He was slipping away from me. The boy with the bread was slipping away from me. The boy who kept me alive. The boy I kept alive. Peeta Mellark was now slipping away from me. Nothing about that sounded right and it hit me straight in the gut.

The doors started opening and I could hear loud screaming and cheering from all the people I knew. I squeezed Peeta's hand, knowing that it might be the last time I do. I can see the pain clearly in his eyes. I thought he was faking the whole thing like we planned, but no. But then again, I didn't fake the whole thing either. Many times, I wanted him to kiss me more when he stopped. Sometimes I wanted him to pull me closer to him in the sleeping bag. And sometimes, I really wanted to be with him forever. But who am I kidding? I'm never going to get married. Never going to have kids. Peeta wants those kinds of things, and he deserves them… but not with me.

We are now standing in front of all of District 12, and I scan the crowd, looking for Prim, and Mother, and Gale. That was the problem, Gale. I wanted to see Gale. Gale was my best friend, and I never thought of him in any kind of romanticism. I just missed him so much.

I find my mother and Prim in the front row of the crowd, holding hands out to me. Peeta let go of my hand as I sprint towards them. I wrap my arms around Prim first, and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from me. I look down at her and see that she isn't as skinny as she used to be. Peeta's father kept his promise. Good.

Then I feel tears streaming down my face and my mother wrapping her arms around us both. After what seemed like less than a second, we all broke apart. I wanted to hug them again. But I felt someone else's hand on my shoulder.

I turned around to see Gale smiling crookedly at me. I threw my arms around him and hugged him. He sort of helped me in the arena… at least mentally. He hugged me back. Once again, I had to let go.

"I knew you'd make it."

I smiled. "Well I didn't really do it on my own…" I looked around for Peeta, and found him with his family. I could see his father's tears running down his face as he hugged him. I had to admit, if Peeta wasn't an option, his dad would be my favorite. His mother and brothers hugged Peeta as well, so it looked as if it was a group hug. Almost everyone in his family was crying.

"Do you really love that guy?" Gale asked me. I was taken aback by it. Why would Gale really care who I loved? But the truth, I don't know. I don't know if I love him. I was just so caught up with the games I pushed my feelings aside. But now I have to figure them out.

I looked past Gale and stared at Peeta for a while. Gale tried to change the subject.

"I wonder why they changed the rules."

"It was probably meant for us." I responded, referring to Peeta and I.

"Well, yeah! But I don't know why they would for that reason. I mean, wouldn't it be more exiting if you had to kill your 'lover'?" Why was he talking about Peeta like he isn't a good person? Gale knew Peeta kept me alive. He saw it all!

"Why do you think I would be the one to kill? He could've killed me you know." I said calmly.

"…because he 'loves you' so much!" he responded oddly.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"What?"

"Why do you keep acting like none of it was real?"

Gale's face dropped. I turned back to my mother and Prim, not wanting to deal with this. Prim looked well fed, but very dehydrated. I looked better colored than her.

"Prim, maybe you should go get some water…" I told her. Her eyes were sunken into her face, and her lips looked as if she never smiled in her life.

She shook her head. It looked like she would be crying, but there was no water in her to do so.

"Katniss, you survived!" she said a little loudly.

"I promised you I would try." I told her. She smiled, which made my spirits higher. I hadn't realized how much I missed her.

I hugged her again and looked around the crowd, trying to find Peeta again. I saw one of his older brothers ruffling his hair and then putting his arm around his shoulder, leading him home. I wanted to go with him, because being far away from him was not in my nature. Losing sight of him was just confusing. In the games, if I didn't know where he was, I would lose it, and I would never really escape the games if he was killed. I am so dependent on him. I feel like he's the only one who knows me at all anymore. He understands my pain, and feels it with me.

Later that night, when it was getting dark, I was helping my mother pack our things. We were getting ready to move into the victor's house. I emptied the bathing water from the tub and dried it down. Once I was done packing things into it, like towels and sheets, I headed to bed. But I just couldn't sleep, not while everyone else was.

It was always me and Peeta in the sleeping bag. Now I was used to sleeping with him. (Don't take that the wrong way, people!) I can barely remember sleeping up in the trees on my own. But it was always one of us who stayed up. We always looked after each other.

After about three hours of trying to go to sleep, I couldn't stand being scared of closing my eyes. I sat up and quietly slipped out of bed leaving the room. I put on a jacket and walked out of the house. I needed to talk to Peeta. Just seeing him was mandatory to my health right now. Just knowing that he was okay.

I decided to go the back way, going to the place where he risked a beating to give me bread. I was almost there when I saw the tree behind his house, and the pig pen where he was supposed to put the bread. I stopped at the tree when I saw his back door open. I didn't know who it would be, so I jumped behind the tree. I heard a large sigh, and I tried to move a little closer to the ground, where it would be harder to see me, but I twig snapped under my feet.

"Who's there?" Peeta's voice asked tensely. I was relieved it wasn't his mother.

I don't want to know what she would've done if she found me.

I sighed and stepped out from behind the tree. I saw that his shoulder muscles were tightened, but then he saw me. His arms relaxed and his facial expression was unreadable. "Oh." He said. He turned his head a little so he couldn't look me in the eyes. "What are you doing here?" it wasn't a rude comment, just a question.

"…I… I couldn't… I just can't sleep." I responded.

"Me neither." He moved his head and looked at the ground. "Why couldn't you sleep?"