Your lips found her's and she was warm.
But you weren't.
You were Winter with its solitude and tempestuous temperament. And you liked it that way. You liked the cold bite of the wind, the numbing of your limbs, the snowflakes melting into droplets that cling onto your skin, a chilling reminder that brings awareness to all your senses.
There was something about Winter that made you feel invincible, like you were on top of the world, that nothing could touch you behind your armoring encasement of ice.
But she was warm.
And you could feel yourself thawing.
The room was an old soul; earthy floor boards moaning to your toes; the wallpaper peeling off in curdled strips. The blanket draped evenly over the single bed, your bed, was clearly used; pieces of the wooly fabric gathering to form lint-like orbs. You have hung paintings on the walls of the space, hoping to make the atmosphere more homelike, more like you. It was cozy, the room, for lack of better word. Used, but cozy. Ten is such a cute district. You smile meekly, entertaining the idea that you will be happy here, though you know it isn't true. Not all the home in the world could make you happy.
It was dark and cold when you kissed her again. You could make out only her silhouette, but none of her finer features. She could've been anyone really.
How did you know it was her then?
It was the third kiss, one trailing down your jaw like a whisper. Her lips were hot and burning, painting over the barriers you've spent your whole life building. The way her hand brushes by your cheek is as if it was a stolen moment, fleeting and cautious.
And kissing her in the dark was less scary. It was easy.
But when you thought of her like this, you thought of a fallen angel. You were infecting her, bringing her down to your level. Her heart would turn black with the bitterness you were feeding her.
You don't unpack it. Your suitcase. Instead opting to shove it under the bed, stuffed to the brim with sloppily folded tops and half-harvested bottoms so generously donated to you by the thirteenth district. You tell yourself you like the holes. They show a sense of character, tell a story.
You leave very few articles to be touched by open air: training boots, pants, and a shirt; hung loosely from knobs popping from the walls.
The clothes, you keep them. You keep them despite their beyond worn condition. They hold memories from a better time.
You're not sure when the rebellion became a better time, and you choose not to dwell on it.
Her palms slapped the wall behind you as she trapped you there.
You could feel her racing heartbeat and unsteady breaths, quick exhales against your skin. She tried to say something to you, but her words came out all stutters. Is this how you made her feel? Unhinged?
You really shouldn't have. You were giving her false hope.
But when her lips captured yours, you forgot. You forgot who you were. You forgot where you were. You forgot everything and anything.
Up until then, you had thought you were the one slowly killing her. But after that moment, you weren't so sure.
Maybe she was the one poisoning you; each kiss a dose to your intensifying addiction.
How else could you explain why you couldn't pull away?
And then you realized you'd spent your days counting kisses you didn't want to count.
You sleep on top of the sheets, permanently creasing their fold. The lone comforter encompassing the mattress is thin, providing little warmth. But to gather the sheets around yourself would be to accept a belonging.
This place, this room; it isn't your home. As fiercely as you wish it was, imagine it was, it isn't.
It was dark and lonely; painfully working away the callous gathered on your soul.
You don't belong here.
She broke up with Peeta on Christmas Day.
Not for him. Not for you.
It was a relief, or, at least, that's what you tell yourself. You wouldn't want someone to give anything of any importance up for you. You, broken, pathetic you.
Yet, the hollow of your stomach isn't the result of hunger.
The room, though small and made for one, has two chairs. At times you sit and contemplate, reminisce, in these chairs. The first time, you notice how the seat melds perfectly to your human shape; grooving downwards to cup your thighs, an ever slight barrier in between. Those before you have broken these seats in. You wonder about them; they're hair color, their laughter; their thoughts. Were they loved? you wonder. Or did they, like you, sit in a pool of spite, drenched in their own lonely despair.
She was a fighter, perseverance personified. She was something reborn, growing and alive. She was daisies and roses, just blooming; she was green grass, a scent of a new start.
But you were not. You were a freezing blizzard leaving destruction and regret behind you. Flowers are persistent, settling in the most unlikely of places, but they're also delicate, so delicate. The snow and ice engulfing you prevent anything living to grow there, no flowers, not even weeds.
Cold sweats and nightmares have become your only friends. You keep a bottle of morphling tablets on the bedside table, within reach for when you wake in their shockingly soaked arms. Once the sun has gone, the little room no longer seems the animated nest you spend your daylight. The decorative portraits on the wall lack humanity; their subjects faceless, empty.
You aren't afraid. You know you're among friends.
It was just the two of you in the compartment; sitting on the beds.
Her hand touched your chin and you turned to her questioningly.
As she drew closer to you, you could see a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, you could see her eyelashes fluttering, you could see her mouth quiver.
"Katniss," you stopped her slow approach with one hand on her shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't do this," you whispered, a gentle admission. "I'm Winter. Flowers can't survive me."
You sounded insane, but she made you this way. Crazy.
She leaned in, her mouth so close to yours you could almost taste the peppermint on her breath. It was a ghost of a kiss, lingering but not quite tangible.
"Some flowers bloom in Winter," she hushed, her lips barely grazing yours.
After a beat, she pulled away to walk towards the door. She left.
You touched your lips gingerly, the pads of your fingertips running over the cracks.
The dazzling landscape of flowers and hope fades, merely an echo of your fears.
Two doors. Two openings. Two escapes. It's perspective, you think.
The leaves were changing color, greens paling to yellows and oranges. It was a lovely sight even without the reminder that the life around you was rapidly diminishing.
Perhaps the beauty was what made you forget to protect yourself.
The two of you walked in the forrest making small chat as you marveled at the swirling leaves as they danced in the air.
She smiled.
It made your heart clench and struggle against the icy bonds.
You surged forward and you kiss her firmly, her tongue tracing the edges of your mouth. It lasted a few moments before she pulled away.
"I can't do this anymore."
You were speechless.
She shook her head with a watery grimace.
It was like you'd forgotten how to speak, the words clogged in your throat.
She walked away, her shoulders hunched.
You've tried to sketch this room many times. Sketching. A new habit you try to instill for the purpose of passing time. Sketched it so many times, yet the product is always... wrong. You don't know what it is, but there is something off with every single one of your drawings.
On your eighth try, you realize it's not you, but the room. A room made for one with chairs meant for two. It just didn't fit.
She didn't stay away long. Couldn't, really. After spending three nights with her mother and sister, she walks into your shared compartment.
"You once said that you were Winter," she murmured, her eyes unreadable, "Is that what this is about?"
"You're Spring, Katniss," you try and explain. "You're a fresh beginning and I'm a bitter ending,".
She smiled sadly, nodding.
It was the night before the attack.
You don't see her again.
You finish the painting before Spring.
Spring.
You miss her.
She doesn't miss you.
The room, being however cramped, is perfectly empty, beside from one lone occupant. It's been close to a year and you still have not grown into it. You feel lonely, empty.
You picture her idly stroking her fingers through your hair, curls damp from a flashback's sweat slightly sticking to her fingers as if they had a mind of their own; like she used to back in Thirteen.
And then you break, rather, shatter.
Tears. Shrieks. Pleads.
A room made for one with chairs meant for two. You don't belong here.