Archive of Our Own

Maysilee isn’t sure why she thought her Papa getting appointed as the mayor would ease the tightness between her ribs.

She despised the Sweet Shop and her family’s apartment above it because it was repetitive. She was welcomed with the same fragrances every day when she descended down into the shop, the same faces, the same feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation. Upstairs, she’d been sharing a room with Merrilee before she even had the capacity to remember a time prior. The sun always blinded her in the mornings due to the awkward placing of her bed frame that’d been welded into the wall when she was little. Change was never an option for her.

Until she’d heard a rumor.

Consisting of her Papa. About him succeeding Mayor Allister.

He’s never not been cagey about his professional life, but once she caught wind of that, she couldn’t contain her excitement. If it were to happen, they would be able to leave the shop, the square, and move into the big townhouse near the center of the district. Gleaming with marble, with hope. With the freedom and change Maysilee’s so desperately yearned for.

She had been thirteen when that first wafted into her orbit, sixteen when it came true, and eighteen when she realized it wasn’t all it’d cracked up to be.

Sure, she didn’t have to deal with the eyesore of the Sweet Shop anymore. She had her own room now. But those weren’t really the actual faces of the problem, were they? It was the constant tension of being stuck. No way out. Caged.

And the lifestyle of a mayor’s daughter, the house she lived in, was nothing but those things. The peppermint patterned walls of the shop and cracking mirrors of her aged bathroom hadn’t disappeared, they’d just taken new forms. The scaling pillars that cradled the concrete porch that vaguely reminded Maysilee of the nightmarish trees she used to dream of as a child. The grating sounds of fax machines and phone dials from her Papa’s office. The scheduled appearances. The Capitol newspapers that were now delivered to their doorstep, like she gave a damn about those idiots and what was going on in their preposterous lives.

How humiliated she’d felt at the last reaping ceremony; her Papa reading off the Treaty of Treason and scripted, Capitol-infested speech ahead of the entire district. All while everyone around her glared her down. 

The mere decent consolation about the reaping, was that it would be her last eligible year this upcoming July. It wouldn’t scrub away her burning cheeks of embarrassment and irritation, she knew that. But at least she could stand in the back of the square instead of being huddled up with girls who hated her guts between fenced-off sections like a herded sheep.

Tonight, it’s a foggy Sunday night in early March, and she’s obliged to sit behind her Papa, next to her sister and mother, at his weekly panel. It’s sort of like a meeting. He flips through papers, discusses future policies he’d try to get approved by the Capitol, takes suggestions from citizens in the rows of chairs.

Maysilee’s perpetually bored, as always, relying on untangling her necklaces to push her through the hour; Merrilee and her mother have dedicated their time to actually paying attention. Or pretending to. She supposes it’s a good thing for him to do—but she doesn’t know why she needed to be there. Her presence offers absolutely nothing. She didn’t care about any of it. Sometimes she would tap on Merrilee’s arm and they’d go and hide out in the bathroom until they heard the big doors of their home clanging shut.

She would do the same now, but her mother has sat herself down in between her and Merrilee, and she jumps at any opportunity to snap at Maysilee. Trying to get Merrilee’s attention at this point in time would be like poking a sleeping bear and acting surprised once she got mauled. She knew her Papa would be upset with them afterward for disrupting. So, she keeps her hands tucked in her lap, draws her nails across the crushed velvet material of her dress, and allows her eyes to scale the room. Trying to find something even remotely interesting to focus on.

A woman in the second row is wearing dim, yellowish heels that make Maysilee think of vomit. There’s a man in the seat directly in front of her donning a suit that looks far too exquisite for the occasion, tacky. Another man, who’s separated himself from the rest, has coal stains on his overalls that could’ve easily been washed out. Maysilee finds a flaw in every single participant, and soon enough that gets boring, too.

She drums her fingers on her thighs, chin gently tipping up to the ceiling as she removes her gaze from the dozens of seats. The mayor’s house was always sort of intimidating to her from a distance in the past. The structure was old, but somehow shiny. Wide and glorious and a complete mystery unless you delved inside yourself. She’d been in it before her Papa was appointed, but now that she’d actually been living in it for over a year, she only felt that way even more. The halls were cold in the mornings, rooms felt occupied despite no one being there. When she’d entered certain areas, she swore she could smell Mrs. Allister’s perfume lingering. It made the hairs on the back of her neck raise, as if she were being watched by souls who were no longer on this earth.

Speaking of ghosts, chills never fail to surge through her body when she looks at the piano across the floor. Even now. She thinks of a girl with orange painted nails who used to play it—who’d died of appendicitis. Which occurred, coincidentally, days after Haymitch Abernathy’s house burnt to the ground. Maysilee could smell the fire for weeks. Anyone with a working brain knows those incidents weren’t accidental. Maysilee thought of what the Capitol had done to her classmate when he stumbled off stage at the last reaping. She thought of what else they’d do to him as the years went on. She thought of what he could’ve possibly done in the Second Quarter Quell to deserve it in their eyes.

She usually drives her attention away from the piano, though tonight, there’s a figure nearby that has her staring a little longer.

He’s propped his elbow atop the drooling window sill, staring at her Papa at his podium and the guests through his thick strands of hair. Maysilee notices the palm-sized notebook in his grasp, how he begins to viciously scrabble the point of his pencil against the paper every time someone speaks. It causes her to squint in perplexity: nothing about this was interesting enough to write about. Her Papa hadn’t hired someone, had he? Couldn’t have. That didn’t make any sense. He recorded his own stuff, he didn’t need someone else to do it for him. 

Maysilee can’t really make out any of his features besides the dark hair. So, she hasn’t got a single clue if she recognizes him, but she’s also never recalled seeing a singled-out person just watching. Tracking down everything. He’s under the low light in the corner, by the piano no one dares to step close to. It isn’t until then that she realizes he’s purposefully secluding himself. Letting himself get eaten up by the shadows.

Then in a moment of silence, his eyes slowly drift and meet hers. She can see the glisten of his pupils beneath the blanket of dying light, she can even see his shoulders straighten out. Swallowing back the heaviness of breath that builds in her throat, Maysilee wonders if he had felt her staring.

“Alright, that’s all I have to discuss with you folks today,” her Papa announces broadly, voice echoing, and in a flash, the boy ducks his notebook in his pocket and slips out the door like smoke escaping a vent. His outfit is entirely brown and scratchy, one of his boots is untied, lace dragging across the floor. He’s wearing a hat the shape of a muffin. Maysilee blinks awake. For some reason, obtaining the urge to follow him into the night. “Thank you for your participation as always. I’ll see you next week. Same place, same time.”

She stays put in her chair.

On the next Sunday that follows, Maysilee’s added a new necklace to her collection. The piece is a bit longer than the others she wears, descending past her heart locket and flower medallion. It’s a simple creation: pale pink and white beads, a few golden charms hanging from the curved thread. But it brings a pop of color, and that’s what she was going for. She’s always liked to match her jewelry and clothing with the seasons, and with spring approaching in just a month, she’s migrating to pastels. Tossing the dreary blues and grays of winter into a chest for next year.

She boredly buttons-up a faint green dress for tonight’s panel. Clips barrettes in her hair, deliberately aware of the sadness in her reflection. It’s dumb she’s even dressed up, but it wasn’t like she had anyone to impress outside of it. She doesn’t go out, no one likes her enough to talk to her. Asterid, her one and only friend beside her own sister, got hurt in an altercation she still won’t tell Maysilee about and has been keeping her distance for a little over a year now. And she liked the dress; she wanted people to see it. 

When she plops herself down in the all-too uncomfortable chair of the entrance room, she resumes her routine of mentally floating away as her Papa begins to speak. Maysilee sucks in a breath, scanning the crowd with a scowl. Hate that bow on her, her lip quirks up in disgust. A sequin dress? Really? She could fall asleep, actually. What’s up with the wrinkled tie? Don’t own an ironing board? She swallows a yawn. Oh, there’s that guy again.

