("For your goat," he'd said, holding out the length of ribbon. "Old Marge was having a sale."
"Oh, thank you," Prim had practically squealed, and hugged him around the waist.)
Gale does his best to resemble the monster that people think he is. He works late, misses Posy's birthday, acts as if he's forgotten how to tuck Rory into bed; Posy contrasts the flat look in his eyes, the way he turns away from her, stutters on the P in her name, with the Gale of a few years ago; did we get a new brother or is it just me? She whispers to Vick after lights-out. He only shrugs.
Gale has spent two years in his new post as Reconstruction Coordinator. He has been spat at seventy-one times, had twenty-eight pieces of unidentifiable rotten fruit chucked at the back of his head, and nearly been assassinated twice.
The 'nearly' rankles him.
In the twenty-four months since the revolution, he has spoken to one hundred and eighty-eight grieving families, left two baskets of the freshest wild strawberries on one undermarked grave, torn up over three dozen half-written letters to Katniss Everdeen, and eaten exactly five meals with his family.
He has smiled five times, at the most.
Because, "I'll take care of Prim," he promised the girl who was the arrow to his traps. The part of him that would make such a promise is gone, immolated to ashes, cremated alongside the girl with healing hands and a ducktailing blouse.