Forbidden

“We’ve caught you kissing the mentor from District Four, and assumed that you have something going on. Is this true? The viewers have been really curious,” Caesar Flickerman asks me.


I give him one of my death stares, and turn as red as the lipstick my stylist, Aelia, put me in, if not redder.


“Uh, yeah, actually. It’s gone on for a while now,” I say, my face getting darker by the second.


When Caesar looks at me expectantly, I quickly say “Well, it’s a long story,” which translates to “Go away. I don’t want to talk about it.”


He apparently doesn’t realize this, so he says “We’ve got time.


I just sit there, looking at him as if he were a worm that fell out of my shoe. That’s happened once. Not very fun.


Oh! You have absolutely no idea what’s happening, do you? Alright, I’ll start from the very beginning, when I first met my boyfriend, Julius, about two years ago…





“Rob! Please? It’s not like I actually do anything anyway! You even said it yourself, that I don’t do anything!” I yell at my uncle, the mayor of District Seven. I live with him because when I was younger, my family died in a house fire. I still wake up coughing from the smoke in my nightmares, but that’s not the point. I wanted to supervise the lumberjacks that bring our lumber to the other Districts. I’m well liked (although I can be a total brat if you annoy me), respected (sort of, but they only respect me because of my uncle), and (if I do say so myself) pretty. Why wouldn’t those guys like me supervising them? It’s not like I actually do anything, anyway. (I’m chronically lazy. Everybody picks on me about it.) We just talk, eat, get out of (hard) work, and socialize with people from other districts. Well, we’d also have to, you know, pick up big chunks of wood, and carry it, which is why I’ll be supervising. Besides, I’m a scrawny fifteen year-old; do you seriously expect me to carry blocks of wood that weigh the same (maybe more) than me?


“Ugh, fine. Amia, just so you know, you are the most persuasive person I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Uncle Rob said with a trace of a smile on his lips.


So, I basically just traveled on a train around to all the districts. However, in District Four, there was a gas leak or something like that on the train, I can’t really remember, as it doesn’t matter, causing us to have to spend the night in the District. There was no room in the Justice Building for everybody, namely me, so one of the victors, the one who just won the previous year and was only one year older than me, which was a relief, Julius Cole, let me sleep in his house, on the couch. I thanked him, and he told me that it was no problem.



I remember this part so vividly. When I woke up, Julius was right there, looking at me. At first I felt uncomfortable, but then I realized he was just studying my face, not weirdly, just curiously.


“What’s a pretty girl like you doing with the lumberjacks?” he asked.


“Oh. I convinced my uncle, the mayor, to let me come. I got bored sitting around in my District, and I can be very convincing when I want to. So, here I am. And, there are female lumberjacks, you know,” I said sarcastically. This boy was really getting on my nerves. I don’t care if he’s a victor! He’s just an annoying brat. A cute brat, but still..!


He smiled. “I know. What do you think I am, a dumbass? I’m not stupid, you know. Maybe not the biggest, but the awesomest, I must say,” he says, raising his eyebrows at me.


I laughed. I, never in my life, have laughed so long and so hard. It was the way he was talking to me, in that seductive voice that isn’t really his own, what he was saying, and just about everything about him that made me laugh that way.


“You know, I don’t even know your name,” Julius said.


“Oh! I thought I told you. My name’s Amia Clark. You seem like someone I’ve known for years.” I leave out the part where I say ‘and have had a crush on you', too, because, let’s face it, I was head over heels for this one. He just had such a relaxed, easy personality that I just couldn’t help loving. And yes, I had only met him the night before. That’s solid proof that I love him, right? Right.


“You too. You’re the only person I can, you know, be myself around. I can’t explain it. I agree, though. You were the girl I saw in school who was just so pretty that all the boys wanted and I was just too shy to ask you out. I know this is really fast, and I’m not making any sense, but I really, really like you, Amia,” he said so fast I hardly understood what he said. I made him repeat it slowly, and when I finally understood him, I grinned. He spread his arms out for a hug, and I returned it without a second thought.



