Sunrise on the Reaping

She says all the Covey girls are a mystery, it’s half their charm.

brought our victor up with Lenore Dove a few times, but she never wanted to discuss her

Either we outrun the storm or it outruns us.

The moment our hearts shattered? It belongs to us

It’s all been taken away

you know what they say, unlucky at cards, lucky in love

Today I have twenty slips of paper with my name in the reaping. Every kid automatically gets one each year, but I have an additional three because I always take on three tesserae to feed myself and my family members. A tessera gets you a ration of tinned oil and a sack of flour marked courtesy of the capitol for one person, collectible each month at the Justice Building. In exchange, you have to put your name in the reaping an extra time for each tessera that year. Those entries stick with you and add up. Four slips a year times five years — that’s how I have twenty. But to make things worse, since this year’s the second Quarter Quell, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Hunger Games, each district has to send twice the usual number of kids. I figure, for me, it’s like having forty slips on a regular year. And I don’t like those odds.

You can’t count on things happening tomorrow just because they happened in the past. It’s faulty logic.”

“Is it?” I say. “Because it’s kind of how people plan out their lives.”

“And that’s part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.”

“I love it.” I give her a long, soft kiss. “And I love you like all-fire.”

Today I have twenty slips of paper with my name in the reaping. Every kid automatically gets one each year, but I have an additional three because I always take on three tesserae to feed myself and my family members.