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Marcus fiddled incessantly with the button on the shirt he wore underneath the black vest. He hated the 4th of July.
The honest truth was that, that morning, he had considered staying in bed and pretending to be sick. The teachers wouldn't believe him, that was a fact, but it wasn't as if they ever believed him anyway, no matter what he said. Maybe it would give him a headache later when they called his mother, informing her that he had missed such an important meeting on such an important day for baseless reasons. He wouldn't know. What mattered was the here and now, and in the here and now, Marcus was sitting on a chair, waiting for the Reaping ceremony to begin.
"Nervous?"
Lysistrata Vickers sat in the chair next to him, a gentle smile on her face. They weren’t friends, he would say. Acquaintances, maybe. A friendly face who whispered to Marcus when other people weren’t looking.
"No," he lied, and he knew it was clear that he was lying because the way he was shaking his leg didn’t let him hide it. "It’s not the first Reaping that happens."
"But it’s the first one you’ll attend."
That was true. Marcus had never watched the event. He didn’t have the courage. Sometimes, the next day, after a sleepless night, he would grab the newspaper with trembling hands and skim through the names of the District 2 tributes, afraid of seeing a familiar name, afraid of reading a name he already knew, afraid of...
"It’s awful, I know," Lysistrata had good intentions, and she was honest, unlike how his classmates talked and looked at him, always from the corner of their eyes, always with fear, as if by chance he were someone dangerous and not just another teenager like everyone else there. "But... it’ll pass quickly, right? Just hold on. Good luck, Marcus."
Good luck. He was going to need it.
"The boy from District 2," Dean Highbottom’s voice rang out, "goes to... Marcus Delgado."
Was it on purpose?
Anyone would call him lucky for escaping the games, for escaping a life in the Districts, all because his mother was lucky enough to build a successful pharmaceutical business during the war. Luck was what had placed him in that spot, in that chair, among other young people from the Capitol, though nothing could erase the fact that Marcus was from the Districts, and would always be from the Districts, and to the people in that room, he would always be treated as such. Marcus had been lucky, again and again in his life, and maybe other mentors would call him lucky for ending up with a tribute from one of the strongest Districts, one of the Districts with well-fed children who weren’t starving.
Except there, in that moment, when all the names had been read, when the screen began showing the tributes being reaped and marked with a certain death sentence.
Marcus felt like he could vomit when the District 2 Reaping appeared on the enormous television displaying the events. He felt like he could throw everything up. As if itt wasn’t already bad that this whole situation was happening. As if it wasn’t already bad that for the first time in years, he was being forced to watch it. As if it wasn’t already bad. As if it weren’t enough, with his wide eyes glued to the screen, Marcus saw who the District 2 tribute was. The tribute that would be his.
He knew it could be someone he had seen before, someone he had spoken to, a classmate he had sat next to or played volleyball with during recess. It could be anyone, but fate was cruel enough to have chosen him.
Him, who still had the same face and the same eyes, just as Marcus remembered well. Him, who had a perplexed expression when he was called up to the stage, and who trembled so much it seemed he might collapse. Him, who looked much younger than he actually was, scared, terrified, so frozen that they had to help him up to the stage.
"Congratulations," Coriolanus Snow’s voice wasn’t far from him, and it held no sarcasm, no mockery, and the sincerity only made everything more disturbing. "You got the pick of the litter, didn’t you?"
Sejanus.
His tribute was Sejanus Plinth.
He had never been to the zoo, mostly because he had no reason to. There were no animals, not even the penguins from his old encyclopedia, nothing that gave him any reason to go there. It was the first time in his entire life and in the ten years he had been living in the Capitol.
Yet, even so, that day, there was Marcus, walking briskly toward the cage where he knew the tributes were held, carrying a leather bag over his shoulder. There were more people than he could count, gathered and crowded around the bars, curiously staring at the people inside. Marcus had to push through them, muttering hurried apologies as he tried to get closer to the bars, his heart racing. This would be the first time he would see Sejanus in front of him. A real, flesh-and-blood version of him, one that breathed, unlike the Sejanus who sometimes appeared in his dreams.
