It's dark.
And the pages are blank.
The water doesn't flow.
And the sun doesn't shine.
The moon is out.
But it doesn't light the night.
Everything is just dark.
Because she's dead.
Johanna Mason is dead.
They told me she died when she was in battle, in the Capitol.
They told me she died with my sister.
I lost the only people I truly, wholeheartedly loved.
That's what they told me.
I should explain how we got here; how I got to the point of even loving Johanna, or loving anyone in general.
It was odd, honestly.
It started in the Capitol, just after Peeta and I were scheduled to return home from the banquet during the victory tour. The plan was to stay the night in a well known hotel in the Capitol, the name I don't remember, and then take a train home to twelve. I expected everything to go smoothly, easily, without any stupid bumps in the way. However, I was wrong, so wrong.
It was the night in the hotel where I met Johanna Mason, who's victory I vaguely remember as a terrifying and deadly experience. I remember she won by playing innocent and weak, and turning on everyone once she was in the arena. A smart move, in my opinion, but one I assumed meant a lot of people wouldn't trust her after the games, something I soon learned to be true.
We were supposed to have dinner at around six o'clock, and so I had left my room around that time, expecting to fill myself with food and immediately returned to my dark room. What I didn't expect was to see the form of a woman, much much much younger than Haymitch, to be sitting next to said man drinking her ass off. While not nearly as drunk as Haymitch when I first met him during my reaping, she was still incredibly intoxicated.
She was also incredibly attractive.
When I first watched her games, I remember a semi-scrawny teenager who terrified the hell out of me. Looking at her now, she's clearly aged, but the dark and intense look in her eye as she glances at my shocked face reminds me of that same teenager from the arena.
She's laid her body out on the small couch in the "living room" just adjacent to the dining room. My eyes travel from her eyes and face, where a small scar lies at her cheek, to the strong curve of her jaw, then down her sloping neck, past her shirt, and over her thighs and calves, exposed by the short-shorts she's chosen to wear. I travel back up and to her arms, where I can see even from my place across the room the faint hint of scars clearly not from some working accident or even something from the arena. I find my way back to her eyes, of which seem to have never left me as I scoped her entire body.
"Like what you see?" she says, and I'm shocked by how strong her voice sounds.
I open my mouth to talk but Haymitch interrupts. "The fuck are you talking about?" he says, looking at Johanna, then turns to finally notice me standing in the doorway. "Oh."
I stare at the both of them. The look on Johanna's face is one of clear interest, and at first I think it might be toward something other than me, but the way her eyes settle on my face and never leave tell me otherwise. Haymitch shows an expression on his face close to be caught as a teenager sneaking out of his home and getting in trouble.
"What's up?" someones says from behind me, shocking me to the point of leaping towards the dining table and coughing.
"Woah, Sweetheart," Haymitch laughs. "What happened to your hunter's skills. Couldn't even notice Bread Boy over here walk in."
I look to my right and grab a small ornament off the corner of the dining table and lob it towards Haymitch. It hits him square in the head as he laughs at his place on the edge of the couch and he grunts, leaning forward in pain.
"Fuck you," I grumble, walking to a seat and grabbing a loaf of bread and shoving the corner of it in my mouth.
I sit there for a few seconds quietly chewing on food despite my sudden distaste for anything edible when I hear laughter break out in the room. Peeta chuckles as he takes a spot next to me, but what I focus on is the other person's laugh, Johanna's laugh. It's oddly deep compared to her voice, and it comes out in loud spurts. She seems to take long, drawn out breaths between each set of laughter, and for some reason I find myself transfixed by this laughter.
I don't notice I've stopped eating my bread until Peeta taps my shoulder, asking, "What's wrong?"
The laughter across the room cuts short as he finishes the question, and I awkwardly mumble, "Oh…nothing. Thanks."
I don't hear Johanna leave until late into the night.
After an awkward dinner with Peeta, Johanna and Haymitch furthering their intoxication on the couch, I rushed back into my room, hoping that she would leave soon and I could deal with my nightmares without hearing her mesmerizing laugh and voice.
Yeah I liked her, it was obvious enough. Something about her caught my eye, something about the way she talked, laughed, held herself. She was just so other worldly that I couldn't help but find some interest in her.
Maybe a little too much.
From when I last looked at the clock, she must have left at around 3:30 in the morning. I had been listening to her talk to Haymitch for hours now, sitting around the corner of the dining room, unable to be seen by them but close enough to where I could hear them clearly.
I don't know why I sat there for so long. Why I thought it was even ok to eavesdrop like that, but I did it anyway. I just listened to them talk; I listened to her. I listened to the way I could hear her smiling when she made a joke or snarky remark. I listened to her loud shuffling whenever she spoke of something that made her frustrated. I listened to the evident slur in her voice from so much alcohol.
And I listened to her talk about me.
"She's something more than I thought she would be."
"Who knew she'd be that feisty. Although I guess she is the Girl on Fire."
"Wonder if I can shut my mouth long enough to become friends with her." "I wonder if she's gay."
"Wonder what it'd be like to kiss her."
Haymitch just laughed off her comments, usually saying something like, "As if I'd know. Bread Boy barely even knows anything about her."
One time, she had responded back with a "why's that?" and Haymitch just quietly mumbled, "She's had a harder life than I think even I have."