"I can't do this anymore."
"What - what are you saying? What do you mean? Please, Katniss -"
"I just can't stay, Peeta. I'm sorry."
The click of her boots on the tile, the thump of her suitcase on the porch steps.
Then silence.
—-
The ice in the glass clinked rhythmically. Swirl, swig, clink. Swirl, swig, clink. It was a perverse heartbeat that started when he got home from work and ended only when he woke the next morning, the whiskey bottle empty and his alarm blaring.
Three years. He had barely functioned for three years. She had packed her things, leaving behind only a few vanilla scented tee shirts, long forgotten in the back of the dresser drawer.
The memories never stopped. Over and over and over again they played: the day he asked her to marry him, their wedding night, visiting her sister at Christmas. The day he found the texts on her phone. The screaming match on the front porch with the dog whimpering in the house. The visit to the hospital, the blood, the doctor with his tired eyes and sad smile, telling them their unborn daughter had died before they had a chance to name her.
He had become distant and emotionless, a reaction to the hostility and fire of Katniss that eventually turned against him, then burned out, leaving it its wake cold indifference.
She walked away. He heard updates about her now and then from Gale. She was dating someone casually; she was single again; she was working hard, she just got promoted.
He had only survived this long because of Haymitch, their golden retriever, adopted when they first started living together - their 'starter family' before marriage and children. Haymitch laid his head on Peeta's lap while the whiskey bottle kept him company, wagged his tail when Peeta walked through the door, and was the only reason Peeta managed to lift his head in the morning.
But Haymitch had passed away three days ago. Peeta had come home from work to find him in his crate; he had died in his sleep. After going to the vet, Peeta buried him in the backyard, and had not stopped drinking since.
Swirl. Swig. Clink.
Her face bathed with dog kisses.
Swirl. Swig. Clink.
Her laugh when Haymitch found the toy hidden between the couch cushions.
Swirl. Swig. Clink.
Her…her… her.
His thoughts were going fuzzy He hadn't eaten or slept since he had laid down the shovel. What else was there? She was gone. His dog was gone. All he had was the trash can filled with old whiskey bottles.
And the gun in the garage, the gun she had wanted for protection since they were living so far away from neighbors. The gun that was always loaded.
He downed the last of his glass.
Three minutes later, a gunshot shattered the still evening air.
—-
"Why the fuck would you do that?"
Peeta's shouts echoed off the trees, cut through the night.
How could she explain the feeling of being trapped in a marriage slowly falling apart?
—-
"He's dead, Katniss. He killed himself yesterday. I'll let you know when I find out about the funeral."
This was the third time Gale had repeated himself. He had called at eight o'clock, just as she had gotten home from a long day. He had tired to break it to her gently, trying to save her the pain, but she just didn't understand. Finally, he had been blunt; and when she still said nothing, he hung up the phone.
Peeta was dead. They had found his body the day after, when he hadn't shown up for work for four days and he didn't answer anyone's phone calls. They had found him in the bedroom they had once shared, lying face down in bed as if he was asleep, their wedding photo in his left hand.
A single gunshot wound to the head.
She had thought about him every day for years, ashamed of the way she had walked out the door, walked out on a marriage she had nearly singlehandedly destroyed— so much so that she had never actually filed for the divorce she had threatened so often.
She would ask Gale sometimes how Peeta was doing, unable to stop herself. He was okay; he was throwing himself into his work; he and Haymitch went on a cross-country drive.
She hadn't even bothered to say goodbye to their dog, the beautiful golden retriever she had so desperately wanted to be the start fo their family.
But it was too late, he was gone, he was gone, he was gone.
Three days later, she stepped into the funeral home. The room was full of people - and she found it hard to not feel bitter, to blame them for leaving him alone, for not helping him, for not realizing just how close to rock bottom he had been for years.
Guilt was eating her alive. She had found solace in a whiskey bottle, an homage to the man she had loved so much and so deeply, the man she had destroyed. She had already drank a bottle that day; 3 more were in a plastic grocery bag under the passenger seat in the rental car.
Peeta's mother glared at her from a corner; his father came up to hug her, his brothers nodded. The glass of whiskey was empty before she realized it; she staggered slightly, and covered her mouth as she ran from the room.
He was gone. She had left him alone and she had broken his heart, and now all she wanted was to feel close to him again.
She drove back to her hotel, the car swerving dangerously on tree-lined roads eerily empty. She overcorrected; the car fishtailed and she careened into a ditch.
Her head spun and ached; she was titled at a forty-five degree angle, the car's undercarriage was flush with the side of the ditch. She unbuckled her seat belt and reached over to the passenger side, grabbing the bottle of Jack Daniels.
Swirl. Swig. The rings she had never had the courage to pawn clinked against the bottle.
He had shot himself with the gun she had insisted they buy. They were living so far away from anyone else, she wanted to feel safe.
She opened the glove compartment. She had bought another gun while she was living in the city; she had packed it into the car without a thought.
Swirl. Swig. Clink.
His blue eyes looking up at her, his ear pressed to the slight curve of her belly to hear their daughter's heartbeat. His voice begging to talk to her, to stay with him, as the EMT's wheeled the gurney into the emergency room. His arm around her shoulders as she sobbed in a hospital bed.
Swirl. Swig. Clink.
His … his… his.
They would bury her beneath the willow tree where he had proposed, where they had said their vows, where fresh earth covered his coffin.
Three seconds later, the blast of a gunshot was heard only by the trees.