and tell me now where was my fault/in loving you with my whole heart -Mumford & Sons, "White Blank Page"

When he left, she told him stay alive. In the climax of his Games, she prayed to a God she didn't believe in that he would stay alive, begging and weeping on her knees, her love for Haymitch degrading her pride.

He comes back, the blonde girl on his arm, prettier and purer than she's ever been. Maysilee Donner had been born with everything Amber needed, everything she wanted, and now the merchant girl had taken away the man poor and hard-worn and fucked up enough to be with her.

His gray eyes are sorrowful and guilty, filled with an apology that will never be enough. They go out in the woods like they did when they were children, and he wants to kiss her, hold her to him and kiss her like he did before the Capitol stole his right to have a lover, but she refuses him, laughs bitterly. You don't think they can see us now? and she is scathing, cynical. Haymitch's jaw is hard. They're everywhere, even here.

But most of all she is guilty. She is guilty for the way Haymitch and Maysilee bow their heads in shame every time they have to play the lover, guilty for how violently he starts when somebody surprises him, the knife he takes to bed each night. It is the knife that is his bedmate now, and the pretty blonde girl who survived the odds that drinks with him. There is no place for Amber in his life now, the place she once bartered her trust and security and well-being to have.