A_GIRL_NAMED_BILLY

I know, I know I’m never on here and when I am my posts are boring, but this one’s not, I swear. 

See, I just realized there’s a huge thing that happens in The Conspiracy that was definitely an accident, but it’s like the most perfect accident ever, including my conception (haha, there’s an “I was almost a bastard child” joke for you. Jon Snow, I’m right there with ya. . . only not) Ok, so here’s the thing:

So, you know how The Conspiracy starts with Cato and Clove outside the District sleeping hand in hand like otters (which is the title of that chapter) do so they don't float away from each other in the rivers? Well, another fun fact about otters is that they have a pouch to carry their favorite rock in and right before they go to the feast, Cato and Clove exchange district tokens (their onyx and diamond rings that were made especially for them back in 2 before they left), but obviously Cato's ring is too big for Clove's finger and hers is too small for his so they put them in their POCKETS! Each takes the other's token as his/her favorite rock! They are otters again!

That was so subtle I didn't even know it was there until literally five minutes ago and I wrote the story in 2012. But there it is. 

. . . 

Hey guys! I’ve never done a contest like this before so I feel kiiiinda weird about it, but I like The Conspiracy so I posted it on to Inkitt’s Novel Contest, which runs from Sept. 21-Oct. 21. Go check it out! Even if you’ve already read The Conspiracy, there are tons of other stories out there. 

I mentioned a long time ago that I have other stories in the works and this is one of them. For once it's going up on here at the same time as on fanfiction so you guys get the actual story and not just a link. 

Sometimes I like to give you images with passages from the stories so you see where my inspiration for a particular scene came from. Here's one. This picture was taken by a friend of mine in the Republic of Georgia, which is a beautiful place.  Chapter 10: Discovery [Excerpt] 

In our silence, we hear what we’ve been too distracted to hear until now. Water. Cato and I, excited, competitive, and thirsty take off immediately for the sound, kicking rocks over the edge of the hill, racing each other to what we now see is a small spring, kept shaded by a massive rock on its west side. I hear Caleb skid to a stop, then feel his hand on the back of my shirt, and then a sharp jerk as he pulls me away, making me spill the water I had cupped in my hand. “Don’t drink it!” he says, as both his brother and I fall hard on our butts. We both glare at him. “Didn’t we just talk about this? All the damage the people before us did to the earth? You don’t just drink water unless it’s been purified, are you crazy? You don’t know what kind of bacteria could be in there.” He’s such a scientist. 

“Ok, ok, fine. We won’t drink it,” Cato says. “Sheesh, would you calm down?” 

“Why don’t you calm down?” Caleb retorts, sounding childish again. He crouches down, examines the pond, cups some water in his hands, examines that, too, and then splashes his face with it. 

“Don’t drink it but put it on your face?” I ask. 

“Your hands are fine, his hands are fine, my hands are fine. If you keep your eyes and mouth closed, you should be ok to splash yourself a little I think. The bacteria that could be in here don’t do bad things to skin. They do bad things to your digestive system.” 

I think that through a moment and then answer, “That’s gross.” I don’t realize how much I sound like a kid from the main town until both boys stare at me, Cato barely holding back a smirk. 

Cato comes in a little later than I expected. School lets out at quarter to two and we get here about two thirty, having to walk the or three so miles from our school to here, but he shows up at three. "Hey," he says, sitting down in the chair Caleb vacated earlier. He sets his school bag on the floor and leans down to remove something from it. "I brought you something. Here." He sits up again and presses a small clear plastic box into my hands. Strawberries.

"Where did you get these?" I ask him. Strawberries are expensive.

"My means of attaining strawberries for you were legal. Don't worry," he evades. "I bought them." I look at him. We recognize the value of food and money and we don't share either, not unless we're trading foods. "Your parents gave me the money...some of it." My refusal to open the package prompts his next words. "I'll eat one and we'll save one for my brother, but the rest are for you because you're sick and need food. Fair?"

"No," I say. "Not really."

"You don't owe us anything," and there's a distinct note of finality in his tone that I don't think I've ever heard from him before. It makes him sound older than his fifteen years. "Come on." And he takes the package from my hands, pulls off the sticker that holds it closed, takes a strawberry and offers the rest to me. I'd like to say I remain stubborn, that I stick it out and refuse, or at least insist that we share the contents equally, but the smell and my own hunger get the better of me. Slowly, tiny bite by tiny bite I eat a whole strawberry, right down to the little green leaves. Cato mirrors me. I can't quite tell if he's entertaining himself by copying me or just doing it because his subconscious is making him. I also don't care because the strawberry is delicious. Mock me if you will, Cato friend, but I have strawberries. When I take a second, Cato seems satisfied, sets the container on the table that moves around on wheels, puts that within my reach and stands up. "I'll stop by after training, ok?" I look across to the analogue clock Caleb checked earlier. He'll be late getting down to the gym if he doesn't go now.

"Your brother said the same. Don't abandon him in the gym. See you when you're done."

"Save one for my brother, remember?" he reminds me as I put the little green leaves of my second strawberry on the plastic lid of the container.

"Promise," I say. Then without thinking, I kiss the first two fingers of my right hand and hold them out to Cato. He grins, copies me, and touches the tips of his fingers to mine. "Promise," I repeat.