She’s fidgeting with one of her golden charms on her new necklace when she’s drawn to the darkness of the corner of the room.

There is that guy again.

Except now, he’s further back. Completely sunken in. Not next to the window like he was the week prior. If Maysilee were anyone else, she would find him menacing.

He’s flipping something in his hand, pencil already daggering into his notebook. Maysilee swears he doesn’t even blink. She notices that after a moment of eyeballing, this wasn’t an intentional look of menace, he’s just deathly focused. She doesn’t ask herself why. It was probably weird of her to unravel that, considering she has no idea who he is still and she’s goggling at him like a hawk. If anything, she was the menacing one.

The hour passes. Her stare kept wandering back to him. She would try to indulge herself in someone else, something else. But all her brain could do was wonder how he could see what he was writing in the dark, and what he was writing. And who he was.

“Alright, that’s all I have to discuss with you folks today,” the boy goes to leave. Maysilee watches his every step, expecting to be left with the sight of his back. However, a force she cannot see stops him, his boots hit the inner rim of the door as he pulls himself to a halt, then gradually, he turns. And glances around her home before looking directly at her.

Eyes as dark as ink. Pulp nose, angled jaw—she could fully see him now, beneath the milky orange overhead light. Seam. Definitely not younger than her, nor in her class. No, she did not recognize him at all.

When the doorlock clicks shut with his exit, it sounds as loud as a gunshot, and her head spins.

Maysilee’s gut tightens. She gets the inclination to jump to her feet, a feeling close to excitement petaling inside of her. “Thank you for your participation as always. I’ll see you next week. Same place, same time.”

She remains glued to her cushion.

Three weeks pass, and this Sunday, it’s the first weekend of April. Spring humidity has begun to seep into Twelve, leaving misty dew upon growing flowers in its wake.

Maysilee does not stay put in her chair this time around at the panel.

He hadn’t been there last week. Or the one before that. His absence made her ponder, which was kind of ridiculous. Because she hadn’t thought much of the guy’s sudden, covert appearances in the interval where he was missing. Not constantly, anyhow. There were plenty of strange people in District Twelve, she told herself. How different can he be?

She couldn’t help herself, though. She quite literally has nothing else interesting going on in her life. Before her Papa’s mayor appointment, she could work away at bagging taffy or cleaning up. As much as she loathed the shop, it gave her something to do. 

Maysilee busied herself during the dull hours of her days by thinking of the spaced encounters as she combed through her hobbies. The second their gapes locked across the room while organizing her beads. Him intercepting her stare while stitching scraps of old clothing together. How he’d always left before her Papa had even finished speaking while measuring her wrists for new bracelets.

She thought of him poking around, trying to hide away. It was like she’d caught him doing something an outsider might find odd. Maybe she was overthinking it, Merrilee thought so. He probably had somewhere to be, her sister said this past week. Papa takes his sweet ol’ time, you know that. He could be impatient.

Maysilee guessed she was about to find out. Because he was here tonight.

He’d positioned himself in that same corner, next to the ghostly piano, preferring the darkness amongst him. Writing. Watching.

And once her Papa had concluded the panel and the boy’s legs willed toward the door, so did Maysilee’s. He doesn’t crane his neck to catch eyes with her again.

She trampled down the shrink of stairs that were built by the entrance room’s pop-up stage. Her Papa let out a noise of surprise. “Oh—Maysilee, hun—where are you going?”

“Nowhere.” She responded, the back of her dress swaying behind her as the soles of her shoes slid on the hardwood at a fast pace. Indicating that she was, in fact, going someplace.

“It’s too late for a stroll!” Her mother called. Maysilee ignored her.

When the night wind hits her face and she begins her search, eyes adjusting to the slim amount of light the moon offered, she takes into account how this might’ve not been her brightest idea. Who decides to haul after a complete stranger? A stranger who fits within darkness like a puzzle piece. That watches and writes and keeps entering her unfiltered mind.

She walks up near-pitch black trails of gravel, flitting her head side-to-side as she scorns each new area, she pins her loose bangs behind her ears. For a while too stretched for her liking, she doesn’t see him. He must be hiding in the shadows again, staying close to the treeline. If that were the case, Maysilee decided she would be turning right back around. Her curiosity involving his intentions would have to wait. It was getting colder and the last place she wanted to stumble into at ten-o-clock at night was the woods.

But a glimmer in the faraway distance seizes her eye and punches that assumption down. A bright silver of a coin, drinking in an escaped light. Maysilee freezes, mapping every inch of the figure before she even thinks to step forward, just in case.

Muffin hat. Droopy jacket. Dark, messied hair. Jean pocket that was packed with a cornered book.

Maysilee presses herself to move. Her shins shoot with pressure as she makes her way up the curve of the hill where the boy was. He must hear her, because he starts to slow, putting the item he was tossing into another pocket. By the time she’s standing a couple of feet behind him, he’s fully stopped.

She breathes in through her nose. At the sound of the air breaking, his shoulders rise, and the heels of his boots shift atop the dry dirt.

“Hi,” she blurts the second he faces her. Shock colors his expression within that same second. His brows twitch up and his eyes widen in sync, scanning her up-and-down. When her cheeks etch with heat, she sucks the flesh inside of her mouth, as if it would do anything but make her cheekbones broader.

Quickly, though, his features melt back to normal. He gives her a respective nod. “Hello.” He’s collected, lips squished into a line and gaze directly placed on her. But Maysilee can tell he’s confused still. She would be too, if she were a Seam boy that’d just gotten followed by a person at night—a person who turned out to be the mayor’s daughter. He’s awkwardly shoved his hands into his pants.

“Sorry for chasing you down,” she says, briefly tunneling in on the small mole of his nose, a black spec amongst the gray light on his face. “I’ve seen you at my Papa’s panels.”

“Yeah,” he responds, blinking leisurely. Wariness faintly wisps into the look of his eyes.

Maysilee feels out of place too, now. She shakes her head. “I’m curious.” She already made it to him. May as well finish what she started. “About… you, I guess.” It’s almost like he already knows what she’s going to say. For once, she tries to ensure her tone doesn’t come off too strong, in hopes he wouldn’t bolt on her like a rabbit. Even though it seems very unlikely he’d do that, what with the resemblance of stone in his features. “I just want to know what you’re doing. Whatever it is, you seem to take it seriously.”

“Watching,” he tells her with thinly strained emotion. If any.

Well, duh. Anyone with eyes could figure out that much. Her gaze lands on the small notebook bulging out of his front pocket. “Just watching?”

He picks up on it. His chin dips down at himself. “It’s research. For my work.”

“Work?” She crosses her arms, her necklaces smush into her chest. “You don’t work for him. What’s it for?” She realizes she may be prying a little too deep for a stranger-to-stranger interaction.

His eyebrows wrinkle closer. “Why do you want to know? Do I stand out?”

Maysilee shrinks back, but stands her ground. “No—I mean, yes, you always stand in that dark corner where no one else is. Nevermind. Anyone in Twelve can come. I’m just… curious. Like I said.” It was true: he certainly wasn’t the only citizen from the Seam that showed. Uncommon, considering it was a pretty far walk from that portion of the district, and the darker truth was that they had bigger problems to worry about than some stupid meeting their mayor was holding, that wasn’t even all that important. “Look, I see you writing like crazy. I’ve never found a single thing from his panels interesting, like, ever. I’ve never seen anyone else writing either. I want to know what all the fuss is about.”

“What’s it to you?”

Guarded, are we? She squints at him, sighing impatiently. “Absolutely nothing.”

Maybe the moonlight is playing tricks on her, but he actually looks amused. The very end of his lip raises, and by its softness, Maysilee starts to think it’s actually out of relief. “You should head back home.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s late.”

Maysilee has to bite down on her lip to hold back the snarkiness that births in her throat. She walked all this way in the dark (and cold!) to find out nothing! Nothing!

