This story is dedicated to a childhood friend who passed away from complications with cystic fibrosis. I wish she were able to live the life she deserved to live.
...
Katniss mostly remembers blue eyes from Prim's summer stay in the hospital.
It was her only true scare, and everything from the rush of the ambulance (let us do our job! let us help your sister!) from the ER are mostly a blur in her mind. She remembers vaguely Prim entering into stable condition, moved out of the ICU and then into a recovery room with a boy Katniss's age. She didn't pay him much mind besides a quick hello and goodbye and the beginning and end of the day, and all but blocked him out when she sang to Prim before she left each night.
She remembers quite clearly thinking about how he didn't know her pain, Prim's pain, and how she wished so much that he'd stop staring at her every day. She didn't want the pity for her or her sister. He was ignorant to all that they had to suffer through.
So when Katniss realized how the boy had all but destroyed his leg, she wanted to throw up. She wanted to cry and scream and hit whoever was close enough. But most of all, she wanted his eyes off of her.
…
She knows his name is Peeta because of Prim.
Prim likes to tell her how sweet the boy is when it's just them in the morning, how he tells her stories about the bakery his parents own, and how he hopes one day he can bake her a cookie frosted with primroses, just for her.
Katniss simply looks over at the boy with the bed next to Prim, and he looks away then. Prim is unembarrassed to sing his praises with him just a few feet away, too sweet and young to think twice about it. Of course, it's not like they can discuss him when he is away, because he never leaves the room. He never has any visitors. She supposes that his friends are too busy with summer camp and his parents are running his bakery that Prim seems so enchanted by. Katniss never thinks twice about the boy, she is sure he will be in and out, and this visit and his injury will simply be a story to laugh about in his vacation house ten years from now.
...
It's a few days later when she comes to the hospital halfway through the day, breaking her week-long tradition of running down the doors as soon as they open and being practically dragged from Prim's side by the nurses. The door is shut, contrary to how Prim prefers it, open for any visitor to stop by. She walks to the end of the hall, Prim's room is the very last one, and is surprised to hear the yelling coming from the thin walls.
"You stupid boy!" yells a shrill voice. It doesn't take Katniss long to figure out the voice is yelling a Peeta, the silent, staring boy in the bed next to her sister. "How could you let him drive? What are we going to do? You'll never get that scholarship now- you're useless. You might as well cut off that leg, it'll do you no good!"
Katniss cringes at the words, harsh against her ears. When she hears footsteps heading towards the door, she tries her best to look uninterested, though she realizes quickly it is no matter. The tall, blonde woman pays her no mind and she heads towards the opposite direction of the room after slamming the door quickly behind her.
As she peeks the door open, she first realizes Prim is absent from her bed- Rory probably stopped by with Gale to push her around in her wheelchair and make a ruckus about the halls. She then looks at Peeta, and he stares at her fully, tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, unabashed to show the emotion most sixteen year old boys would ashamed of recognizing.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she says quickly, backing up to make her way out of the door.
"Wait!"
She stops in her tracks and looks at the boy, carefully rubbing the tear marks away from he cheeks with the back of his good hand, the other still bandaged from when he first arrived in the room not long after Prim. He sniffles a bit, and then makes a motion for her to come over to his bedside.
Katniss hesitates a moment, and then obliges him, unable to break eye contact with him. She walks over and kneels at his bedside, so they are level.
"I'm Peeta," he says, and he laughs a bit, perhaps realizing he absurdity of introducing himself to a person who clearly knows who he is.
"Katniss," she offers him, humoring him really. She's sure he knows who he is.
"I know," he pauses. He finally looks away. "You have a beautiful voice."
The shock she feels is sure to also register on her face, most likely in the form of a blush. She had tried so hard to forget about him there, in that bed, so sure he had no idea what her or her sister could possibly be feeling, how badly they could possibly be suffering. It's this that makes her realize that he did not simply fall off his expensive ATV in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. She still hears the ring from the yelling in her ears, and she knows it is her turn to ask.
"Why are you here?" she demands. She expects his answer to be a worthy one, one that implies that he knows how unfair everything is, how inescapable the life she is living is. What she demands of him is that he understands the suffering and the pain she can barely even comprehend, something that she put past him in the days before.
He sighs, crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. She thinks it is his bandages, what she thinks are flesh wounds underneath them. She grabs his uninjured hand and holds in lightly, comforting him like she would Prim. He looks at her in awe. He has eyes like Prim, blue and wide and clear. He looks at her like a miracle worker.
"My dad was driving me and my brothers home from a wrestling competition. It was mine. My brothers came to cheer me on. My mother wanted us home by Monday so we could help with the bakery, so we left Sunday night. I didn't really realize how tired my father way, I guess. We drove off the road. I lived."
He didn't need to finish the rest. She understands where his brothers and father are now. The same place her father is, taken by something that has no mercy on people like them.
"That was your mom?" She asks. She feels the coldness of that woman's march down the hall. He nods. "I'm sorry," she offers. It's all she can give. She gives everything to Prim and she's lucky if there's anything left for herself or Gale or her mother.
"I'm sorry about Prim. She's too good."
Apologies and condolences about her sister usually put her on edge. She doesn't like people pitying her strong, sweet sister. She doesn't need their sorry! or how terrible! or what a shame! But Peeta's words are not pity, they are understanding. Peeta is the same as Prim, and because of that, she wants to fall over, right then. This boy has been ripped from something like Katniss had, like Prim had, like her mother had, Katniss grudgingly admits.
He stares again for a while, and she feels as if he is looking right down into her and understand something that is just out of her reach. She leaves then, saying she has to go find Prim, and when she returns later, he is gone.
She does not see him again for nine years.
...
I am rebooting this story... again. Sorry to you all! Next chapter will be up soon. I'm trying to pump this one out before break is over.