"Real."
How long that word held the truth, I don't know. I was happy. Slowly and painstakingly, I let go of my ugly past, and forced myself to stare only straight ahead, where I imagined a wonderful future with the boy with the bread. I didn't end up living that dream, though.
I was convinced that I loved Peeta Mellark. It was true for an indefinite amount of time, when everything else lost its meaning because I was determined to believe that I would finally have a happy ending.
Wrong.
If you could fall out of love, I'm sure that's what happened to me. I ended up yelling at him every time. Peeta ended up falling under the spell of some girl he met from who knows where. I apparently wasn't good enough for him. But I tried to salvage what little affection we still had for each other. He apologized. I accepted.
We patched up our relationship for a little while, but it already had several and cracks on it, threatening to break anytime. My nightmares, which I thought would never be back, haunted me again, and I suffered from a depression like never before. Things like that really do happen to people who obviously had enough violence, gore, and pain. I became a cold, heartless creature. Peeta's flashbacks hit hard and there were many days when he screamed profanity and even more terrible things at me. At first, I tried to understand, but eventually, I just yelled louder. We grew farther and farther apart.
When I woke up one day, I thought, we'd both had enough. I was hurt, and he was, too. Consciously or not, we broke each other's heart.
Peeta Mellark had been thinking the same thing.
We parted ways in a matter-of-fact and shorthand way. Dull. Unfeeling.
Only after our breakup did I feel my heart shatter into pieces. No matter how I pretended, I was crushed beyond repair. I was sure that I didn't love him anymore, and everything we had was over, but why do I feel like this?
Maybe because of the many wonderful things we could have been. Maybe because I got too attached to him, that when he left, the pain was unbearable.
But I was the mockingjay. I was a victor. I survived the Games, a war, and the deaths of the people I loved. I definitely would pick my life up and put it back on track. I wouldn't wither and die. I'd make things right with myself again, no matter how hard. Pretend that everything I had with Peeta was nothing but a nightmare that was really good and bad at the same time that I had to wake up from it to face reality again.
Because that's what I do. Always pretend and never look though I've never been good at it, I try hard to do it, because that's the only way to move forward and get a grip on things. I swear I'll move on. Because I could, and because I couldn't stand this kind of pain.
So, I guess this isn't going to be a story about me and the boy with the bread.