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Tigris knows he’s here before he even knocks. Something about the strange charge in the air, coupled with the faintest smell of roses, wafting into her apartment.
He taps lightly but firmly on the door. Tigris freezes at her sewing machine, hoping that if she’s still enough, silent enough, he’ll just go away.
‘I know you’re in there, Tigris,’ he says in his smooth, removed, fake voice. So unlike the one she grew up listening to. So unlike the one she loves. ‘Please let me in.’
The “please” is perfunctory. If she doesn’t open the door, he’ll knock it down. Or rather, he’ll pay someone to knock it down for him. President Snow doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, or at least that’s what they say. Tigris doesn’t really know him anymore.
Hating herself, she rises from her chair and in a few swift steps has opened the door.
Coryo’s wrapped up in a thick woollen coat that doesn’t take Tigris’s knowing eye to see that it’s exquisitely expensive. He gives her an appraising look as Tigris, for her part, stands proudly in her threadbare dress. Unlike Coryo, she has never reverted to the lavish lifestyle they were born into. Those years following the war taught her that she doesn’t need luxuries and things that cost the heaven and the earth to be happy. She didn’t need them then and she doesn’t need them now.
Not that she likes to think about then. Because as crazy as it sounds, maybe those dark days where she didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, were some of the happiest of her life. Because at least then she had Coryo and they were working as a team and he still seemed remotely human to her.
Not like now. Now he looks at her with those same blue eyes and those same blond curls but somehow manages to look completely different. Like someone Tigris doesn’t really know.
‘May I come in?’ Coryo asks. Somehow, he manages to make it not sound like a question at all and before Tigris has time to register what she’s doing, she’s stepped aside so that he can sweep past her. She hates herself for always enabling him to exert his will on her.
She closes the door and follows him into the living room. Somehow, he has already managed to make the entire place smell of roses. It’s strange how his scent which always used to bring her a sense of peace and comfort, now turns her stomach. There’s something not off but different about his scent too. It’s sweeter somehow, like roses after its rains, and it’s like listening to a song she’s always known being played in a slightly different key.
‘Hm,’ Coryo says, turning on the spot and glancing around the room. ‘It’s tasteful but I’m sure you can afford better, Tigris.’
‘Sometimes things that are more expensive are worse,’ she shoots back.
Coryo lets out a short laugh. ‘Are they? You know, somehow I’ve never quite found that to be true.’
He continues to look around at her things, making her feel like she’s somehow being strip-searched.
‘What do you want, Coryo?’ she asks, her voice firm.
‘Really, Tigris?’ Coryo runs his fingers over the worn fur coat that was Tigris’s mothers which she has slung over the back of her chair. ‘You hurt me. Is it too much to ask that we can just have a simple conversation?’
‘For you, I suspect the answer is “yes”,’ she replies, anger rising hot and red in her chest when he merely smiles an amused smile.
There is something about him though, she realises. Something different. She can’t quite put her finger on it and she lets her gaze settle on every part of him.
His cheeks, she thinks finally. There’s a fullness to them that she doesn’t quite remember being there before. And his curls seem incredibly thick and lush, even for him. She wonders darkly if he’s had some procedures done. He was always fond of how he looked, after all.
‘It seems like you’re determined to see the worst in me these days,’ Coryo says mildly. ‘How long has it been since we’ve properly spoken? Two years, perhaps? I find it strange that you seem to think so ill of me when we barely know each other anymore.’
He almost gets to her. Almost. Possibly only because Tigris wants to believe that he’s still in there; the boy she more or less raised from ages eight to eighteen. Her Coryo.
She probably would have given him a chance, and given how charismatic he is, a chance may have been all he needed. But then the colour drains from his face. He raises his hand to his mouth as he retches horribly – once, twice, three times – but mercifully nothing comes up.
Tigris is horror struck.
‘I see you’ve taken another victim recently,’ she said distastefully, folding her arms over her chest and willing herself not to tremble as she glares at him.
Coryo swallows thickly before slowly lowering his fist from his lips, swaying a little where he stands. Very slowly, he shakes his head.
‘You can lie to everyone else – maybe even your husband,’ Tigris says, because she never can work out just how much Sejanus knows about his dearly beloved. ‘But you can’t lie to me. I know what you do to people you perceive to be a threat. You must feel so powerful when you’re vomiting up whatever poison you gave them, desperate not to fall victim to it yourself.’
‘I do, actually,’ Coryo says quietly, a twisted kind of smile playing around his lips. ‘But that’s not what this is. I came to tell you something.’
Tigris feels a thrill of fear. She hates herself for it. Hates that Coryo can have this effect on her.
‘And what’s that?’ she asks, torn between not wanting to know and being so desperate to know everything about the boy that she used to love more than life itself.
Coryo hums thoughtfully, tilting his head to the side. Then he takes his time undoing the buttons and then opening up his coat. It takes Tigris a moment to realise what she’s looking at. That the new swell to Coryo’s stomach isn’t just because of the way his shirt is sitting.
‘I’m pregnant,’ he says.
Now it’s Tigris’s turn to feel like she might be sick. She feels like Coryo has somehow swept in, turned the world upside down and then put it right side up again but in a way that means all of the pieces haven’t quite come back into their proper positions.
Maybe it’s because in her head, Coryo is still eight – ten at the most – and the idea him having a child of his own feels incredibly strange. It’s more than there just being a baby inside of him though. It’s the touches and kisses and caresses that put it there. Now, Coryo has been married for seven years and in a serious relationship for ten. It’s not like Tigris didn’t know he was having sex. But now she’s being presented with the evidence of that, she realises that there’s a big difference between knowing that her baby cousin is sexually active and actually knowing that.