He nods, smiles, and says, "I know." He lets our touching fingers separate as he leans down to kiss my forehead, something that has become customary with our crowd. Then he straightens up, says, "See you, Tiny," and goes away again. I eat the entire container of strawberries, save one, of course.

Chapter 7: We're a Team excerpt

We don't realize how tired we are until my head falls onto his shoulder after several minutes of silence. I sit up again immediately, push my hair off my face, mutter a quick, "Sorry. I'm tired. See you in the morning," and return to my room. I change and crawl into bed, pushing the top blanket down to my knees as usual. Twenty minutes later, Cato comes in from the balcony through the sliding glass door in my room. I sit up when I hear him.

He turns to face me and I cock my head to the side, wondering what he's up to. He could just as easily have entered into his room. "I brought you a strawberry," he offers as an explanation.

"What?" That wasn't a sleepy 'what?'; I'm genuinely confused.

"Here." He sits down on the side of my bed and holds out a single strawberry. We hadn't had strawberries earlier. What is he doing?

"Thanks," I say, knowing that's proper social protocol.

"We're a team. You like strawberries."

I smile and bite into it, holding one hand under my mouth so the juice doesn't fall onto the bed. It's good. Refreshing and sweet, but not as cold on my teeth as they usually are.

"You could sleep on my shoulder, you know," he tells me. "It's okay."

"Is that why you came in here? To tell me that?"

"I just wanted to give you a proper goodnight," I nod and take another bite of strawberry. "So... goodnight."

Here's another chapter for my tumblr only readers. For those of you also following on fanfiction.net, Chapter 29 is up as of today.  Chapter 18: Waking

When I wake, I feel remarkably better. I blink myself to wakefulness and assess the sensations around me. I'm in a quiet room, mostly white and gray in color. Smooth light sheets cover my body. They're softer than the ones I have at home. As to the damage from my fight with Brutus, oddly, the pain in my knee is gone. Not just dulled but gone entirely. That's weird. I thought I'd need a week or two to recover but it feels just fine. I could get up and walk around right now if I wanted to. That's when I remember that scary thought I had earlier. The one about them cutting off my leg if the damage was irreparable. A surge of panic shoots through me and I pull myself up to see my leg.

I wrench the blanket away to see that it's there. My leg is still fully attached. It's bound up tight in a hard white cast, lying straight and apparently fixed on my bed. I can see my toes poking out of the cast. I wiggle them. Good.

All of this happens rather rapidly. From the time I opened my eyes until now, probably only a few seconds have gone by. "Easy," I hear from my right. Then Caleb's hand is on my shoulder, pushing me gently back to rest on the pillow.

"No," I say, making to prop myself up again. "I can't see you."

"You can't see me?" he asks, apparently concerned. "What do you mean?"

"If I'm lying down all the way. I can't see because I'm looking at the ceiling."

"Oh," he says. "Well, here. Sit still." I do and he presses a button which raises the top half of the bed up so I'm almost sitting. I'm not quite though so I pull myself up higher on the bed so I'm not sitting on my tailbone.

"Why'd you sit up so fast, anyway?" Cato asks from my other side. "What's the hurry?"

"Nothing," I say before realizing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "I mean, there's no hurry, I just thought..." but I trail off. Somehow, saying I thought they took half my leg away feels a little extreme now that I'm calm, out of surgery and no longer in pain.

"Thought what?" he prompts.

I sigh, knowing that even if I try not to tell them I will eventually. It's just how we are. Six years of close friendship have yielded some serious honesty. "I thought before the surgery, what if they couldn't fix it? Would they just take it away?"

"Take it away? Clove, they weren't just going to amputate your leg above the knee to avoid fixing a broken bone." Caleb says exasperatedly. "And they'd have warned you if amputation was even a thought in their heads," he adds.

"It was just a thought I had," I say. But I don't bother to actually be defensive. I know it was a stupid thought.

"That's what we were there for, wasn't it? To make sure they didn't do something crazy like that," Cato says.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," I grumble, then decide the only way to make them quit talking about it is to change the subject. "What time is it?"

Caleb's eyes flit to a clock on the wall that I hadn't noticed. "Ten thirty," he answers. My eyes snap to the hands as well. Ten thirty?

"What happened? We should all be home by now." Where did the time go?

"Well, you two fought at around four, we got you into surgery a little after five, it was a four and a half hour surgery and you woke up about half an hour after it ended," Caleb explains.

"Our parents are gonna be out of their minds," I say. "When can we go home?"

"How are you gonna get home on that leg?" Cato asks me. I hadn't thought of that. Mended it may be, but it's still wrapped up inconveniently.

"Cato," Caleb says sternly. I've heard him use that tone when Cato or I say something completely tactless, but I don't understand what the problem is now until a second later.

"Well, obviously I can't go home tonight," I say as though it were obvious. "But how long? How long till it's healed?"

"Couple weeks," Caleb tells me. "Six to eight." Six to eight weeks? "Your parents can come up on Sundays. That's what the kids who live farther away do. Those kids who are from the outer edges of the District stay here all the time and only see their families on Sundays.

"We'll come see you every day though," Cato says. "Promise." I nod in silent thank you.

"Tell them I'm ok though. They'll be worried."

"Of course we will," Caleb answers.