One Voice
I hear my family's voices in the jabberjays around me; I hear Gale's voice, too. But, overpowering through all of them, the one that only one bird is yelling, but seems to be the only one that latches onto me the most…is Haymitch's. The sound of him in torture, the sound of him screaming my name…that is what truly causes me to drop to my knees and cover my ears.
I don't how long I cover my ears…but I know that it's at least an hour, because the next thing I know Peeta is touching my shoulders, telling me that the hour is over.
But even as we try to make a plan to take out Chaff and Enobaria, my thoughts are still on his voice.
He was calling my name.
My name.
He only ever calls me sweetheart, except when he needs to fully catch my attention…which is why I can't erase the sound of his voice in my head. The sound of him screaming my name, pleading with me, but not to stay…instead, it's the sound of him crying out in pain as he begs me to run. Run. Not come and save him like all of the other voices pleaded with me. He begs and pleads with me to run.
And even though I know that they only manipulate the sounds, I wonder when they caught the sound of him saying my name.
It is so rare and uncommon; they must have pulled it from a moment that we thought was private.
And only one moment comes to mind.
Right before we left for the arena the next morning. The night when we all said our goodbyes. He pulled me in for a hug and afterwards he called me by my name. A name that sounds too sentimental on Peeta's lips, silly on Gale's as he always instead called me Catnip because he draws out the 's' in my name a bit too far, and nervous on both my mother's and Prim's.
But on Haymitch's lips…my name simply sounds comfortable.
As though he has said it a million times before.
Hearing it yelled out in fear and pain, however…nearly broke any resolve that I might have to win the games.
I still can't understand how I could hear the one jabberjay that held his voice. The one bird that managed to bring me to my knees in the space of a heartbeat. How had I heard it? But most of all…how does the Capitol know? How do they know that the reason why my heart has never truly belonged to Peeta Mellark, sweetheart and bread boy extraordinaire, is because it has belonged to Haymitch Abernathy, wounded soldier and liquor connoisseur?
It hadn't been on purpose.
God, no.
It had all been because of the few instances that we had shared alone over the past year. The times when I would go over to his house and steal some of his liquor, where we would end up sharing a bottle for a few hours.
In those moments I was able to see the true Haymitch. The one that wasn't so drunk; and when I saw him that way, I saw the man he was beneath…and found out that he was the same as me.
Scarred. Broken. Terrorized by nightmares that will never end so long as we live.
Peeta never had to kill, so he didn't bear the weight; no one else carries this burden except for me and him.
And at this thought, I realize that that is the reason. The reason why I heard his voice amid the cacophony of sounds and other voices…because he is the same as me, no matter what anyone else may go through. We are the same.
We are, and always will be, the only two who truly know the pain of what it means to be a Victor of District 12.
We share one voice.
THE END