Her breath glided over the tan skin of the side of his neck as she whispered in his ear, her voice softer than the wind that caressed the leaves of the trees around them, carrying with it the scent of Summer turning into Fall. The pressure of her hands against his chest was lighter than the wing of the Mockingjay above their heads whose hearing wasn't strong enough to catch her words, the way her chest pressed against his taut back, the lumps of her breasts just below his shoulder blades, was enough to make his heart race faster than the steady stream of the river nearby. She spoke of her dreams, the ones who managed to survive the flames of her loneliness, the ones who floated back up from the waters of her depression, and how he was in every single one of them. He was the water that quelled the fire of her empty house where she played the piano to deaf ears. He was the life preserver that picked up her heart from the depths of the tears she shed at night, making it pump faster than a rabbit's before its eye was skewered by an arrow, reminding her of what it felt like to be alive. I love you.
She never said it, but he knew that was the message. When he lay with her on her bed towards the end of the 74th Hunger Games and she pointed out shapes on her popcorn ceiling, connecting the bumps as if she were creating constellations from the stars in the night sky outside: he asked her which her favorite was, the one her eyes located first when she went to bed each night. She claimed it was the one that looked like an archery bow and sure enough, it did. When he asked her why she unabashedly said it was because it reminded her of him.
When he came up to her back door with a wooden pail of strawberries and a red ribbon one afternoon, he told her it was merely a way of him to thank her for walking Posy home the day he got into a fight. He also said he chose the red one because he didn't know her favorite color and guessed that one was it by the series of light siam jewels in her jewelry box. The smile that lit up her face was the brightest thing he had seen that day even though she told him he was wrong, that her favorite color was gray. Again, he asked her why and she unabashedly told him it was because of the color of his eyes.
When they watched the Quarter Quell in the town square one evening and he gripped her hand tight enough to leave a bruise, she simply squeezed back as hard as she could, her nails digging into the front of his hand gently to bring him back to reality. And when he finally let go, she only smiled at him, patted his arm, and walked back to her home, letting him know through that simple gesture that he didn't have to repay or thank her in any way.
When he saw her at a school dance with the idiot he had beat up, he was filled with a sudden fury that made him want to beat him up all over again, his thoughts clouded by the fog of jealousy that he denied. Still, he kept his cool, squeezing the plastic cup in his hand until it spilled over the edge and stained his black dress shirt, causing him to throw away the drink and stubbornly wipe his shirt with a wet napkin. She had come up to him then, with lipstick matching the red anger he had felt moments before and the ribbon he had given her in her hair despite the fact that the event was formal, and asked him to dance. Without thinking too much, he had joined her, and when he felt her in his arms, it seemed that nothing else mattered, that nothing could make him feel lighter than her head on his chest and her forearms resting softly on his shoulders, her fingers twirling the longer strands of his hair on the nape of his neck. At that time he didn't know if she had done it on purpose, only cared about the jolts that had run up his spine, spread to the tips of his fingers where they pressed into her back, and caused him to shiver.
When he kissed her that same night, by her back door, he knew they were out of sight but he had never felt more exposed. His nerves had come more alive than his senses when he was hunting, his mind filled with the softness of her hair in his palm and the warmth of her waist through her dress in his other hand, the way her nose brushed his cheek when she moved closer, her hands, holding his cheeks which were smooth from the shave he gave himself that same morning, pulling him down just a bit further. He could taste the strawberries that he brought her that Spring when they were best in season and vaguely wondered how the taste stayed in her mouth so long. It was only a kiss, but it felt like so much more to him and he knew. I love you.
So when she's done talking and moves to stand in front of him in the cool night in the middle of the forest of District 2 and finally tells him she loves him, he says:
"I love you, too."