But she wouldn’t particularly like it either if some rando came up to her asking personal questions. Whatever. She’s a hypocrite. Her nostrils are flaring—she forces herself to breathe. She’s mature enough to accept he doesn’t owe her anything. She’ll still grumble to herself about it, though. “Fine.”

He digs in a slit of his charcoal brown jacket, and suddenly she’s being tossed something silver and rectangular. It lands in her palms with a hard thump. Maysilee eyes him. He isn’t slow to respond to her confused mien. “Lighter. So you can see.”

Her frustration with him thawed. “Oh,” she states. Studying it closer, she grasps that she’s seen one like it before (her Papa has one hidden in his desk). But she’s only ever used matches for herself, skinny sticks that burn and burn until they reach her skin. Her silence afterward must signal something in him. As she flattens the pad of her finger against the long line that was engraved at the center, he steps forward.

Maysilee flicks it open, and he leans closer to give her a hand, running his thumb over a small wheel near the top. Smells of leather and oil and burnt wood prance under her nose. She glances up at him while he works. 

There’s a brewing of red fluttering on him, coming to life in the abyss of his eyes—she stills and watches the color dance, unable to not think of how perfectly the hue fits him. His tan skin, dark and sharp features. Her steady breathing goes dead when he looks at her blankly through his lashes. 

Then, the flame ignites, heat washing onto her face. In her stomach, too, despite the fire being nowhere near there. “Roll that to get a bigger flame. I just refilled the fuel space; it shouldn’t go out.”

She spins the wheel a notch. “Got it,” she protects the wavering flame from the wind with a cupped palm. Her eyes search and eventually reach him again. “Thanks.” She says it gratefully.

He hums with acknowledgment, allowing his fists to ball up and return to the safety of his pockets. He makes a move to leave, his knee twists with his glistening boot. Head angled to a place far away from her. A rush of disappointment pulses through her, and it didn’t just involve him not telling her about his work.

“It’s Maysilee, by the way.” You’d think it’d be obvious. But it wasn’t. Not when she was a child, and not when she was eighteen years of age. People still got her and Merrilee mixed up as if they were still babies without defining pieces of themselves. Maysilee blames her mother for that—making her and Merrilee wear matching clothes like infants even when they were teenagers. That was her life. Always was, always would be. She accepts it the same way she accepts that she would never get through a Fourth of July without feeling sick. It was only another thing that caged her.

Therefore, she thought, at the very least, this boy should know who he’d given his lighter to.

Something tender crosses his shaded jaw. “I know that,”

Maysilee almost opens her mouth to say: really? She would think he was lying if it weren’t for the edge in his voice.

She cannot walk off without knowing more. “How?”

“I told you already,” he’s already taken a handful of steps back, “research is a part of my job. Forgetting a name would be stupid of me.”

He did not tell her that last bit. That was a clue, she guessed. What type of job in the Seam involves remembering names (hers included)? And writing like a madman at mayor panels? Damn it. She had no idea. What the hell does this guy do?

“Fine’ walking back by yourself?”

“I can handle it.”

“Okay,” his silhouette completely darkened as a cloud above covered the moon. “Goodbye, then.”

Maysilee stares at him through the fading tip of the orange light, and watches him leave. She watches him until he becomes swallowed entirely by midnight, until she cannot see him anymore.

On her way home, she keeps her eyes locked on her lit up, faded white nails, wishing she had asked him for his name.

Well, on the bright side: he’d show up to another panel, wouldn’t he? She’d have the chance to ask him again.

For the first time in two years, a Sunday doesn’t seem so dreadful.

Maysilee ends up seeing him a whole day early.

Asterid had caught her arm in the hall at school on Friday. “Are you free tomorrow night?” She had asked right away, and before Maysilee could even respond aloud, Asterid added: “I owe you an explanation.”

When she nodded, she was only able to focus on the pale stitches across the corner of Asterid’s forehead. Deep down, she was angry with her. For hunkering away and confiding in Burdock Everdeen rather than her—her best friend. But, then again, she also couldn’t be angry with her. Because she was her best friend. And Maysilee knew herself well enough to understand that anger mostly boiled from love.

“Alright. Meet Burdock and I at the Hob at sunset,” she instructed Maysilee, she was surprised by the location until she reminded herself Asterid and Burdock were no doubt together now. “We’ll tell you everything. I’m planning to tell your sister at your father’s panel.”

So, she did as she said. She’d known exactly where the Hob was because she and Merrilee used to ride their bikes near it. Her grandmother told her there were once musicians who performed inside, and Maysilee put together awhile ago that they had to be in relation to Lenore Dove. Pianist and colorful. Who was now dead as her family was. Every place in Twelve felt haunted.

Maysilee readjusts her necklaces and flattens her palms down the front of her apple blossom dress as she trots her way inside, leaving the setting sun behind. Cigar smoke fills the place, sounds of glasses clanking and groups chattering as well. She could feel accusatory glances daggering into her, confused ones, too, she tried to ignore them, just so she could successfully find Asterid’s buttery blonde hair amongst the crowd. She bares her teeth behind her lips in lieu of shooting them right back.

Near the back of the building, she at last spots Asterid and Burdock at a table. Sat side-by-side, Burdock having a protective arm around her. Once Maysilee greets them and sits herself down, not much time passes before they get on with the explanation in full force, which Maysilee appreciates. She can’t stand that beating around the bush crap.

They tell her about Haymitch. The fire, the sleeping syrup. How they’d show up to his home in Victor’s Village, and one day, Asterid was greeted with a hurling rock. Like in school, Maysilee couldn’t look away from her stitches. It was all so dark. She and Haymitch weren’t friends by any means, but she never thought him to be a violent person. The Games, and what came after, must have destroyed him beyond repair.

She’s swallowing when Asterid tries to apologize to her for keeping her distance from Maysilee. She waves her off, apologizing for what happened to her instead.

After a long moment, her friend speaks again. “So, how about you? Anything buzzy going on? It’s really been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It sure has,” Maysilee says, “but nothing interesting going on for me, no.”

“Really? Asterid thought you’d enjoy yourself in that big ol’ fancy house.” Burdock interjects, which kind of takes her off guard.

She shrugs at him. “It’s just fine.” It wasn’t. It was a pen that simply heightened the hell for people like her. Which, at this point in her life, she thinks she may be the only one. The smothering family business that’s not dead; just different, carrying the very same feeling. The glares she’s felt on her since she was a kid. There isn’t anyone that knows what it’s like, forget it.

“An upgrade from the Sweet Shop at least, then?” Asterid asks.

Maysilee’s gape flits around the area. To the bar, to the empty stage and dusty walls. She opens her mouth—only for the words to embed in her tastebuds and evaporate. Next to a decaying door, holding himself against a wall, is the boy she followed into the darkness.

“Yeah, it’s…” She blubbers. He’s rolling a coin along his knuckles, a man not too far away from him notices and, within a minute, hands him a wad of cash. He then disappears through the doorway the boy was guarding. Maysilee watches in complete silence, until she looks back to her table and her eyes match Burdock’s. “Hey,” she whispers sharply and leans towards him, “do you know that guy?”

Burdock’s braid sways over his shoulder as he follows the direction of her pointed finger. His pupils dart back-and-forth, until they eventually still. Something vexful clouded him. “Yes. Why?” His voice has lost any kind of softness.

Maysilee shifts, staring at him again. The shirt he’s wearing under his jacket is long, tucked in heavily into his jeans and puffing out. Certainly too big for him. “I just talked to him the other night. Didn’t catch his name. I thought you might know him.”

Burdock’s eyes widen, lip curling over his teeth. “You talked to him?”

“Yeah. He was at my Papa’s panel—”

“You shouldn’t.”

Maysilee’s head snaps to him. “Why?”

“Because that’s Wyatt Callow! His family accepted bets on Blair’s death. They’re all scummy Booker Boys. Bottom of the barrel human beings. Stay away for your own good, Maysilee. If you get reaped this year, he’d set odds on your death, too.”

