The Price of Fame and Fortune (Hunger Games)

1

I can't ever remember a day where I wasn't stared at.

It's not that I did anything important with my life to gain such fame and fortune.

No, that was all my mother. My mother who is undoubtably one of the biggest celebrities in all of Panem. Sadly, from the day I was born the world has known my name. They've watched me grow and admired me for literally nothing. Unless you count being the daughter of Johanna Mason something to admire that is. I hate it, the fame, the fortune and especially her.

Don't get me wrong I'm greatful to have grown up with such a lavish lifestyle. But if you've ever met Johanna Mason then you'd get where I'm coming from. To this day I don't think I've ever seen or felt her express love towards me. Most people think that it's a biological instinct for mothers to love their child, Johanna proves them all wrong. 

Cold and distant. The two best words to describe her. From as early as I can remember, my mother trains me in axe wielding religiously  from the crack of dawn for a solid four hours.  That's the only interaction I have with her everyday. It's not fun either, it's more her nit-picking everything that I do wrong. Be it my stance or the angle I'm swinging at, regardless if I hit the bull's eye of the target. In her eyes there's always room for improvement. 

She then locks herself on the top floor of our mansion like house for the rest of the day doing god knows what. As a child, I used to stand on the staircase and scream my lungs out infront of her door. For like multiple hours on end, I just wanted to see her face to know I wasn't alone. She never came. Hell, one day she decided to scream louder then I did. At least I knew I wasn't alone then. 

One morning when I was eight, I dropped my axe in frustration and cried in front of her about how she was the worst mother in the world because she didn't read me stories or cared and cooked like the other mothers in our district. It was like someone had flipped a switch, I saw my mother's eye tick and the next thing I know she had me pinned to the side of a tree. She yelled the crap outta me. About how I shouldn't ever cry because I have it better then any child in this district, because everyday I can ganrantee food and clothes. That it's all to thank for her not being like all the other women in the district. And then she finished her rant with three words that broke me. She hardly ever spoke to me apart from training but hearing 'You disappoint me', yeah, well that fucked me up a little bit.

Beyond that point I'd only ever heard her utter things like, 'aim higher', 'straighten that leg'...ect. But to hear what I'd always feard...that maybe the reason my mother can't stand to be around me is because she hates me. Or at the very least, I disappoint her.

Of course, there's a voice in the back my head that reminds me her entrie fmily died because of her and therefore she might not want to get too attached to family again. Plus, after watching my mother's games during school when I was ten I came to understand why my mother was the way she was. However, everyone in school wanted to be my friend after that. Wanted to know everything about me and well, I just wanted to stick with my old friends. Which I obviously did.

But the worst of it is the Capitol. When I was twelve they interviewed me and did this whole bit on how amazing I was. Amazing for just being born the daughter of a victor. I could tell my mother was forced to do it, she sat seething in the corner the whole time. And when I turned sixteen, the word 'desirable' came up so much in that interview and everytime my mother would shudder. I've never seen her scared, shes the strongest person I know but I know she was scared that day. So yeah, I'm famous not just in District Seven but in all of Panem. For being and I quote 'The pretty daughter of Johanna Mason'.

When really I should be named 'Johanna Mason's mistake that she can't bare to look at'.  However on the brightside, I'm not the only child of a victor living in District Seven. Trent lives across from us, he's twenty-three and the son of Blight. Except, his dad tolerates him. Okay so they might love eachother, but Blight is so drunk and high all the time that you really wouldn't know what's going on in that head of his. 

We sort of raised eachother. Both of our parents were too in their own heads or in my mother's case, her head is too far up her arse to care how her six-year-old made dinner. Hence, Trent.

Him being four years older helped a lot and actually so did being the children of Victors. The district loves anything to do with their winning victors so their two wide eyed children is no execption. Plus, Trent has suprisingly light fingers, what we didn't steal we could easily get off Blight. Esecpically if he was high, he'd literally throw hundreds of dollars at us. However, after my agrument with Johanna at eight years old, I'd always come home to find fifty dollars on the counter everyday. As if it'd only just dawned on her that not only she didn't cook for me but she didn't provide me with anything to cook with. Our parents have no concept of money. Considering District Seven is somewhat poor, fifty dollars can last me a little over a month for just food alone. Yet, it's my daily allowance.

Or it might've been her attempt at apologising. I still hate her, if she didn't want me then someone else could've adpoted me. At least then I would've been loved as a child and not raising myself alone in a big empty house.  It fucks you up growing up like that, I don't care that much as other people do about most things. Just like my mother, I'm now just as cold and distant. But at least the country can admire my pretty face, right?.  My life is such a joke it's sad. I can't wait until I turn twenty-five and I can legally move out of Johanna's house. 

There's this weird law that President Snow introduced when I was young. It's illegal for children of Victors or their relatives to move out of Victor's Villiage before the age of Twenty-Five. It's to stop poverty or something but even to me that just sounds like a straight up lie.  What it means, is that I can't leave this place for another six years. Another six years stuck living with her. Another six years of training at the crack of dawn with her. Another six years of being preped for fake ass interviews, being praised for nothing but a pretty face and being ignored the whole time by her.