‘I see,’ she tells him in a measured voice, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
‘Tigris,’ Coryo says, sounding a little impatient. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I’ve just told you that I’m pregnant and I’m clearly not feeling very well. Surely, the least you could do is offer me somewhere to sit down?’
Tigris wants to slap him. She wonders if it would feel as satisfying as she imagines it would.
‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘You’re not going to be staying long. Why would you think I’d want to know something like this?’
Coryo arches an eyebrow. ‘Really, Tigris? You’re going to be an aunt. I thought you’d be honoured to know before the news is publicly announced to the people of Panem.’
There are so many things Tigris could say to him. About what he’s done. About what he’s surely planning to do. About how she feels about him bringing an innocent child into all of this. About her fears of what growing inside someone like him for nine months might do to said child. But anything she says will just be twisted and used against her by her silver-tongued cousin. So she settles for something entirely different.
‘I didn’t even know you wanted children,’ Tigris manages. He’ll never let it show, but that should hit a nerve. Coryo hates having his intentions questioned. Of being reminded that maybe he’s not as collected and decisive as he likes to think he is.
Coryo shrugs and runs his hand over the curve of his belly. The movement should look tender and loving, but it doesn’t. There’s a stiltedness to it, and air of unfamiliarity, and Tigris suddenly feels sure that this display of affection for his unborn child is purely for her benefit. Touching his baby bump isn’t something Coryo normally does and it’s not something he particularly likes either.
‘Sejanus is very eager to have a family of our own. Is it so wrong that I decided to make him happy?’
Tigris snorts.
‘You may be able to fool the world, Coryo,’ she says. ‘But you don’t fool me. We both know that Sejanus is not the one who makes the decisions in your relationship and nor are you overly concerned with making him happy. It does, however, bring me some comfort that at least your child will have Sejanus in his or her life because – and please feel free to take this with offence – I think you’re going to be a terrible father.’
Coryo smiles. Then he laughs. The noise bounces around the room, reverberating off the walls.
‘Oh Tigris,’ he says. ‘I do miss our chats. Even after all this time, no one can make me laugh like you do.’
His eyes are cold and hard but now that she knows to look for it, Tigris can see that he’s still feeling unwell. She suspects the pregnancy hasn’t been easy on him. She’s not sorry about that. She worries about him terribly. She can’t work out how she can feel both things at the same time.
‘I’m thirty weeks along,’ Coryo says thoughtfully, even though no one asked. Tigris is surprised although determined not to show it. She would have guessed fewer than that based on the size of his belly. She suspects Coryo wants her to mention that; he was always proud of his tiny figure, after all.
‘Huh,’ she says, determined not to give him the satisfaction. ‘I’m surprised you’re still suffering from morning sickness then. Doesn’t that usually go away after the first trimester?’
A ripple of anger flickers through his features before he schools them into something cold and expressionless again.
‘You could be happy for me, Tigris,’ he says.
‘And you could have been a good person,’ she replies. ‘But I guess we’re both left disappointed.’
And with that, Coryo furiously refastens his coat and storms out of her apartment.
She’s both relieved and sorry to see him go. She always is.
*
Nine weeks later, Tigris is curled up on her couch, watching the seemingly never-ending coverage that President Snow has safely given birth to his first child! It’s 7am but she’s made no attempt to get ready for work. For the first time in her life, she thinks she might call in sick.
She certainly feels unwell. Despite her claims that she no longer cares for Coryo, she has to admit that she had collapsed to the floor and sobbed in what she could only describe as ‘relief’ when she heard that Coryo was safe.
The truth was that Tigris had suspected Coryo was in labour for the past two days.
Completely against her will, Tigris had been keeping track of how far along Coryo would be. She had been on high alert since last week, knowing that it isn’t uncommon for an Omega’s first baby to be born a little early. But it wasn’t until the morning news had reported that “President Snow was reportedly unavailable for comment” on an issue in the districts that Tigris felt deep inside her that her cousin’s baby was coming.
Tigris hadn’t slept that night. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, why that was the case.
She has a better idea about why she rushed to her television the next morning, turned on the news and waited with baited breath, a sick rush of panic rising in her throat when there was no mention about Coryo at all.
The thoughts came unbidden. What was taking so long? Was it possible that Coryo had died and the Capitol was still trying to decide on the best way to tell the people? More than once Tigris had picked up her phone and even got some ways into dialing Coryo’s number when she forced herself to stop.
Coryo is not her child – she’s always known that – but sometimes he feels like he is and Tigris isn’t sure she could survive his loss. Regardless of what’s happened to their relationship, the thought of Coryo succumbing to the same fate as his mother, to have him suddenly gone from the world, is more than Tigris feels she can handle.
Now she stares at Coryo on her television screen alive and apparently well. His smile is so lovely as he stands on the front steps of the finest hospital in Panem. He looks genuinely happy, glowing, and so, so in love. Sejanus is by his side and they share a sweet kiss that Tigris is surprised Coryo allows in public.
The baby is a boy and they’ve named him Julianus Crassus Snow.
Tigris studies Coryo as he walks with Sejanus down the hospital steps and to a waiting car. He’s not completely steady on his feet, Tigris notes and he looks a little pale and drawn despite the thick layer of make-up that has been expertly applied. She presumes that’s to be expected: he’s just had a baby, after all.
Then he gets into the car, Sejanus hurries around the other side and gets in too, and then the news moves on to something else and Tigris finds herself longing to know what is happening with Coryo.
She misses him. No, she misses who he used to be. Who he could have been. The truth is that even if she was in thar car with Coryo right now, she’d still miss him because he’s not the boy that she grew up with.
She can’t help think about how in another life, she would be with him, caring for him as he recovers and helping to look after the baby. She turns off the television and rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling.
Does she hate Coryo as much as she loves him? Or does she love him as much as she hates him?
All these years later, she still doesn’t know.