Asterid’s cheeks have gone red at his volume. Burdock’s brows are strung high and tight, mouth probably still buzzing from the bullet case of words.

And Maysilee just looks at him once more, gnawing on her cheek. Twirling her finger under one of her chains, neck heating up.

Wyatt Callow.

She suddenly understands why he was so cagey about telling her what he did for work. She didn’t quite grasp what it exactly was yet, but it clearly had something to do with gambling. And it, too, had involved the Games. The mention of Blair, a boy who was reaped for the quell, confirmed that for certain. That wasn’t even including that last portion with the reaping. She remembers how part of his job was to know her name. 

If Burdock was this livid over he and his family’s existence, she couldn’t imagine anyone else who knew of him liking him any better. He must’ve thought she would’ve reacted the same. Angry—disgusted. That tells her something about him.

Bottom of the barrel human beings.

Maysilee thinks of how he’d given her his lighter so she could see. Even though his own way home was just as dark. 

That next day, her Papa holds his panel much earlier due to an upcoming storm rolling in at night, forecasted on their television.

The news doesn’t reach the Seam.

When the first woman shows up, brown braids frizzy from the roaring wind, Maysilee is already near the entrance hall, tugging a hefty blanket from one of their closets because she was getting tired of her worn one. The woman’s footsteps led Maysilee back to the large, empty room, and she was left to tell her the panel took place at noon instead. That was when she had realized the change hadn’t stretched to the opposite side of Twelve.

Ten minutes later, a miner she often recognized came in, and she had to tell him the same thing. A family of two, Maysilee repeated herself. They were all frustrated, and she understood that. She found herself feeling sorry. There was no reason for them to not be alerted. The mayor runs every inch of District Twelve, not just the merchants. It wasn’t fair in the slightest.

Eventually, her Papa took notice of the constant opening-and-closing of their front door, and came down the staircase with a wrinkled forehead. After she’d explained, he simply asked: “You know what—Maysilee, why don’t you stay down here and make sure no one else shows? It’d be helpful.”

She usually doesn’t get annoyed with him. He’s always given her a place to be herself when her mother wouldn’t. But right now, she rolls her eyes. “Last time I checked, you were the mayor.”

Her Papa blinked, then smiled. He looked identical to her grandmother. “I am. That’s why I need someone else to do this for me. I have a whole stack of paperwork upstairs.”

Maysilee groaned, but felt she was given no choice. What’s new?

He removed himself, giving her a kiss on the head before he began his climb up the grand staircase once more, slipping back into his office.

She interlaced her arms over her front in disapproval, and set to make herself comfortable anyway. She pulled a rocking chair from the reading room and sat in the far corner of the entrance hall, with the blanket draped over her shoulders and the sound of brewing coffee from the kitchen cuddling her ears.

Remind her to never be cold again so she wasn’t caught in the crossfire of her Papa’s dirty work. That was caused by his mistake, may she add.

She brought the wool closer to her as the minutes passed and softly rocked in the chair, eyes searching past the large windows, preparing to spot more shadows. No one else really comes through. Maysilee patiently listens to the rain in the meantime, hard pattering that was soon accompanied by thunder.

The little ding of her Papa’s coffee machine goes off eventually, and she hops to her feet, the thick blanket waving behind her like a cape or one of her dresses. Since it’d been a good half-an-hour, she thought it’d be a good time to go upstairs. Surely, no one else would blow in. She glances down into her hot beverage with a small smile.

Maysilee’s just wrapping her palms around the warm porcelain when the door creaks open.

Instantly, irritation flows through her.

She sighs, takes a sip, and lets the flavor burn her tongue before she carries herself down the corridor, and into the entrance room. Preparing to let yet another person know of her Papa’s error.

And once she reaches it, her stomach drops. Standing on the welcome mat, soaking wet from the rain, is Wyatt Callow. He doesn’t notice her right away. He’s peeling off his hat, trying to wring it dry with one hand whilst he digs in his pocket with the other. She knows what he’s scorning for. Just as he grasps the spiral on the very top, though, he looks up—and notices the emptiness. Maysilee watches him squint, watches his head slowly rotate as he takes in how there were no chairs, no stage. His hand slides off of his notebook.

Maysilee slippers make a scratchy sound on the floor, stepping forward. Wyatt’s eyes shoot up at once. “It was at noon. He changed it because of the storm,” she taps her nails against her cup as she takes him in. The material in his shirt is crinkled, most likely due to the roaring wind outside.

“I didn’t know,” Wyatt says.

“I’ve had to tell a lot of Seam folk who’ve shown up—you’re not the only one,” Maysilee attempts to reassure him, but he looks completely exhausted. His shoulders slump with every breath. “We should’ve made sure the news reached you guys. I’m sorry.”

He nods. “Not your fault. I wouldn’t have made it anyway. I work then.” Maysilee knows he’s not referring to the job that Burdock was dogging on, the mines were the culprit for his state; the dragged out words and posture. She’s seen so many worn down men coming from there, cluttered in dust and forced to wear the most hideous pair of overalls Maysilee has ever seen. Wyatt puts his soggy hat back on his hair, (which actually looks quite soft. Flat, though. It’d look much better mussed). “Guess I’ll head out.”

Involuntarily, her eyes shoot wide, knees jerking forward. “Wait!” Blush fogs her cheeks when Wyatt raises a brow at her. For a split second, she couldn’t figure out what she’d even stopped him for. Then, images of what had happened between them last week bite at her mind. Cold wind, dark sky, a lighter. “Could you wait here a second?”

He takes his hand off of the golden knob, and answers with a blunt: “Sure.”

Maysilee sets her coffee down on the short table near the doorframe that holds all of her family’s shoes, and takes herself all the way up to her room.

In times like these, she’s ecstatic she has her own room. If Merrilee were to be lying on an identical bed when Maysilee burst through the door, she’d be welcomed with a billion questions. Merrilee, expecting an answer to come back to her just as fast. But, with the appropriate separation, Maysilee can take herself to her dresser, pull open her top left drawer, and run her finger over the deep and fading engravings on Wyatt Callow’s lighter without having to say a word.

She flicks up the flame one last time, mesmerized by how she can always somehow catch herself in the blurry red, angry ember. She tosses her blanket onto her bed before returning to the entrance room, where Wyatt still patiently waits with one of his hands in his pocket, he’s playing with that same coin she saw him fidgeting with yesterday.

Maysilee clears her throat, stretching out the lighter to him. “Thanks again.” Wyatt’s coin disappears in front of her eyes, his head dips in closer as he retrieves it from her hold. He plucks at the wheel with the end of his calloused thumb to seemingly test the gas. “I didn’t waste any of that fuel of yours, don’t worry.” She says with a soft wave.

She doesn’t expect him to look at her, but he does. The pure blackness of his eyes doesn’t appear any lighter, even under their chandeliers. For some reason, Maysilee finds this fascinating. In the dusty fashion books she’s gotten ahold of, brown eyes that are near black are seen as bland. They’re hard to style; too many clothing items clash with them because the dark shade snatches the attention away from the colorful fabric. They’re labeled as unnerving. But Maysilee could not disagree more. To her, they’re captivating. Full of reflections, of warmth. She sees nothing but potential. And in her opinion, you must be a special kind of untalented if you can’t make something beautiful out of them.

“Would’ve been fine if you did. It’s pretty old.” Wyatt huffs, dropping the lighter into his jacket. “It won’t be any good in the rain, that’s for sure.”

She blinks, her chest inflating with a breath. “Did you want to stay for a minute? I mean—I’m sure you’re tired from that walk.” Everything comes out before she can even ponder on the words, “you can wait out the storm.”