Marcus didn’t have the courage to rewatch the ceremony. He didn’t have the courage to turn on the TV in his apartment to see the same scenes, over and over again. He was lucky that Sejanus hadn’t drawn as much attention as the girl from District 12, the girl Coriolanus Snow would be mentoring. If it weren’t for that, someone might have already tried to ask him about the boy from District 2, just like Marcus. Someone might have tried to ask why Marcus had turned so pale, or why, after the other students shook hands and talked with the teachers, he had rushed to the bathroom to throw up everything he had eaten that day.
He wasn’t even sure if he would be able to look Sejanus in the eye.
How could Marcus? He wouldn’t look Sejanus in the eye if the roles were reversed. If Sejanus were in his place, on the other side of a cage, wearing a bright red uniform. If it had been Sejanus who left everything behind to live in the Capitol. If it had been Sejanus who abandoned him. If it had been Sejanus who left one night, in the darkness, even as he sobbed on the train seat. Still, he tried to find the courage. He tried to swallow the urge to turn his back and run away from that place, the urge to only talk to Sejanus when they met face to face, as he had heard would happen in a few days.
Marcus took a deep breath. He had to be brave. He wasn’t the one in a bad situation; he wasn’t the one with a death sentence written on his forehead. He could do this. He could push his way through the crowd, look with desperation into the cage where so many people were, turn his head frantically searching, and finally speak out loud when he spotted him:
“Sejanus!”
It was the first time Marcus had spoken that name aloud in so many years. His heart raced as he saw Sejanus turn his head, sitting on one of the stones. It seemed unreal. It didn’t seem true.
Sejanus Plinth was looking at him from the depths of the zoo cage.
He had those large brown eyes, too big for his freckled face, just as Marcus remembered, just as Marcus saw in some of his dreams, the ones where he woke up sweating after seeing those brown eyes lifeless. It was Sejanus, there was no denying it, no pretending, and Marcus almost laughed because he had wanted so much to see Sejanus again. He had wanted so much to see him after all these years, for all the times he had tried to write letters and the man working at the mail counter had looked at him with a frown and said they didn’t send informal letters to the Districts. Marcus wanted so much to hear his voice again, to know how he was, if he was okay, if he was still the same Sejanus he knew from school, the same Sejanus for whom Marcus had put snow on his swollen finger.
(The same Sejanus to whom he had given the marble heart. Did Sejanus remember? It had been so long. Or rather, did Sejanus remember him? Was Marcus panicking for no reason, if Sejanus didn’t even recall his face? They had been children. Not even ten years old. Would Marcus have remembered him if the roles were reversed? Would Marcus have remembered when they held hands? Could Marcus talk to Sejanus if he didn’t recognize him? Could he pretend he didn’t remember him either, that he didn’t recognize him?)
No. That wasn’t the case. Sejanus remembered him. The color had drained from his face the moment their eyes met.
Sejanus had always had a ridiculously expressive face, big eyes that showed everything he felt, everything he thought. Sejanus was, perhaps, the easiest person to read that Marcus remembered ever meeting in his life, even though they had only been children, even though they had barely been friends. And that hadn’t changed, it seemed. The way his brow furrowed, the way his eyes widened, and how his nose wrinkled.
Sejanus recognized him. And Sejanus wasn’t happy.
Marcus’s heart raced as Sejanus stood up from where he was, cautiously walking toward him. Sejanus tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes, as if trying to figure out whether he was seeing something real or a hallucination.
(Marcus wished he were a hallucination himself.)
Looking more closely now that Sejanus was near enough to the bars, Marcus could see better how much he still resembled the same boy he had met on the school playground, the same boy he sometimes watched practicing shooting in the forests surrounding the district. Sejanus’s eyes, too big for his face, made him look younger than he was, even though the years had made him tall... just not tall enough to avoid looking up when speaking to Marcus. There were some scars on his freckled face, and a few curls of his hair fell over his forehead as Sejanus finally stood face to face with Marcus.
They stared at each other, eye to eye. Neither said a word. Marcus opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
What to say?
"Red doesn't suit you."
Sejanus was the first to speak, and of course, he’d say something like that with a serious face, without a single smile or a hint of a curve at the corner of his mouth. Marcus instinctively looked down and couldn’t help but agree with Sejanus.
