Linden's careful to sit exactly where Peggy indicates, the grandness of the chair clashing with the shrunken shabbiness of his appearance. Even though Peggy had given him the chance, actually urged him to make himself presentable, using that word is generous. His clothes only really look nice when the stylists guide his limbs into a coordinating, newly tailored number and run a comb by him, and they have not been near him in days. He is every bit a wild-haired, tortured Districter sitting at the dinner table in the Compson manor, in other words, sans the polish, makeup and tricks that allow him to pass in the Capitol. And he happens to be a Districter that Jason hates, on top of everything else.
He glances Peggy's way while Jason spews vitriol in the kitchen, but says nothing, even if his hands clench under the tabletop and the set of his jaw is tenser than usual. When Jason returns, he makes no move to help himself to a beverage, instead slipping a hand in his pocket for a carton of hand-rolled cigarettes. If his body is craving nourishment, the twisted knot in his stomach prevents it from registering. He also slips several scraps of paper and a pair of pens from the same pocket.
Linden keeps a careful eye on Peggy, trusting that this is a place to speak relatively freely given her direction, but not wanting to take the chance just in case microphones can still pick up what they're saying.
He takes a deep breath, as if about to say things that are immensely difficult for him. "To start off, I want to apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for everything I have ever said that you took personal offense to. The shots at your family were especially unfair and uncalled for, and it does nothing but reflect poorly on my District when I use that kind of rhetoric. Furthermore, it reflects poorly on me as a person to take advantage of such low blows. I am not a bully, and it pains me to realize I have been behaving very much like one."
As he speaks, he writes, more slowly to make his childish, sloppy hand legible.
We have to leave the Capitol. Both of us are in danger.
no subject
He glances Peggy's way while Jason spews vitriol in the kitchen, but says nothing, even if his hands clench under the tabletop and the set of his jaw is tenser than usual. When Jason returns, he makes no move to help himself to a beverage, instead slipping a hand in his pocket for a carton of hand-rolled cigarettes. If his body is craving nourishment, the twisted knot in his stomach prevents it from registering. He also slips several scraps of paper and a pair of pens from the same pocket.
Linden keeps a careful eye on Peggy, trusting that this is a place to speak relatively freely given her direction, but not wanting to take the chance just in case microphones can still pick up what they're saying.
He takes a deep breath, as if about to say things that are immensely difficult for him. "To start off, I want to apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for everything I have ever said that you took personal offense to. The shots at your family were especially unfair and uncalled for, and it does nothing but reflect poorly on my District when I use that kind of rhetoric. Furthermore, it reflects poorly on me as a person to take advantage of such low blows. I am not a bully, and it pains me to realize I have been behaving very much like one."
As he speaks, he writes, more slowly to make his childish, sloppy hand legible.
We have to leave the Capitol. Both of us are in danger.