The expression that paints his face looks familiar. “That’s nice of you,” he says, quiet voice laced with a faint form of surprise. She understands instantly. Of course, he’s completely dumbfounded (well—maybe that’s a little dramatic) that she’s not a total cactus with a stick up her butt. Anyone would believe that, with the way the district talks about her. It’s embarrassing it somehow reached him. It’s absolutely intensified since her Papa’s appointment, too. Though, she was also kind of a brat the other night when he’d dodged telling her what he was writing during the panels. So, really, he has no reason to think otherwise of her.

And, still. He gave her his lighter so she wouldn’t walk home in the dark. A stranger has never been that kind to her before. Her brain rewinds to her outing with Asterid and Burdock the night prior, how disgusted Burdock was with the mere mention of Wyatt.

He’s got some dirt on him as well, it seems. And it sounds far worse than Maysilee’s. He hadn’t wanted to reveal what he did for a reason.

She’ll find out what it is soon enough.

“But, if I don’t need to be here, I shouldn’t stay. I’ve got some work to catch up on anyway.” Wyatt finishes.

Maysilee sucks in a hiss of air through her teeth. “Does this work have to do with whatever you write down at my Papa’s panels?”

The slightest peek of his teeth shine under his top lip. “You’re still stuck on that.”

“I will be until I figure you out,” Maysilee can’t pin back her smirk. She bends over near the wall and hooks her wrist under her mother’s umbrella that was propped upward, an electric blue with silver lining. “Wyatt Callow.”

The calm sheen on his features dries, his head tweaking to the side at her. “How did you—”

“Take this. If you’re going back out there, you should at least have some sense and protect yourself from that cold rain.” She shoves the umbrella in his arms, “keep it. And don’t get struck by lightning or I’ll feel responsible.”

Wyatt doesn’t blink. His eyelids don’t even do as much as quiver as he accepts the umbrella, his fingers curl over the plastic protectively. The exhaustion and confusion in his eyes flutter someplace else, as a switch must go off behind them. Maysilee can see a glint of excitement replace it. 

“I’m more likely to get struck twice than once,” she must make a face, because he begins to elaborate. “I’ve never been struck by lightning before, so, with the intense weather, that puts me at a thirty percent chance of getting struck. But, say I have been struck before—that’d put me at a seventy-five percent chance. It’s kind of like a card game.”

He says this so smoothly, it all shoots out like natural pelts. It’s the longest she’s heard him speak. Maysilee remembers Burdock’s words: “If you get reaped this year, he’d set odds on your death, too.” That’s exactly what this was, wasn’t it? Probability. Chance. Odds. Things are slowly piecing together, and he still hasn’t revealed a single thing to her himself yet.

“So… I’m guessing thirty percent isn’t something I should be worried about.”

Wyatt has seemed to relax. “Not for this scenario, no. It could be a deadly percentile for others.” He flips around and twists the knob, fully opening the door this time. The harsh wind rushes up Maysilee’s legs. He isn’t facing her now. “Don’t dig too deep, Maysilee. You might regret things. Not that I can tell you what to do.”

Maysilee does not have regrets.

She’s a lot of things. Regretful is not one of them.

And Wyatt was right, he couldn’t tell her what to do.

Which is why she strolls to the Hob that next Saturday, hair tied back with a lace ribbon, tights pulled all the way up to her stomach because there was a chill. Okay—it sounds off. She knows. But, genuinely, she didn’t have him in mind when she decided to come. She’d just finished a long week of school, the sight of her flat ceiling was becoming infuriating to look at. She’d wanted an escape, a breakaway. Just for a moment. If things hadn’t changed so much these past two years, she would’ve simply hung out with her sister, or called up Asterid. But, Asterid was busy with her buddling life with Burdock (they were talking more now, sure. Though, Maysilee couldn’t imagine them hanging out everyday ever again. Not like how things were before the quell), and Merrilee had been making time for herself recently.

Obviously, not crazily—but enough for Maysilee to understand she was meeting new people. There were times where she opened her bedroom door and she wasn’t there. She saw her talking to a boy with blinding blond hair at school. She was using the phone a lot, curling the wire into the crack of her door. Of course, they were still close. Things had just changed, opened up a bit. And Maysilee had always wanted that, she had no place to complain.

So, she rode around town on her taffy pink bike alone, passed by the Sweet Shop that was now run by her aunt on her mother’s side, and pretended the overly familiar views were soothing her. It didn’t take much for her to accept that they weren’t, and then, the idea to go to the place she sat down at last week with Asterid and Burdock cornered itself in her skull. And, yeah, maybe she did think of Wyatt Callow a little bit. How could she not? That was the place she first found out his name. Saw him running that coin across his knuckles, accepting wads of money. Maybe she wanted to see what he was up to.

Maysilee tries not to breathe in too deep when she enters. All those smells that upset her stomach come hurdling at her like bulls. Smoke. Tart beer that stained the floor. She ducks under a cloud of cigar smoke, fearing the scent had already stunk up her hair. She has to jump over a pool of said beer. Dodging burly men who had made no attempt to miss her shoulder. It all makes her so sick. She can’t believe it was a place her grandmother used to relax at. She guessed things were different then, those musicians must have brought people together.

It hadn’t even been this rowdy when she was last here. She wants to leave. It stinks. She’s sweating off her makeup already and her bangs are stuck to her forehead as if they were stapled. Her throat felt crowded with smog. And about never having regrets, she might have to take that back—

“Maysilee?”

She didn’t realize she’d made it to the back of the building.

Wyatt, by the decaying door again. Thick coin in hand, rim of his hat slumping forward, tan cheeks a smidge of red. Eyes big and glistening on her.

Maysilee can’t even conjure a hello. Because suddenly, her temples are pounding and the room’s spinning. She weakly points to the doorway he’s propped against. “Can I go out that way?” She fans her face.

Wyatt moves for her without a word. She thinks she mumbles a thank you, but she’s too desperate to remember. Before the clean atmosphere lays over top of her, she grazes against Wyatt’s arm, and he smelt better than any fragment of air in there. Bonfires and a vague kiss of cologne.

A handful of minutes later, she finds a spot next to a peeling tree not too far from the Hob. Its light bark curves into her spine as she plops herself down. The breeze stroked her skin, gradually cleansing her out. She dipped her head backward into the trunk, softly closing her eyes as she squeezed one of the charms from her beaded necklace, she could sense the outline of the flower marking the pad of her thumb. Feel the smooth shape of the beads.

“Hey, game’s startin’ soon.”

Maysilee’s eyelid twitched.

“I know. I won’t be long, I said.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t come barging in mid-draw. You’ll throw us off.”

“As if you can get through a game without me.”

The first voice silences.

They were distant. One was unfamiliar, the other had both of her eyes snapping open. After a moment or two drifted by, a pair of shuffling feet soon followed. The sound inches closer each passing second, slow and hesitant and as soft as his voice. 

Maysilee squeezes the silk of her dress. This was going to be so painfully awkward. And she wasn’t even completely thinking of their brief interaction at the door. Surely, Wyatt was wondering why she was here in the first place. She couldn’t imagine this upcoming conversation being anything but embarrassing. He was probably wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

First, he’d caught her staring at him like an apex predator during the panel. Second, she sneaks up on him at night. Then, she drops that she’d figured out his name without explaining anything when he was clearly hiding it. And now, she popped up to a place no merchant folk would ever show up to alone. From an outsider’s view, she looked like a full blown stalker.

Maysilee rehearses her apology in her head: Sorry, my reasoning for being a complete weirdo is because my life is boring and almost makes me want to volunteer for the Games every single year just so I can taste escape and experience something new. Even dying sounds better than living like this forever. But I think you’re interesting and you’ve actually given me new things to do and to think about. I’m sorry, again. I am. I don’t apologize to people often—do I sound genuine?

“Maysilee,”

Her eyes flick to her left, where Wyatt Callow stands, holding a glass in his hand. She blinks at him, unspeaking.

He walks to her, then crouches to her level, Maysilee stares into the green, wobbly cup of liquid. “Water. Fresh from the bar.” Wyatt says, face straight as ever. “I thought you’d want some. You looked sick.”