"What are you doing here, Marcus?"
Marcus. Hearing his name come out of Sejanus’ mouth, his more mature voice, sent a shiver through his body. It was strange, like a dream that had become real. He had the urge to reach out and touch Sejanus’ face, just to make sure it was really him, but the frustration and deep sadness Sejanus emanated revealed that he was real. That he was standing in front of Marcus, with a death sentence written on his forehead.
"So, you remember me."
Sejanus frowned. His nose twisted again.
"What kind of question is that?" He seemed frustrated. "Of course, I remember you. It’s not like I could forget."
It’s not like I could forget. No one would forget Marcus in District 2, whether he liked it or not, whether he agreed or not. But still… still, he had hoped that… that maybe Sejanus wouldn’t remember him, that maybe he’d let Marcus’ memory die so he wouldn’t have to go through this, that…
"What are you doing here, Marcus?"
Sejanus insisted, asking the same question again. His eyes already held some tears, and Marcus felt like banging his head against a wall. He had always hated seeing Sejanus cry, and thinking that Sejanus might be crying because of him made him want to die.
"Why are you here?" Sejanus insisted again, frustrated, his hand clutching the bars. "You didn’t come to see me in a zoo like an animal, did you…?"
"No!" Marcus finally managed to summon enough courage to say something, the words spilling from his mouth before he even thought about them. "No, Sejanus. I didn’t…"
"Then why are you here? Just tell me already. What you’re doing isn’t funny."
"Sejanus, I don’t… I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. I…"
He couldn’t speak, and that was the big problem. That had always been the biggest difference between the two of them, hadn’t it? Sejanus spoke a lot, and Marcus couldn’t express himself. Marcus swallowed hard, trying to focus, trying to remember why he was there in the first place. Food. He had brought food for Sejanus. Marcus gave up trying to speak. It wasn’t going to help, and it would only upset Sejanus more. He opened the backpack he had brought and took out one of the wrapped sandwiches he had made at home after spending hours in the kitchen, asking his sisters for help. He handed the sandwich to Sejanus.
"I thought… you must be hungry."
Sejanus frowned, and his nose twisted again. Marcus was confused. He thought maybe Sejanus would be happy that he was trying to bring him food, that Sejanus would realize this showed that he cared, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It only made the corner of Sejanus’ mouth twist.
"I’m not hungry."
"You’ve spent more than a day traveling here, and I know they don’t give food on the freight train. Sejanus, you must be starving."
"And what does it matter? I’m going to die anyway."
Marcus wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, asking if Sejanus was crazy, saying something like that. But he didn’t. Marcus swallowed hard, extending the wrapped sandwich.
"You’re not going to die. I won’t let that happen."
"Oh, really?" Sejanus forced a laugh, and Marcus felt a tightness in his chest at the way he laughed, the way he sounded; he didn’t sound like the same Sejanus Marcus remembered, the same child with big eyes and a soft laugh. "And what are you going to do? Enter the Arena, pull me out of there, send me home? You’re not, are you, Marcus? Of course not. You can’t. No one can. And it’s not your fault, but don’t act like you can save me or save anyone."
Marcus felt as though he had been slapped with every word Sejanus said, looking into his eyes, seeing the tears that had been in the corners start to slide down his freckled cheeks. Sejanus had been holding back the tears all this time. And without thinking, Marcus reached out to wipe his face, like he always did when they were kids and Sejanus got hurt on the playground. Marcus felt his heart break again, for the countless time in all the years he had lived in the Capitol, when Sejanus stepped back to avoid his touch.
"Sejanus, please," he begged again, trying not to panic, "let me help you. I just want to help. I just want to keep you alive."
"And why?"
"Because I…"
Because I never forgot you, and because I couldn’t bear to see my darkest dreams come true, and because I left my heart with you at home.
"It’s because of this mentorship thing, isn’t it?" Sejanus said in a pained tone, his forehead creased. "A weird blonde boy got on the truck with us yesterday. He said everyone would have a mentor. You’re mine, right? What a question. Of course, you are. Why else would you be here?"