We were just talking about silly, random things when someone roughly knocked on the door.



Bang! Bang! Bang!



We looked at the door, and I walked over to open it.



There stood Carter, the lumberjack. My heart sank. I was enjoying myself.


“Train’s fixed?” I asked.


“Yep. Come on.”


“You say you live with the mayor?” Julius asked. I didn’t even realize he walked up to the door.


I nodded yes. I did.


“Good then you’ll have a phone. Call me. Here’s my number,” he pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote his telephone number on it.


“Promise to call me?”


“Of course I will, stupid,” and give him a light kiss on the cheek.



We do, and in the next two years, we become a couple. Even though there’s a large distance between us, we’re inseparable.



~~~



This year, on the Reaping, as usual, Julius calls to wish me good luck. We start talking about random things, and keep doing this until Uncle Rob yells at me to get dressed.


“Ugh, my uncle is yelling at me. I’ll call you after,” I tell Julius.


“Actually, I’m mentoring this year,” he says, disappointed. I can’t blame him.


“Oh. Alright then. Call me when you’re on the train?” I ask hopefully.


“Sure. You need to get dressed. Your uncle is loud,” he says jokingly.


“Okay, bye.” I hang up and walk upstairs, where I change into a pretty purple dress with nice, silver flats. I’m tall enough; I don’t need heels. I brush out my long, straight, dark hair and braid it loosely over my shoulder. There. Good enough, I guess.



I walk back down the stairs, where I find my best friend, Kailen DeWalt, waiting for me. “You look nice. Nice touch, with the hair. Mine’s a real pain in the butt, you know,” she says as I laugh at her good-naturedly. Kailen’s always complaining about her hair because it’s really curly, and when she goes to brush it, it gets really frizzy, so she wears it up full time. And, she despises the color: a bright, bright red. Surprisingly, it’s down, and it’s not that frizzy. The color’s still there, though. She has on a crisp white linen dress that reminds me of a mummy the way it’s made. She wears it with navy blue wedges, which look really good on her.



We say goodbye to Uncle Rob (he has to come up independently as he’s the mayor) and he wishes us luck.



When we sign in and head to the roped off section for seventeen year olds, we encounter a problem: Kailen’s hair started frizzing up, to the point where it was fully rounded. I’ll admit, it was really funny, though. Luckily, somebody had a hair tie for her to use.



“Well, remind me that I’m not allowed to keep my hair down, okay?” she asked me. “Assuming you live, I mean. But, still, what are the chances of you of all people?” Kailen went on. “Unlike me or other people who need to take tesserae; the chances of your name being drawn are really slim, Amia. You’re really lucky.”



I’m offended now. How dare she go on about that, me not living, my name getting drawn? It’s not like I made up the rules, it’s the Capitol that’s trying to get us to hate each other so if we rebel, we’d be easy to defeat! And saying that I’m lucky? I mean, sure, I have an amazing boyfriend, and don’t have to take tesserae, but my entire family died in a house fire when I was six years old! Now, I’m hoping Kailen’s name is drawn now. I swear, that girl... Ugh!



Just as the clock strikes one, Uncle Rob comes up, and gives the required speech about how Panem came to be. Blah blah blah... We know this already.



Just then, he introduces District Seven’s escort, Ellie Enders, the scary looking lady with the pea green hair, and the outfit to match. I must say that that color is really awful. “Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor!” she says, as with all the districts.



“Ladies first,” she says as she swirls her hand in the big glass bowl with the twenty-one slips that say Amia Clark on them, and the thirty that say Kailen DeWalt. (I’m not that mad anymore.) My stomach is all the way up at my throat, and I can hardly breathe because I’m hoping that it isn’t me.



But, as always, I’m not lucky, contrary to popular belief.



“Amia Clark!”