She takes it from him, and feels goosebumps sleeve her arms at the coldness of the glass. She purses her lips and sucks down a sip, almost wanting to sigh at how aggressively it calms her burning throat. 

“Thanks,” she croaks with a palm to her wet mouth. “It was hot as hell in there. And it smelt awful.”

“Yeah… something you have to get used to, for sure.” Wyatt agrees, “I take it you don’t come to the Hob often.”

Maysilee meets his gaze, still drinking the water that was brought to her out of kindness. A breath of wind comes through again and brushes his limp (and dry) hair up into his hat, showing off the thickness of his brows. Threaded evenly and colored. They’re not thin and skeletal like how merchant boys’ are. They’re perfect. She has to look away, glaring into the sky.

It’s not nighttime quite yet, but the sunset is long gone. She could hear crickets chirping near the woods just feet away from her, the moon brightening under the dusk’s fading light. 

“No,” she admits, tone low, “I was… bored. That’s why I’m here.”

He doesn’t answer right away. She can’t help but break her skygazing to glance at him again. When her tired eyes scan over his face, mirth is taut on his lips. “You know, I never thought the mayor’s daughter would decide to go to the Hob, of all places, to cure boredom.” He’s smiling, and it’s such a charming look she does the very same. “Full of surprises.”

That second half was whispered.

“What?”

Wyatt’s perfect eyebrows jump. “I said you’re full of surprises.”

She squints. “Is that a good thing?”

“Um…” He mumbles, and now she dislikes how she’d said it. Merrilee used to say the reason why she could never sell sweets on her own was because she was too… forward. She didn’t coat her voice with gentleness, or pretend to give a shit about what she was selling. People were intimidated by her. She wonders if that was taking place right now. The difference was: she didn’t want Wyatt to be intimidated by her. Yes—this had all started because she was nosey and couldn’t stop herself from wanting to ask him what was so interesting about her Papa’s panels that he was writing during them. But in the past few weeks, she’s experienced shreds of him that’ve left spots of interest forming on her brain and chest. Spots that remind her of herself, too. She wanted to uncover why that was, she didn’t want to scare him off. “Surprises are usually good, aren’t they?”

That soothes her. “I like to think so.”

Wyatt grins, and unfolds his legs so he’s fully sitting. Maysilee almost wants to remind him of the game he’s supposed to head to. She doesn’t.

“I was here last week, actually. With my friend.” He makes a noise of recognition, but says nothing yet. “Her boyfriend’s Seam, um… I saw you. Asked if he knew you. He’s the one who told me your name.”

“What else did he tell you?” Wyatt asks.

Bottom of the barrel human beings.

The question freezes her up, though she straightens herself out. “Not much. He said you’d set the odds on my death if I got reaped this year.”

He sighs like he’s heard it a thousand times before. “That’s kind of a lot.”

“Well, I had, like, no context as to what that even meant.” Maysilee says, “he talked about that boy who got reaped for the quell, too. Blair. Said your family accepted bets on him.”

“We accept bets on everyone. That’s how it works.”

“So, if you just accept bets on the Games, why on earth are you at my Papa’s panel every week?”

“Not just the Games.” Wyatt corrects her, “poker and card games, boxing matches, dog fights. Mayor appointments, mayor decisions. The Games are just… the most popular. But there’s an audience for everything.”

Now they were getting somewhere. She feels terrible for smiling, but cannot halt herself from feeling a little victorious. It’s surprising to her, how he’s now telling her these things when last month, he was guarded all locks down. She must have proved herself to be trustworthy in some way. Done something to make him assume she wouldn’t react like those who despise him.

And mayor appointments. She entertains the thought of Wyatt’s family, two to three years ago, accepting bets on whether or not her Papa would succeed Mayor Allister.

“Did you think my Papa was gonna get appointed?” She couldn’t stop her interest from oozing out.

“I didn’t think so,” Wyatt replies, then the fringe of his mouth jitters up, as if he’d been swarmed by a burst of confidence; a memory of the moment. “I knew.”

Maysilee has a strenuous time not paying attention to how her gut thrashed at the dark, but attractive tone of his voice. She pushed herself to ask the other question on her mind. “But, wait, people seriously bet on decisions he makes, too?” She scoffs. “That’s such a waste of money.”

He nods at her, flattening his lips. “I agree with you,” He says, and in a strange reflex, she can see his whole demeanor dissolve into something grave. “But my family isn’t going to deter them from betting, even if it is dumb and a complete waste. We profit from it; we’d be just as dumb to reject it. We all remember what it was like to starve.”

Her heart sinks. Wyatt is entirely unfazed. His lashes bat as he stares at her dully.

He responds to her silence: “I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s fine.” She certainly says it way too quickly.

That was one of the darker aspects of the Seam. Maysilee has had countless classmates who’ve shown up to school with sunken cheeks, baggy eyes and rumbling stomachs. She never experienced that a day in her life. The reality of it scared her. It upset her, even. She thinks it was one of the first reasons why she began to despise the Capitol with every vein in her. She couldn’t fathom how a whole government could let its people starve and die. But the Capitol were never the district’s protectors—she knew that. Especially not Twelve’s. They never would be. They wanted them all dead, they wanted to celebrate their children dying on live television. And she grew to want the very same for them. She hoped she lived to see the day they all crumbled on themselves.

Maysilee exhales.

So, she thinks she’s glued it together. Wyatt’s family had resorted to the gambling and accepting bets off of it to keep them afloat. That included the Hunger Games. That included accepting bets on its tributes. Their deaths and survival. She understood why people thought of it as unethical, because there was really no positive way to spin it. Maybe it wasn’t her place, but Maysilee didn’t think of it as evil. Not like Burdock did, or anyone else in the Seam who looked at him sideways. She thought of how he mentioned starving in the past. She couldn’t hold that against him.

“What’s your role in all of it, then?” Maysilee tries to flip the subject on its axis.

“Oddsmaking.” He answers instantly.

She feels a little lighter. “That… makes sense.” Wyatt looks over at her, the far ends of his brows elevated. “You remember when I gave you that umbrella and told you not to get struck by lightning? You started talking about the chances of it happening.”

“Oh,” he exhales at the reminder of it, knocking off his hat as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, that’s one of my problems.”

Maysilee genuinely laughs. And she wants to swim in the warmth that burns under her clothing when Wyatt eventually smiles back. It’s weak, easy to miss, but there nonetheless. The air between them is still for a collective moment, she feels much better. With the fresh water in her system and finally getting to know more about the life of this mysterious boy she’s sat next to. But she still wants to know one last thing. “Since you’re already here… can you show me that notebook?”

“It’s really not that interesting.”

“Well,” her smile turns into a simper, “I like to finish what I start.”

Wyatt lets this marinate, then goes to reach for his pocket.

“Wyatt James Callow!” A gruff voice blares through the sky like a siren, a big shadow stomps in the distance.

Her nose wrinkles in botheration. “Who’s loud mouth is that?”

“Shit,” Wyatt swears to himself, hopping to his feet. He goes to bolt, but his legs stop mid-motion. “How about I show you tomorrow? You know I’ll be there.”

“Sure.” She blurts, masking her disappointment this time.

Instead of running off just yet, he angles himself closer to Maysilee, fingers delving into his pants once more. Within a second, she’s holding his lighter again. And her cheeks are burning just looking at it. “It’ll be dark before you get home.”

“Will you just match with your sister this one time? We’re all wearing red. You don’t want to stick out, do you?” Her mother holds up a pair of cherry red flats by the heels at her door, and Maysilee glares into her eyes with rage. This has been an ongoing thing all day. She wants to scream.

“This one time?” Maysilee echoes bitterly, “sounds like you need to go to the doctor, your memory’s jacked.”

“Maysilee,” she coos in that stupid voice Maysilee’s always hated, even as a little kid. She cannot roll her eyes hard enough.

