I slowly sit up in my two room house in the Seam. My mother, and all my siblings sleep around the room, so I slowly tip toe past them and out the door, without waking anyone. I walk down the road in complete darkness, sometimes fumbling over rocks, or tripping on pieces of wood. I'm careful to be extremely quiet, so no dogs bark. No one can know where I'm heading...
It's a warm, beautiful night. Perfect for a midnight rendezvous under the bridge with the girl I love. The intensity of not letting anybody know our whereabouts just makes it that much more exciting. The taboo feeling of it all just makes me want it more. And finally, after a 20 minute walk, I make it to the small bridge near the mayor's house. I walk under, and see the silhouette of beautiful blonde curls, and an amazing body. She runs over to kiss me passionately.
"Madge," I say pulling back, "It's been forever."
"A whole week!" Madge giggles, wrapping her arms around me. There are two reasons why we can only see each other under the protection of night. One being that if her father saw her with a Seam boy, he would send set Peacekeepers to kill me. Two being that she's two years younger than me, and in District Twelve, that's considered far too much of a difference.
I normally would never even think about doing this with a sixteen year old, but one day I saw her laughing in the lunch room. She was sitting with Katniss, and she was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, the most beautiful laugh I had ever heard. With the amount of time I spend with Katniss, most people just assumed I was staring at her. Everyone assumed I was in love with her. But I was staring at Madge, and I noticed her staring at me a few times as well. So one day I saw her walking around the district square alone, so I talked to her. She told me she had feelings for me as well, so we started secretly meeting up. And here we are now, a month later, alone under a bridge, making out. Something I could never do with Katniss.
I sit stroking her hair, with her leaning on my chest. "Gale… what if one of us is reaped tomorrow?" she asks me. "I know I only have three names in the jar… but you have…"
"Forty-two… I know. Don't think about it. If this is our last night together, let's just enjoy it."
"O.K.…" she says. But I admit I can't stop thinking what if that did happen. Or worse, what if we both got reaped. The odds of that happening are low, but with The Hunger Games, any odds at all are enough to ruin people's lives. I want to be able to grow old with Madge. If I don't get reaped this year, then I never will. But she still has two years left after this...