"Sejanus," he was tired of trying to insist, and if Sejanus was still the same boy he knew when they were kids, he was the most stubborn person Marcus had ever met, "let me help you get home."
Sejanus looked at him again, analyzing Marcus’ expression, and he hoped it looked as honest as he was being. Marcus meant every word from the bottom of his heart. He just wanted to keep Sejanus alive. And finally, he smiled, the same dimples appearing in his cheeks, and it was the saddest smile Marcus had ever seen in his entire life.
"There’s only one way I can go home, Marcus. And you know I’d never be capable of that."
Marcus’ world collapsed. He wanted to go home and scream into a pillow.
"Before I forget. You left this with me."
Sejanus put his hand in his pocket and took something out. He reached out, holding Marcus’ soft hand. Sejanus’ hand, on the other hand, was calloused, and though he had only touched him for a brief moment, Marcus could feel there were scars there. He placed something in the palm of Marcus’ hand. Whatever it was, it was cold and small. Marcus’ heart skipped a beat. He looked down at his hand and saw what was in his palm.
Sejanus had kept the marble heart.
He had kept the marble heart for years.
He had taken the marble heart to the Capitol.
Why? Why? Why?
"I don’t think I’ll need it anymore," he said, a sad smile on his face. "It’s not like I can take something like that with me after I die, is it?"
Marcus wanted to scream at him, but screams erupted around them before he could have done or said anything.
Arachne Crane was dead, along with the girl who was her tribute.
The first thing Marcus did was place the marble heart on the table.
"Why did you keep this for so long?"
Sejanus, sitting on the other side of the table, his hands chained, blinked. His eyes were swollen and red. Marcus imagined he must have cried; Sejanus always cried easily, that was something Marcus remembered well, and now he had more reasons to cry than ever. The only thing Marcus didn’t understand was why Sejanus didn’t even want to try. Marcus just wanted him to at least try, to let him find a way to keep him alive and safe. But that wasn’t the case. If Sejanus didn’t want to die in the arena, he was certainly determined to starve to death. He hadn’t accepted anything Marcus had brought him.
He looked confusedly at Marcus's face before his eyes drifted to the marble heart on the table. Sejanus fell into a deep silence, his brow furrowed.
"I’m not going to ask you to eat again," Marcus was leaning over the table, his fingers constantly fidgeting with the marble heart, "and I’m not going to try to insist on it. I just want to know why you kept it. If you tell me, I’ll leave you alone."
Sejanus bit his lower lip. He shifted a bit in the chair, in the uncomfortable position he was in. Marcus glanced around out of the corner of his eye, observing the hall where all the other mentors were, exchanging words with their tributes; some saying nothing, some crying so much they couldn’t speak. He knew he was lucky Sejanus was even willing to talk to him. He knew that if he were in Sejanus’s place, Marcus wouldn’t say a single word.
But Marcus wasn’t Sejanus, and Sejanus had always been too kind for his own good.
"Why do you want to know so badly?" Sejanus wasn’t looking into his eyes, focusing somewhere on the floor, somewhere that wasn’t Marcus. "It doesn’t make any difference. I already gave it back to you. It stayed with me too long anyway."
"Because, Sejanus" because I never imagined you’d keep it, because I always thought you’d hate me; why don’t you hate me? "it’s been years since I gave that to you as a gift. You remember it was a gift, don’t you?"
"Sort of," he shrugged. "Why do you care so much?"
"Because it was a stupid childhood gift, and yet you kept it. And not only kept it but brought it here. You... took it in your pocket during the Reaping?"
Sejanus lifted his gaze to meet Marcus’s, and for the first time since the zoo, he looked truly hurt. Not just bothered, not just tired, not just sad. Hurt, deeply.
"Are you serious?" he asked. "When you say it was a stupid childhood gift?"
"I... that’s not what I meant," Marcus sighed, burying his face in his hands, running his hands through his hair, which he had recently grown out for the first time since he was very young. "What I meant was..."
"Well. To me, it meant everything. I thought maybe you felt the same way."
Marcus felt guilty, seeing how Sejanus’s shoulders slumped, the way he shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Could he do nothing right? Could he do something that wasn’t a constant mistake, like the people around him kept reminding him all the time, all the time?