She moves for her open door, gripping the pristine wood with all her might. “Leave me alone,” she says, “I’m busy finding a dress that’ll make me stick out.”

With that, she slams the door, and shrugs off the clothes she was lounging in.

After combing through her closet for a solid ten minutes, she settles on a blue, ruffled end dress that’s a smidge brighter than her eyes. Enough to fit into the spring theme she was planning to stick to until June, and enough to stand out against her family’s busted red. She goes with all white accessories. White shoes, white bow, white ribbon to tie into her narrow side braid. She applies some blush and mascara to her lashes at her vanity, Lou Lou squeaking next to her (the canary her grandmother had passed down to her following her death: cute, but squawky and needy), then she’s done. Ready to sit and mentally yawn over and over again at the panel.

Until she got to escape, and speak to Wyatt again. He told her he’d show her what he’d been writing, however, after last night at the trunk of the tree, there’s an unfamiliar thumping in her chest that gives her chills at the thought of being face-to-face with him.

Before she trots out of her bedroom, she drops his lighter into the patch of her dress.

The entrance room is already buzzing when she sits down, and she actually gets to be next to Merrilee this time. She supposed her mother didn’t want her matchy-matchy outfit to be spoiled by Maysilee’s. She grins at that thought. It felt nice to finally be able to dress how she pleases.

She prays that one day, Merrilee will realize she can do the same. And with how she’s been going off on her own recently, Maysilee doesn’t think it’s too far away. But now, she glances at her sister’s outfit with disapproval. The red is just too much. Too wintry. It reminds Maysilee of hollyberry. 

When her father emerges from the hall with his blood red tie and stands up on his podium, Maysilee flattens her shoulder blades against her seat, eyelids drooping in weight.

“Alright, good evening everyone, I’m glad you’re here,” he announces, the front door screeches. Maysilee instinctively blinks toward the sound. “We all decided on Peacekeeper laws being our topic for this week, correct?”

Wyatt comes in, resembling quiet smoke as always. No one even looks at him besides her. He returns to his darkened spot at the piano.

Maysilee perks up, gaze centering on him. He fetches his notebook, takes out a tiny pencil that’s been worked to the eraser. And before focusing on her Papa’s words, sets his eyes on her. 

She breathed in hesitantly, and lifted her hand to give him a small wave as her heart suddenly knocked on her ribs.

He seemed kind of stuck on what to do for a second, but in due time, he waves right back. She felt her lipgloss stretching across her lips.

In the moments afterward, an elbow poked her side. Maysilee looked over, welcomed with the face of Merrilee. “Who is that?” She hushed, pretty much into Maysilee’s neck rather than her ear.

She opened her mouth to respond, and ended up cutting herself short.

Who was Wyatt to her? A friend?

For some reason, that didn’t quite fit.

An ally? An escape?

“Just someone I know.” Maysilee says, and squeezes the shape of the lighter through the material of her dress. 

She’s still holding onto it when the panel ultimately ends. Her palm is dabbled with sweat once she lets go, the bones in her fingers crying with relief as she wiggled them. She almost thought her skin would be imprinted with the stunning metal work on the face of it.

Maysilee attempts to make her way to him without her family noticing. Not that they could say no to her searching him out, but she’d rather not deal with their ear-grating questions at dinner this week. Thankfully, Wyatt was smart enough to step outside, so she simply uses the excuse of needing air.

She goes out the back door, warping her way around until she finds him. He’s by the corner of her home, not leaning against the siding by any means, just lingering close enough to be hidden in the shadows. As always.

“Hi,”

“Oh,” Wyatt’s tune creaks a little, “you scared me.”

Wouldn’t be the first time, she guessed. Even though he hardly looks startled at all. “Did I?” Maysilee smiles, he nods at her. “Just follow me.”

From there, she takes him through the house and into the reading room, dodging the outlines of her family’s backs. No one hardly ever spends time here besides her, they wouldn’t be barged in on. She knew that for sure. When she unlocks the door for him and they step inside, Wyatt’s head instantly tips up at the height of the book shelves.

“Woah,” he mouths.

Maysilee catches a glimpse of him as she whips around to click the door shut. “Do you like to read?”

“Um, not really. Probably should, but no.” Wyatt answers her, hands unsurprisingly in his pockets. “My Ma does, though.” He says, and Maysilee offers him a grin. “Do you?”

At first, she’s a bit thrown by the personal question. She internally shakes herself. “Sometimes,” she steps around him with a pep and sets herself down on the loveseat she spends way too much time napping on during the weekdays. She pats the vacant space beside her.

Wyatt captures the message, lowering himself next to her. Maybe it’s because of the change in light, but she’s realizing he’s dressed a tad differently. He’s not in that usual coffee brown jacket; instead, he’s wearing one that’s pitch black. Underneath, is a dusty gray button up that has some stitches along the sides. Actual dress shoes and bootcut jeans. Ironed hat. She can’t unwire her mind from thinking of how nicely he’s dressed. It’s kind of her thing.

She’s so tunneled in on this and how it matches up with where they are right now, that she doesn’t notice the notebook in her face.

“Sorry,” her heart-locket pangs against her chest as he leans closer, forcing herself to focus on the lines and lines of writing. 

Mayor Donner’s Panel: 4/19

90%: Peacekeepers are only stationed at base, restricted on private properties, no new laws are enforced (NO CHANGE)

65%: Donner enforces a change in the jail system; stations Peacekeepers in key parts of the district, but restricted on private properties

15%: Donner enforces a curfew; Peacekeepers given free reign to arrest offenders

3%: Donner enforces new arresting laws, curfew enforced, Peacekeepers in key parts of district, free reign

BEST BET: Peacekeepers are only stationed at base, restricted on private properties, no new laws are enforced (NO CHANGE)

Maysilee flips through more pages. It’s the same outline, just different topics her Papa had discussed and the percentages that came with the projected decisions. She looks over at Wyatt. “I just refuse to believe there’s real life people tossing their money at this.”

He passes a small chuckle. “I told you it wasn’t that interesting.”

“Okay, but there has to be more than this.” She states.

“Well, of course there is. But this is my notebook for panels.”

Her eyes nearly squeeze shut with a squint, handing back the book. “What notebook did you have last night then?”

“The same one. But I had one for our poker games, too. That’s what my family does on Saturdays.” Wyatt explains, “which is why I was by that back door, waiting for people to realize there’s a game going on so they’d come and play.” He goes on, “not without paying the Booker Boy Fee first, though.”

Maysilee remembers seeing a man hand Wyatt cash before walking through that doorway when she was out with Asterid and Burdock. The coin comes to mind, too. “Is that what the coin’s for? To, like… signal to people?”

“Right,” he slips his fingers in yet another pocket, taking out the coin and laying it on its face. Maysilee recognizes it. It’s scrip—coal miner cash. Payment they had to refuse at the Sweet Shop. “It doesn’t always work. Sometimes I’ll be standing there for hours doing coin tricks, looking like an absolute idiot.”

She smiles loosely. “Coin tricks?”

“Yes. My cousin taught me.”

Maysilee can work a cord into some detailed shapes, but it’s not trickery. This interests her. “I want to see. Show me.”

Wyatt nods, clutching onto his coin. Though once his fingers close over the flat silver, he shrinks back with a frown. “You’ve put me on the spot. I can’t do them on command.”

“What do you mean you can’t do them on command?”

“I just can’t, my joints rust up.”

“Do the odds thing then.” Maysilee says, end of her nail drawing tiny circles in the velvet material of the loveseat.

“The odds thing?” Wyatt’s weak smile crookens, boldness blooming back into the strong bones of his face. “Okay. For what?”

It doesn’t take her long to give him a prompt. “If I do get reaped this year, how long would I last in there?”

