Slowly, I grow out of myself. I visit Haymitch, talking to him for hours. I clean up his house a little, and make sure he never has enough alcohol on hand to kill him through alcohol poisoning. Peeta takes longer, but I come to trust him. Eventually.
Eventually, I open the note from my mother, and find that my anger towards a woman who leaves her child is cooled by a profuse apologies and—most importantly of all—a phone number. I call her at the hospital she has started in Four, and we cry about Prim together. Then she puts me in contact with Johanna Mason, one of her first patients. Johanna calls me frequently to distract her from the effects of morphling withdrawal, and we begin every conversation with "Hey, dummy." Then she gives me Annie's number, who has a bed across the hall from her. Not that Annie's sick—she's just on strict bed rest until the baby comes. When Beetee visits Annie on a trip to the hospital to install a new communication technology he's invented, she gets his number for me too. The phone I never used before the Quarter Quell is now ringing off the hook. Cressida and Pollux, who are now one of the most popular camera teams in Panem, decide to interview Beetee one day. The next time he calls me, he has two more numbers for the list, and two more people to call when I need reminding of basic human goodness. When Cressida and Pollux decide to write a documentary about the Hunger Games, they team up with my old prep team to do make-up. I never really warm up to Flavius or Octavia, but Venia, once out form under the Capitol's influence, turns out to be a surprisingly sweet and caring person. When Venia calls one day, she tells me who she's interviewing for the documentary—Effie Trinket. Through the phone, Effie sends me an air kiss on the cheek. I'm reminded of Madge, the friend I didn't know I had until she kissed me good-bye at the Reaping, and I think that maybe Effie Trinket was on my side all along.
Maybe there were more people than I thought on my side.