"It’s just that I don’t understand, Sejanus."
"What don’t you understand?"
"Why don’t you hate me?" He finally decided to say what he’d been thinking all along, what had been stuck in his throat. "Why did you keep it? Why didn’t you..."
He couldn’t finish the sentence. Sejanus was staring at him, looking a little confused, his head tilted to the side. Sejanus clicked his tongue, the same way he did as a child when he had a thought that seemed clever or he thought was clever.
"I guess there must be something wrong with me," Sejanus smiled that same sad smile, the same smile that broke Marcus’s heart every time, "because I tried to hate you. And everyone hates you, to be honest. At school, I mean."
Of course everyone hated him. In the Capitol, in District 2. By the mountains, sometimes Marcus believed he hated himself, maybe more than anyone else could. Perhaps he hoped Sejanus hated him to have the comfort that someone had the right to despise him more than he despised himself. And the thought that Sejanus must be the only person besides his mother, besides his sisters, who didn’t hate him made him want to cry, right here and now. Still, Marcus didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried in a long time.
"But... I don’t know," Sejanus shrugged, and the chains rattled. "You were the kindest boy I ever knew. You were gentle, and you put ice on my finger, even when everyone ignored you, and even when you knew you might get nothing but scorn in return. So... when you left, and I went to your house, and there was no one inside, no lights, no sound... and you didn’t tell me anything before you left, because I mean, we weren’t friends, were we? But I thought we could be, after that day. Because after that day, you kept being kind to me, and I kept eating sandwiches with you. And you gave me the marble heart a few days before you left. And I thought... I thought you... maybe..."
Sejanus fell silent, not finishing the sentence. He seemed to get lost in thought for a moment. And Marcus didn’t know why, didn’t know what had compelled him, but he reached out and touched his fingers. Sejanus looked at their hands, which were touching, and then back into Marcus’s eyes.
"It’s sad, isn’t it?" he smiled, his dimples showing. "That maybe in another universe, this could work. You and me."
A pity that in this universe, Sejanus was a dead boy.
No. What was Marcus thinking? He wasn’t going to let Sejanus die. He couldn’t let him die. He suddenly pulled his hand back, grabbing a pen from the corner of the table, drawing lines on paper with a furrowed brow.
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking," Marcus muttered. "I have to find a way to keep you alive."
"Marcus..."
"No," he put the pen aside abruptly, staring into Sejanus’s big, sad, tear-filled eyes. "I’m not going to let you practically commit suicide. Your Ma. Think of your Ma, Sejanus. Think of her, think of her bakery. Think of how she’ll feel if you die."
Think of me. Think of how I’ll feel. Think of how I won’t be able to live if you die, if you die like this, this way, and don’t let me do anything to help you.
"Mentors," a voice rang out through the hall, and Marcus looked in the direction of Professor Sickle, "time is up."
"You’re going home, Sejanus," Marcus whispered to him as Sejanus seemed frozen in place, terrified, seeing Peacekeepers approaching. "I promise you. I promise I’ll find a way to keep you alive."
It was the last thing Marcus could say to him before Sejanus was taken away. He looked back one last time. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that Sejanus had also looked back.
The first thing Sejanus did when they set foot inside the arena was grab his hand. And Marcus hadn’t expected that. He looked to the side, shocked, for a moment.
"I’m scared," he whispered, perhaps not wanting anyone but Marcus to hear.
Marcus couldn’t help the response that slipped out of his mouth:
"I thought you were sure you were going to die."
And he regretted it almost immediately after saying it.
"Sorry."
"It’s okay," Sejanus shook his head. "To be honest, for someone who’s so afraid of death, I think about it a lot."
"Have you thought about dying? Before all of this?"
"Haven’t you?"
Marcus didn’t have an answer. They kept walking. He wondered if some of their peers were staring at them, a pair walking hand in hand. Two boys from the Districts, one with a death sentence written on his forehead.
"I wanted to give this back to you."
Marcus let go of Sejanus’s hand for a moment. He reached back into his pocket, searching for what he had brought, and then took Sejanus’s hands to place the marble heart in them. Sejanus looked at his own hands, then at Marcus, confused.
