I stretch out the bed sheets and tuck them underneath the edges of the mattress, then go to smooth the comforter over the bed. I see Peeta walk past the door of the room and tense up. I don't want him to see me, not like this. In these horrible red clothes. The garments that mark me as an outcast, as an Avox.

After a few moments frozen in place, I'm convinced that he's not going to enter the room right now. I relax and go back to fixing his bed, standing the pillows up at perfect right angles. Mr. Snow likes for us to make everything crisp and tidy for the Tributes. I feel a pang at the actual realization of this. Peeta is a Tribute in the Games. I had known this already of course because I had seen the reaping and I knew I would be waiting on his room when he was settled into the Capitol, but only now had the weight of this information sunk in. He would probably be dead in a matter of weeks. I stop myself from getting sentimental and return to my task at hand. Mr. Snow would not be happy if I returned to my quarters late.

I pick up Peeta's shoes from where they sit neatly at the foot of his bed and set them in the closet. I remember these shoes. They belonged to his older brother. Hand-me-downs. I remember when he wore them to school for the first time, it was just over a year ago now. He was in the same grade as I was. They were a couple sizes too big for him and when I'd seen how uncomfortable they were making him I had suggested to him to stuff an extra sock in each shoe. The next day he had thanked me for the suggestion and told me that his shows were much more comfortable. I remember the grateful grin he'd splayed across his face. I find that the corners of my own lips are curving up a little at the memory. But I quickly push it back to the recesses of my mind and the half smile fades as quickly as I had almost let it appear.

But the memories don't stop playing through my head. Peeta and I had become good friends after that encounter. Well, we would hang out together occasionally anyway. More so he hung out with Delly Cartwright, Madge Undersee, and his two brothers. But that was really because they were town kids.

Me, I was known at school as the Seam scum. I had three little brothers and my parents to help support and every year I put my name in extra times for the Tessearae. They didn't know about my private dealings with the Peacekeepers for extra money. They never knew about when I would sneak out late at night or where all the bruises on my body came from.

Peeta was the one that had found out about it. After I'd serviced one of the Peacekeepers for the night he threw me out the door and tossed some money at me. I ended up with cuts on my hands from catching myself on the hard ground. I scrambled to pick up the coins and stuff them into my pockets and began to head home, but it had been a long night and I found myself more worn and I ached worse than usual. I could already feel the large bruises forming all over my body.

I found a random town building and curled up underneath the porch to try and get out of the chilly night air. I wanted to just fall asleep there, hidden away from everyone, but I knew I had to return home, but I couldn't bring myself to move and instead I started sobbing like a little child.

That was when a he found me, "Alice? Is that you?"

I went to wipe the tears off my face, but left blood streaks from my fingers in their place. He knelt down beside me and coaxed me gently to come out from under the porch.

He took me over to his house just a few houses away from the one I'd been hiding at and used some of the water from the pigs trough to wash my hands off. I did my best to stay quiet and not whimper as he carefully worked the gravel out of the cuts on my palms. He took the bottom of his own shirt in his hands and started to pull on the fabric-, "No, don't do that!" I whispered fiercely to him.

He just shook his head, "Don't worry about it." He continued to rip two strips from his shirt, which he used to wrap my hands up. I looked at his tattered white shirt that now hung a few inches above his pants, exposing just a bit of his skin. He saw my gaze and smiled reassuringly at me. "It's just a shirt," he said simply.

But there was something there on his skin, something familiar to me, a dark purple and yellow blemish that was so easily hidden underneath the fabric of his shirt before, but now was revealed to me in the faint light of the moon.

He didn't say anything, but instead took a seat next to me on the ground, his legs folded underneath him, while I hugged mine to my chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked gently.

Something in me had been wanting to tell somebody for ages. And before I could stop the words, they just tumbled out of me. A flood of shame and regret and self-loathing that I hadn't realized I'd been holding back for so long until that moment. I told him everything. And when I'd finished he asked me if I would be alright if he gave me a hug.

I didn't know what to say, it was the kindest thing he could have offered. He didn't pity me or call me names like "slut", just a hug. I nodded my head and bit my lip as more warm tears rolled down my face. He held me close in a gentle hug until I'd stopped crying and finally just sat there, still in his arms.

We sat there and talked for a bit. And he told me about how his mother beat him sometimes. The bruise on his stomach was from a beating she'd given him two weeks prior for spilling a jar of sugar on the counter in the bakery.

He offered to walk me home, but I was alright by then, so I told him I would see him in school the next day. We stood up and he gave me another friendly hug and told me that if I ever needed to talk to him that he would always be there to listen.

I didn't see Peeta the next day in school. On my way home I was caught by a peacekeeper. He had heard me telling Peeta about what I did for them and the next thing I knew I was being locked away in a prison cell on a train headed for the Capitol. They cut my tongue out as punishment for "spreading falsehoods about the Peacekeepers". And I've been here in the Capitol ever since. Doing whatever jobs are assigned to me without question, lest I face other kinds of punishment. Avoxes don't only lose their tongues. I have seen Avoxes missing an eye, fingers…the Capitol knows many ways to keep us in line.

I finish straightening up the various things in the room and begin to head for the door, and run right into Peeta as he enters the room. I take a step back and lower my gaze to the floor as I am supposed to do, and clasp my hands in front of me.

I can feel Peeta's gaze on me, and then his hands on my shoulders. I can't resist looking up to meet his eyes and I can see that he remembers me before he even whispers my name, "Alice?"

My chin quivers a bit and immediately he pulls me back into that same comforting hug he had given me over a year ago now.

He holds me out to look me in the face again, "I had wondered what had happened to you. And now...you can't even tell me how you got here can you?"

I shook my head, and for the first time since being here I was glad I couldn't speak. I would hate for him to think that this was his fault.

I can hear footsteps coming close to the room, given the high-pitched click-clicking I would assume that it is Effie Trinket.

Peeta is alerted to the approaching escort as well and lowers his voice to a whisper, "I don't want to get you in trouble, Alice. I'm so sorry for what's happened to you, really I am. I wish there was something I could do."

The sincerity in his eyes makes me want to cry again, but the steps are getting closer, and Effie pokes her head into the room, her shrill Capitol accent piercing the air, "Come along now, it's time for lunch! You get to try the most exquisite things today. Hurry now before it gets cold!" She motions for Peeta to follow her and he glances back at me one more time, but my hands are clasped in front of me, my eyes on the floor again.

He follows after her, and though just a moment ago I was grateful for not being able to speak, now I wish so desperately that I could. I want to tell him what a great friend he has been. How much his comforting words helped me that one night back in District 12. I want to ask him if he'd seen my family after I'd disappeared. I want to tell him that I am sorry that he has to be in the Games.

I can't hold it back. I scramble to find a pen and a piece of paper and scribble down a note:

Thank you so much for your friendship Peeta. I'm sorry that you had to become a part of the Games. I want you to know that I hope that you are the one that wins. May the odds be ever in your favor.

~Alice

I hide the note inside his shoe. No one but Peeta will be able to find it there. It is then that I notice the time. It has gotten late. Very late. Mr. Snow will be angry at me.

I run back to my quarters and find that all the other Avoxes are already off at their next task – waiting on the Gamemakers' Feast. I start to head toward the door but two Peacekeepers suddenly appear in the doorway and take me by each arm.

At least before I die, I got to say thank you to the one friend I ever had.