My mother discovers my improprieties with Katniss in the worst possible way. In the middle of our special dinner at the Mayor's house following the Victory Tour a drunk Haymitch announces as he points his spoon to me and then Katniss, "if I look like death warmed over then it's not from the liquor, Effie. It's the noises coming from their room keeping me up all night!" Then he laughs maniacally. I assume he's too drunk to realize what trouble he's just caused, but when it comes to Haymitch Abernathy it is hard to know if he's causing trouble by accident or on purpose.
The people who had been with us on the train know Haymtich was talking about Katniss' screams from the nightmares, but that's not how the comment is taken by anyone else. Katniss blushes and excuses herself. I follow her until my mother catches up with me in the hallway.
"We've given you everything you are or ever will be, Peeta Mellark. This is how you repay us? By embarrassing us?" She yells. The guests in the dining room can surely hear my mother which means she's only adding to the humiliation, a fact I won't point out.
I lower my voice. "She's my fiancé, mother. Please. This isn't even what you think."
Haymitch, Madge, and my father join us in the hallway. They stand behind my mother, looking helpless.
"Have some decency. You shouldn't be engaged to that Seam rat! She is beneath you, Peeta," Mother says.
"Well, she was last night," Haymitch goads and winks at me. "Though you'll eventually enjoy you being beneath her if you play your cards right."
I clinch my jaw and glare at him.
Haymitch laughs like only a man with alcohol seeping through his pores can. My mother looks down. Then she turns her wrath toward Haymitch, slapping his arm and telling some story about when they were young.
"You are sick!" she screams.
I take the opportunity to turn and hurry down the hallway, but I hear footsteps behind me.
"Go away. Whoever you are, just go away," I say without even bothering to look to see who is following me.
"It's me, Peeta," Madge says. "Is Katniss okay?"
"How should I know," I can hear my voice trembling.
"Did you really do that?" Madge whispers, her voice only barely audible over the sound of our dress shoes hitting the bright red floorboards.
"No," I tell her. "We've never…"
Madge grabs my arm, and I stop in my tracks.
"I didn't think so. You didn't look like you had when Haymitch said that. She'll be in here, Peeta. This is where we go to hide from the maid and my parents when we want to talk. Take care of her. She needs you."
Madge quickly makes her way back down the hall, probably trying not to reveal our location to Haymitch and my parents. She might even stall them. I turn the doorknob of the room Madge pointed out and push the creaking wooden door open. Then I close it carefully behind me.
"Lock it," I hear Katniss whisper unsteadily.
The door lock confounds me for a moment but soon I've clicked it locked. Katniss is draped over a red upholstered chair near the bookcases on the far side of the room. She's buried her face in her folded arms and her shoulders shake violently. I can hear her sobs even though I can tell she's trying desperately to stifle them. After everything we've been through this is the moment when I see her truly break down.
I drop to my knees when I reach her and touch my fingertips to her shoulders.
"Hey," I say gently. "Hey." But I can't think of anything else to say. When Katniss raises her head her eyes glisten with the new tears welling up in them.
She reaches her trembling left hand out to me. Her engagement ring catches what little light is in the room and reflects it against her lovely face.
"I've never wanted to be a wife, Peeta, but if I did I'd want to be yours."
My jaw goes slack, and she reaches up to run the fingers of her left hand along it. Then she turns her head and brushes her lips gently against mine. I hesitate.
"Are you kissing me for real?" I ask when she pulls away.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I want to."
"I want that too," I add before capturing her lips in a kiss. My kiss is bolder and deeper than hers, but Katniss accepts it wholeheartedly. Then she cranes her neck to follow my lips with hers when I finally have to come up for air. A slight whimper escapes her mouth, and I feel her breath on my cheek.
"Katniss," I whisper as I brush the wayward locks of hair that have fallen from her intricate hairstyle away and then hook them behind the ear on the other side from where she's nuzzling against my cheek. "Are you alright?"
"I hate them watching us," she admits with tears flowing down her cheeks again. "If I want to kiss you or hold you or do anything I just want it to be private. Between us."
Trying not to think about what she might mean by "anything" I nod my head in agreement.
"They'll tease us in the Capitol about our honeymoon. Effie says we'll be staying at that fancy hotel beside the training center. Don't you think they'll watch us, Peeta? They'll listen to us too. They have cameras the size of a person's earlobe and microphones the size of the head of a pin. They'll make comments like Haymitch just made, but they won't make them because they're out of their minds from drinking white liquor. They'll say them because they don't see us as human beings. We're only objects for their enjoyment, and we've never been anything more than that. They're voyeurs. If we complain, they'll say we shouldn't because we are having fun."
She lowers her head to my shoulder.
"I won't let anything like that happen," I tell her as I kiss her temple. She raises her head, and I want so desperately to kiss down her neck. Managing to resist I tell her, "we'll just fool them into thinking something happens in our hotel room. We've been able to fake a lot of things. We'll ask Haymitch how to fake that as well. There's a great deal a blanket on a bed can hide."
"But they can spy on us in District 12 as well, Peeta."
And suddenly I'm flooded with images of Katniss and me living in the same victor's village house, sleeping in the same bed, waking up together, and sitting by the fire. Apparently that's what she intends, but what else does she intend?
"I don't want them to see us," Katniss says in the smallest of voices. My girl on fire is just an ember in the face of having her most private moments brought to light. Even the thought of dying in public did not affect her this much.
I lower my voice, "If we choose to consummate our marriage then we'll…" I pause to think for a moment. Though I have no shortage of ways I'd like to be with Katniss, I want to choose the one she would want. "Then we'll go to the meadow for our first night together," I finally say. "We'll take the quilts from our house and lie on our backs so we can look up at the stars afterwards. We'll keep everything we find sacred only for us. I promise."
Katniss starts to choke on her sobs, and for a moment I wonder if I've made a terrible blunder in assuming there would be such a night someday.
"I'm so sorry, Peeta. I know you had dreams for your life," she tells me as she presses her body into a hug with me.
"You're my dream."
"You had dreams for what you wanted with me, though," she says.
"No, just you."
For a little longer we kiss and she lets me touch her in ways I never have before. We don't make a sound that could be heard, even by a pinhead sized microphone.