, bow in hand. Or there would be soon. Same difference. It'll end the same. And me, casual as ever, pretending this isn't one massive surprise. It is. I like surprises, so long as I'm the one giving them.
"This is absolutely unprecedented!" Effie's voice cuts in, sharper than I'd like. She carries on, a bubbly stream of congratulatory nonsense. Capitol filler for an empty district. Someone might lose their mind, but it won't be them. I've already got a head start on that.
No one's cheering. Not even Ma, though I can feel her anger, pride, and frustration. But no last-minute tragedy. No black hole of grief. I almost wish there were.
The only sound from the district's a whisper of air as hundreds of hands rise, fingers extended. The three-finger salute, a gesture where the three middle fingers of the left hand are brought to the lips and then raised to the air. It was a way to express admiration, gratitude, and goodbye used by the people of our district.
The screens blink with my face, silver eyes set in determination. Who knew? Who the hell knew?
Not the Capitol. Not them, not yet. But they will.
=====
Her arms are tight around me. I'm choking on what should be words, but they aren't. They're ghosts of words, hollow sounds, phantoms. I'm floating, drifting from one goodbye to the next, catching fragments like snowflakes that melt as soon as I know what they mean. I'm trying to hold them all. I can't. My mind's already on the train, racing ahead of me, hurtling toward a future that's a blur of fear and desperation. Of survival. We start to move, and I'm still on the platform, still waving, still watching as they shrink into the past. They disappear. They come back. Twelve years of preparation, and I still feel completely unprepared.
Ma's arms are around me, tight, fierce. She holds me like it'll keep me. Her eyes are wet, and that makes it worse. Or maybe it makes it better. Maybe I'm selfish, and it makes it better.
"You're my whole world, Ashton," she whispers, the words trembling on the air. They shake as much as her hands. A tightness grips my chest, a wild, unyielding fear I won't see her again.
I pull away, just enough to catch her face in my hands. "You think I'm letting some kid or mutt kill me?"
"You're not invincible," she says. I feel the lie beneath my fingertips. She knows it, and so do I.
A hard lump forms in my throat, and I don't swallow it. Not this time.
"You never know," I say, forcing a dimpled smile. "Might surprise us both."
"Promise me, then. Promise you'll surprise me."
I don't speak. I can't. Not without breaking. She doesn't ask why I volunteered. She doesn't need to. Maybe she always knew I would one day. Maybe she knew since the day I started coming home all bruised and beaten from Haymitch.
My hands drop to my neck, find the clasp of her necklace. The firebird. The Phoenix.
I fumble with it, like I'm five again and she's the one preparing to leave. Not me.
The chain is short but full of memories. It dangles, heavy in my hand.
"For luck," she says.
I nod.
My fingers close around it, tight. As tight as I wish she were.
They tell her time's up.
She leaves, but it feels the other way around.
The door opens, and I don't have time to process.
Tam Wells is standing there with his parents. I can see the tears in their eyes, the gratitude in their smiles. I don't know what to say, how to tell them I'm not the hero they think I am.
"Thank you," Tam's mother says, her voice choked with emotion.
"You're going to win, right?" Tam asks, his eyes wide and hopeful.
"Sure," I say, forcing a grin. "That's the plan."
They leave me alone, and I'm almost grateful. Grateful for the silence, for the space to breathe. But it doesn't last.
The door swings open again, and this time it's the other kids. Kids like Tam who looked up to me before they knew who I really was.
"You have to win," one of them says.
"Yeah," says another. "We know you will."
It's too much. Too much faith, too much hope, too much of everything I don't deserve. But they're kids, and I don't know how to tell them the truth.
"Come on, you guys," I say, trying to sound like I used to. "I've got a reputation to keep."
The minutes stretch and warp, and I'm almost glad when it's over. Their footsteps echo in the hall, fading to a low, haunting nothing.
I try to catch my breath again, but I can't. Not for long.
A gang of boys rushes in, older, more rowdy. We've spent years in each other's pockets. Or close enough. It's a whirlwind of jabs and punches. I'm flailing, trying to keep up. Trying not to lose the parts of me that are most important. Their smiles are huge and sloppy. Almost big enough to cover the pain.
"Always knew you'd volunteer!"
"Take down a Career for us!"
"Kick their asses, Ash!"
Their words are supposed to make it easier. They do. But they also don't.
"We've got bets on you," one calls.
"Be careful, or I'll collect!"
They punch my shoulder one last time, gentle, but it lands hard. A guard ushers them out, but not before I see their eyes. It was all for show, the tough act.
Same as me.
The door's shut, the time is up, and I'm here.
This moment. This crushing, fleeting moment.
I wear it all like armor. The necklace, the pain, the terrible beauty of goodbye.
There's nothing left but me and the knowing and the dread.