"What are you doing?"
"It’s yours," Marcus insisted, serious.
"What? No, Marcus, it’s not fair. You’ve kept this with me for years, and…"
"I kept it with you for years because I wanted to. Because it was a gift.”
Because I love you.
Sejanus looked into his eyes once more, and they fell into a deep silence. He even opened his mouth, and Marcus wondered what he might say. Marcus wouldn’t let Sejanus give the heart back, his heart that he had given as a gift. Marcus thought about saying the real reason. What did he have to lose? And what harm would it do to let Sejanus know? Neither of them said anything, but Marcus was about to, he was about to open his mouth and finally speak.
And then the bombs came.
It was almost instinct that made him throw himself to the ground. Marcus could still hear his Ma's voice from when he was very young, saying loudly and clearly:
“Grab your sisters and throw yourself on the ground if you hear a loud noise. Do you understand me?”
He understood, and he was already tired of doing the same thing over and over. Throwing himself on the ground and covering his head. It was an almost automatic movement, a programmed response to the explosive sound. And that’s how Marcus felt like a child again, lying against the ground, pressing his hands against his head. The instinct came first, the sharp sound ringing in his ears after the bombs finally finished their explosive symphony. And then came the thought that made his heart race, his eyes widen, his hands tremble.
Sejanus.
Where was Sejanus, by the mountains?!
Marcus got up, feeling his legs shake. There was so much dust around that he could barely see, barely breathe, barely think. His thoughts were the same, and they always ended up in the same place:
Sejanus. Where was Sejanus? He needed to find Sejanus.
“Sejanus!”
“Marcus?!”
The answer came, and Marcus looked around with wide eyes, trying to see, trying to find where the voice came from. And finally, he saw it. There was Sejanus, emerging from the dust, getting up from the ground not far from him. Marcus almost laughed in relief. Almost, because he was so frozen in terror that no sound could escape his throat. His legs moved before he could think, running to where Sejanus was, covered in soot, static. He held Sejanus in his arms. And, to his surprise, Sejanus hugged him back, gripping his uniform as if his life depended on it.
He was sobbing against the red uniform of the Academy. And, for the first time, Sejanus admitted aloud, his voice scared:
“I don’t want to die.”
And Marcus wasn’t going to let him die.
He needed to think fast. Marcus looked around, trying to think, trying to reason quickly while holding Sejanus in his arms. And then he saw the exit of the Arena. The exit that was unguarded.
“You’re going to escape.”
Marcus pulled Sejanus away just enough to hold his shoulders and look him in the eyes, serious. Sejanus looked more terrified than ever. All the sadness from the previous hours seemed to vanish, replaced by fear, pure fear. And, with eyes so wide and a round face, he looked like a child. He looked like the same little boy Marcus had met when he was eight, the same little kid who had smiled at him with a missing tooth in his mouth.
“I want you to listen very carefully,” Marcus said, trying to be quick but clear; he held Sejanus’s shoulders firmly, making him look him in the eyes. “You’re leaving. You’re going to run and escape. You’re going to find the tunnels and then you’re getting out of this place, and you’re not looking back. Do you hear me?”
Sejanus shook his head, but still no sound came from his mouth. He was shaking from head to toe.
“I can’t…”
“You can, and you will. You’re going to escape from here. You’re going to run far away, Sejanus, and if you don’t do it, I’ll never forgive you. I won’t talk to you, I won’t even look at your face. Do you understand, Sejanus? I will never forgive you. So do me a favor, and do yourself a favor, and run. Run now!”
Marcus thought that maybe Sejanus was paralyzed with fear and considered the possibility of dragging Sejanus out of that Arena himself. He thought about saving Sejanus with his own hands, no matter how that would end up with at least one of them dead. But before he could do anything, before he could save Sejanus, he didn’t need to do that. Sejanus held his face and kissed him. For a few brief seconds, not even more than five, but he kissed him. Marcus felt him smile against his mouth. And he also felt that Sejanus put something against his hand.
The marble heart.
“I should at least have the right to a wish for death, shouldn’t I?”
Sejanus ran.
And this time, he didn’t look back.