Gadge drabble. I don't own The Hunger Games or any of its beautiful characters.
The boy is a hurricane. If there is only one thing she is sure of anymore, it is this.
The morning is the worst time. He never stays. Never holds her. Never just lies there with her when it's over. He's always gone before she could even ask him not to go.
Not that she ever would. She thinks about it. Obsessively, even. But her thoughts never quite make it to that part of her brain that forms them into actual words.
So she never asks.
And why would she? Why should she? What makes him deserving of the more intimate aspects of intimacy? His body may wrap around hers like they were made for each other (she hates this cliché, but it's almost frightening how well their bodies move as one), but he's never really there. Not in the way that it counts.
The boy is a hurricane and she is the wreckage he leaves in his wake.
She knows where he goes when he's with her and it kills her that she's the only one in the room. She wishes she didn't, wishes she was stupid or naïve. But she has battle wounds of her own. She recognizes the pain in his eyes as if it is her own. Pain neither of them are equipped to deal with, at least not on their own.
She was much better off than he'd ever be, but her life was fucked up so far beyond repair that she couldn't even believe it was her own.
Whether she wanted it or not, he had become her escape. Her only escape. Beyond her music and the peace that came with it; beyond the empty, hopeful promises that came with each spring. He had taken the place of the only freedom she had ever known and become the only release could ever need. So she might as well want it.
His fingers untangle from her long amber hair and he kisses her again, slow and detached, as he rolls over and lies on his back. Her eyes drift to her window, where she could see the break of the inevitable dawn through the clouds in the distant horizon.
The weight on her mattress shifts. Her eyelids are suddenly heavy with fatigue and she feels her body slowly begin to power down.
Just as the room grows still and it is time for him to go, a strong arm slips around her waist and a rough hand rests on her exposed hip. Normally electrifying, the sensation of his touch is alarmingly soothing. A steady breath warms the back of her neck, relaxing the tension in her shoulders and finally, her eyes flutter shut and her mind drifts away.
