#atthecolorshow

I limp home after my third shift at the mines; my left leg throbbing like it does after too many hours standing. It never used to bother me this much, not when I was in school, but I know that I’m no longer able to sit and listen to the teacher tell us about the depths of the mines or the black of the coal.

Not anymore. Now I have to endure it.

I just turned eighteen not too many weeks ago. I didn’t even get to finish up school before my mother was ripping the thinning blankets from my sleeping form and telling me it was time to go to work. I couldn’t talk back to her – nobody talked back to my mother or you got her beat up rolling pin jammed into your ribs.

Instead I went down to the mines and enlisted in work, saying goodbye to the last vestiges of my childhood as I began to mentally commit to a life underground.

I’d always known it would be like this for me. A bastard child of a long-gone Peacekeeper, the dirty blonde hair of a district import mixed with the ash black of a Seam mother. Every page of my life had turned over in the same predictable mess as the lives before mine. My first bruises weren’t from playing sports like any of the Merchant class – like so many others in the Seam they were from the hands of my mother. That’s just how it was.

I’d taken the job in the mines to help support my mother because nothing else paid quiet as well for a hobbled kid like me. The day my mother broke my leg by pushing me down the stairs was the day she signed our lease on living at the bottom of the Seam class. It figures that that was also the day her screams picked up an octave and her white liquor consumption nearly doubled.

It was so predictable. But it was life here in the Seam and you didn’t just try to leave the life you were stuck with. Besides, if I ever did try to leave where would I even go? I had no hope in hell getting out of the district, no fair minded Merchant family would hire me in, and I could be damn sure that none of the girls around here wanted anything to do with someone like me.

So here I was, staggering back home in the rain after a miserable day underground where I could already tell my body would quickly tire and begin to fall apart.

It was depressing. It was hopeless.

“Peeta!”

I shuddered at the screech that greeted me as I stepped onto our cracking porch. I’d hoped maybe there would be the slim chance that mother wouldn’t be home. Perhaps maybe she’d be at the Hob trying to negotiate Ripper down from another liquor price that she would end up paying for with my wages anyways. No such luck – she was here and apparently already in a bad mood.

“Get in here you little shit!” Her scream reverberated in my ears forcing my body to instinctively prepare for the worst as I stepped over the threshold. It wasn’t that bad, I couldn’t help but think, as her knuckles cracked against my chin. I’d had much worse and the liquor had apparently softened her blow. She’d pass out early, that I knew. “Where is the bread you were supposed to bring home?”

I stood at the door to the house, staring down at her as my palm smoothed over the inflamed skin of my jaw. I’d known I was supposed to do something but this morning when she’d yelled at me as I’d left before dawn I hadn’t really been able to comprehend the slurring words she’d tried to pass off as a request.

In all reality, I had no excuse.

“How can I rely on your worthless self to do anything right? How do I marry off someone who can’t even remember any goddamn thing? You’re useless!” Her echoing screams fill the house, bouncing off the barren walls and pushing in on me until I feel as small as a snail. I’d never sought my mother’s affection – not since her fists became more common than her hugs – but it didn’t help that every time she spoke she couldn’t help but berate me into submission.

“Yes, mother, I’ll go get it now,” I hiss out, taking her push between my shoulder blades without a word before moving back out the door.

The last thing I wanted to do right now with my aching leg was continue on walking in the rain and the mud to the bakery that was on the border of the Seam and the Merchant line of the district. I did it anyways though – mother’s wrath was far more worth avoiding than a sleepless night with a sore leg.

I was nearly halfway back after negotiating for the stale remnants before closing when I saw the flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. At first I didn’t give it pause – I was so used to seeing stray animals roaming the streets that it didn’t even phase me. That is, until the small animal became a girl, maybe a few years younger than me with thick black hair and bones that nearly poked out of her skin they were so sharp.

The moment my step faltered she froze like a caught deer, her grey eyes wide as the water pounded down on her thick plait of hair. She was thin – unbearably so – and she looked to be struggling to carry a few pieces of fabric that were hanging limply from her arms. My stomach ached for her as I realized she must be starving to death.

In that moment the bread in its bag in my hands felt too heavy for me to possibly carry. We stared at each other in the murky light, neither one of us moving as though we were caught in a spell.

I couldn’t not help her. There was something more here – something I had to save even though I couldn’t tell what. Reaching in the bag without another thought I broke the half-stale bread into two and held half of it out to her.

“Take it,” I called out into the rain, thrusting it towards her as the water seemed to come down in a thicker rush. My uncut bangs were beginning to cover my eyes, the thick blonde likely visible despite the wet sheen.

Through the wall of water I could just barely make out seeing her shake her head no in my direction. My gaze hardened, determined to make sure she took what I was giving her.

She needed to live. I couldn’t bare the alternative.

“Take it!” I demanded, stepping towards her. I watched as her arms tightened around the bundle of clothes and she stumbled back, dropping a few pieces before looking at them forlornly.

In two steps I was before her, grabbing up the thin wool fabric she’d dropped and placing it back in her arms. I didn’t hesitate to tuck the bread under one of the pieces, securing it to her chest and stepping back from her nearness. My body buzzed from the close contact, a foreign feeling lingering in my blood.

“Please,” I whispered and I knew it was barely audible through the sound of the rain hitting the ground.