Author Games: Return To Seasons

Task Four: Please, I Know You're In There - ⚛ Spring Entries ⚛

District 1 Male - HEATH HAWTHORN [5]

"I betcha can't catch me Heath!" Erica called, her blonde hair trailing behind her. She had tried to do her hair back in a braid, but had forgotten to put a tie around the end of it, and it unraveled as she ran. The wildflowers she had lovingly placed in between the strands of her hair fell out, disappearing in the bed of grass beneath her feet. Her steps were as careful as they were agile, and she avoided every patch of wildflowers as carefully as possible. The adults were never that careful. 

"Only cause I don't want to," I argued back. My daisy chain was almost finished, and I couldn't just abandon it to go play with Erica. I plucked one last daisy from the ground, careful to only grab one, and laced it into the chain. Finishing it off was always the hardest part, but I was used to making them now. I was seven years old, not a little baby anymore! 

"You're no fun," Erica pouted as she plopped down next to me. I readied to yell at her, but she had sat on a small patch of grass, not my patch of daisies. Her eyes remained stuck on the daisy chain in my hand, though. "Can I have that, Heath?"

I nodded, handing the crown to Erica. It was originally going to be for Mommy, but it was too big to be a bracelet, and too small to be a crown for her. I plucked another daisy out of the ground to start making a bracelet for Mommy. I should only need four or five daisies to make it big enough.  

"Why are you picking the flowers, Heath?" Erica asked suddenly, like she didn't know I had to pick the flowers for the crown that she had. 

"It's for Mommy's flower bracelet," I explained as I picked up another daisy, split the stem in two, and tied it to the first one. Making the chains was fun, and it helped make me calm when I was angry. Being angry was bad, so the flowers were good. 

"Well, since I'm your older sister, I say you have to stop hurting the flowers," she demanded, standing up and stomping her foot into the grass.

"Only twelve minutes!" I retorted, picking up another flower. Pick, split, tie, repeat. I focused on the activity itself more than the argument with Erica. Mommy and Daddy told us not to argue anymore, and I didn't want to make them angry. I didn't have a bracelet for Daddy. 

"You're hurting the flowers!" she cried, her screams starting to get the attention of the people who lived close to us. Mommy would come out any second now, and both of us would be in trouble for arguing. "Stop it, Heath!"

*

If I tried hard enough, I could almost convince myself that she was screaming to protect the flowers. "Stop it, Heath!" she screamed. "Please, go away, stop hurting me!"

I should have counted myself lucky that Erica never got violent, even when she absolutely furious. Had that been the case, I would have been in worse shape than if they had left me in the Games. Instead, Erica always ran away when she got angry with others. There was nowhere to run in her cell though, and she was stuck in the corner. It didn't matter that I was in the opposite corner, my hands behind my back, she couldn't seem to get far enough away. 

"Erica, it's me," I said softly, trying to break her out of the haze. "It's Heath, your brother."

"I know exactly who you are," she spat, finally turning away from her corner. There were scratch marks on her face and her arms, and her eyes were so bloodshot it was next-to-impossible to tell they had once been white. "You hurt everyone Heath, and you're going to hurt me. Please don't hurt me, Heath." Her pleas broke down into sobs as quickly as they began. 

I just wanted to hug her, and give her a crown of flowers, to convince her that everything was going to be ok. So I did the only thing I knew with absolutely certainty I could do; I sat down in the corner I was in and cried just as loudly as Erica did.