She can tell he wasn’t expecting such a serious response. His features are plain, yet there’s a flair in his eyes that collide with his focus. It’s not hard to see. The burst of movements between his brows, how the corners of his lips pulsate. But he steers himself in the right direction. “You wouldn’t go quick,” he begins, and she sits forward. “You’re healthy, well-fed. But you’ve probably never hunted before, so that puts you at a disadvantage. Depending on the nature in the arena, of course, and plausible sponsors.”

Wyatt was correct about that. She’d never touched a hunting weapon. She doesn’t even think her Papa has. Though, if she had no choice… she could figure it out. She knows she could.

Maysilee’s steady breathing quivers when Wyatt tilts closer to her and cups some of her necklaces at the tips of his fingers. More specifically: her heart-locket, and her most recent pink and white beaded addition. He doesn’t grab at them possessively or tug too hard, but that isn’t why her throat is abruptly dry, it’s the fact that the sharp points of his knuckles are flattened against the bare skin of her chest.

“You make these, don’t you?” He asks, completely unaware of the flush of heat burrowing at the very place his hand is grazing. When she mutely nods, he removes his touch, still studying her neck. The ghost of his bones remain on her. “Smart. You could make traps. Something like that.” Maysilee swallows. Maybe. “I’d give you about fifteen-to-one odds, by average game standards. I’d say you’d last four days; five at most.”

She blinks at him passively. “And how good is that?”

“Medium-ish,” he answers her, and she knows he’s being honest. “But, that’s just on your own. Your actions in the arena could increase or decrease your odds. Your competitors would affect your chances, too,” he’s rolling his coin along his fingers. “Which is information that I don’t have. And hopefully, never will.”

To that, softness stabs into her. There’s something so unintentionally sweet about it. “I suppose I can work with medium-ish,” she says, jesting, and also trying to swat away the redness that was once again brushing her ears. “What would you give yourself?”

“About twenty-to-one.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s pretty high.”

“It’s not a good thing. Higher numbers, in the average format, means I’d be killed in twenty out of the twenty-one games that I participated in.” Wyatt adds, “but, again. This is all at face value. So many factors go into it.”

“Why did you give me higher odds? You have a serious advantage with knowing how to calculate all that, don’t you? People have won with intelligence before.” Maysilee says this without much thinking. Wyatt’s aged out of the reaping, there’s no need to evaluate it. He has to be around twenty, she thinks. He has no chance of getting reaped now. But, still. It came to mind, so she said it.

“Because you’d probably want to live,” there’s a flicker in his voice that sends a punch to her stomach. The feeling was similar to last night, when he’d talked about starving in the past. It made her feel queasy. She doesn’t know why those thoughts of Wyatt bring her discomfort, like how breakfast food sits poorly in her belly. “I wouldn’t.”

Maysilee’s memories come flying at her. A home that caught fire two years back, how the smoke tainted the sky for days, how she smelt it through her window. She thinks of Haymitch Abernathy, and how she probably wouldn’t want to live if that was her life after the Games, either. “I don’t know. After what happened to Haymitch, surviving doesn’t really seem like a victory.” She doesn’t mention his surname because she assumed Wyatt would know who he was.

“It’s funny that you mention him,” Wyatt muses, “I had him winning from day one.”

She smiles. “Of course you did,”

A restful stillness sticks to the room then. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Wyatt take in the reading room, just as he did when he first entered. He stares at the book shelves again with a tilted neck before honing in on the chandelier. Maysilee turns to him fully now, and can see the golden claw in his dilated pupils. “You know, I could show you how it works in real time,” he says quietly, gaze still treading with the hanging candlelights. “Not the Games, obviously. But a boxing match. It’s pretty much the same concept. We hold them on Wednesdays.”

Maysilee’s mouth parts.

“I mean, unless you’re busy. It’s in the middle of the week, so I understand—”

“No,” she interjects, “I am never busy.”

“Oh,” Wyatt says slowly, “is… that an agreement?”

“It sure can be.” Maysilee bows her head, and isn’t lost on how she wasn’t just agreeing to the boxing match. She was agreeing on expanding their relationship past this strange, bubbling over the coastline allyship. It felt that way to her, at least.

Before the panel, she wondered if things would silently end between them after he finally peeled open his notebook pages for her. Whatever this was—constantly swapping the same lighter back-and-forth. Making up another excuse to be in the same place. Following one another into the dark to ask about a notebook, or to give out a glass of water. The reciprocated tender glances when the rest of the district gives them hell. Wyatt would always show to her Papa’s panels, she knew that, but… 

“Great, I’ll swing by around sunset,” he brings his hat downward, Maysilee can hear the shuffling of his hair beneath it. “I should probably get going now.”

She rises to her feet before he does, and he follows in place. “Of course. I’ll walk you to the back.”

Luckily, her family is completely fizzed out downstairs and has gone up into their personal chambers when she pries open the reading room’s door, Wyatt walks in line with her as she makes way for the backyard.

The night air is actually humid, as if it were already summertime. She could even see some fireflies fluttering up into the black abyss. She sighs, listening to Wyatt’s boots scuff against the concrete porch. “Hey,” she stops him from leaving, he’s nearly faded into the shadows already. She dips her hand into her dress and showcases the lighter to him, wearing a knowing grin. “Couldn’t forget this.”

Wyatt’s mouth twitches into a warm smirk. His feet migrate into her space again, taking the lighter into his hold with a little flip. “I may as well let you keep it at this point.” He comments.

“Oh, no. It’s yours.” Maysilee insists. “Why do you always have it on you anyway?”

“I smoke.”

Her head cocks to the side in censure. Cigarette smoke was a scent she couldn’t stomach, it always made her throat feel scratchy. “Ugh, why would you inhale those nasty things?”

Wyatt shrugs. “It’s a habit. Started my first year in the mines and haven’t quit.” He doesn’t sound proud of it, “the older men down there are a nightmare: hey, Neddie Newcomer, smoke this in thirty seconds and I’ll trade you some bread!”

Maysilee snickers at the impression. “You don’t seem like the type of person to fall into peer pressure.”

“I’m not. I just did it so they’d leave me alone, really. It cost me, but it worked.” He pockets the lighter and subtly waves his hand close to his thigh, “anyway, it was nice talking to you tonight. Thanks for being… a friend.” His speech cuts itself off. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Thanks for being a friend. It sounded right when he said it, she guessed it fit after all. “See you. Get home safe.” She goes to leave, then, white-hot wires clutch around her. Vivid flashes of Wyatt’s past words buzzing past her ears like a curious bee. Holding her to the ground. Familiar smells of tangy beer and dizzying smoke clobber her senses. “Wyatt—hold on.”

He stops in his tracks, rotating to face her with his fingers mixed in the zipper of his jacket. He waits patiently for her.

“When you said I was full of surprises last night, what did you mean?” Perhaps it was weird to ask, considering he’d said it a full night ago and she’d had plenty of time to ask him about it in the reading room. So what? She was distracted.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Everyone’s wrong about you. That’s what I meant.”

She speaks despite her teeth chattering under the muggyness, her body tingling like it’d been splashed with cool water. “I think everyone’s wrong about you, too.”

If she could get eaten by the dark pools of his eyes right now, she’d let it happen.

Wyatt nods, examining her deeply, as if what’d just come out her mouth was groundbreaking. And with his hair swooning over his brows, face lit by the dusty sky, says nothing else.

At the closing call at every single one of their interactions, Maysilee had felt dissatisfied. Like something was missing, whether it’d be the contents of his notebook, or the truth about his job. But tonight, she feels full for the very first time. Everything washes over her. His unique forms of kindness he’d given to her. The lighter and the water and the hope to never have to evaluate her opponents if she were to be reaped. He was kind in ways others rebuked. She loved that. She wanted more of it.

Once she returns to her bedroom and comes to rest below her quilt, her eyes blink shut, and Wyatt Callow’s face is what infiltrates the sea of black that usually fills her dreams. The sparkle of his coin twinkling like a star, the flame in his pocket.

Now, she had a whole new can of worms to tame.