"Faster!" Katniss yells.
"Ugh," I grunt.
"Haymitch hurry up!" Katniss yells once more.
My body can't take this. After years of alcohol I'm not ready for such a run. I see a log and decide to stop for a rest.
Katniss sees and walks over to me. Peeta quickly follows.
Katniss and Peeta are leading me to some pond. We are outside the woods of District 12- or what used to be- now it's just a community. The war is over and we all live in peace.
Supposedly Katniss' father took her to the pond when she was little. Brings back memories. Wanted to show me. Couldn't really hear when she said it 'cause I was drunk.
"We've only got a little more, Haymitch." Peeta says. "Alright," I grumble. "But you better give me the alcohol when we arrive." "Deal." Peeta says.
I reluctantly start walking.
They've also been hiding all of my alcohol somewhere up in these woods, but they wouldn't tell me. Must be in the stupid house next to this stupid pond.
We arrive at the pond. We see a squirrel drinking from it and Katniss shoots it. She tosses it in her game bag.
Peeta runs into the water and yells, "Haymitch! Katniss! Come in!" Katniss plunges in but I say, "Not until I get my alcohol." "Why? So you can get drunk and then come drown yourself in the pond? No." Peeta says firmly. "Come in first and on the way back we'll give you your alcohol." I want to strangle the boy.
I sigh and Katniss pulls me in. I choke on some water and spit it out.
Katniss attempts to teach me to swim. "Stroke here. Now kick your feet here." She explains. I feel like a two year old.
I don't try very hard and apparently can't swim so I stay in the shallows and try to cleanse my face.
I lay on my back, floating, as I think about things. I am Haymitch. I am a drunkard. I was in the Hunger Games. There was a war. The districts won. Panem ceases to exist. We live in a peaceful place now. I tell myself using a trick that Katniss taught me. 'Start with the easy and go to the hard.' I remember her saying.
But no, we don't live in a peaceful place, because nothing will ever be the same. I will still remember the Games. I will still have horrible nightmares. Nothing will ever change.
I am awoken from my thinking by my face going underwater. My feet hit the bottom and I plunge back up, gasping for air. Middle-aged alcoholics like me don't last long in water.
"I guess it's time to go," Peeta says.
"My alcohol?" I question.
He points to the small cabin beside the lake. "All yours."
"But, it stays up here. If you want it you have to come and get it," He tells me.
I sigh. I grab about as many bottles as I can hold and we walk back to the knocked down fence.
We arrive back at our homes and we enter the house.
Katniss and Peeta curl up by the fireplace and I sit in a chair, drinking, as I watch them. Is this what family and love feels like? I wonder. I wouldn't know because that was all taken from me. Yes Haymitch. This is family. I say to myself.
And for a few moments, everything is okay as I drift off to sleep...