My lips used to ache all the time. They used to be chapped and cracked and bleeding from the chill in District 12's air. I sucked them in my mouth and gnawed on them when the memories were just a little too painful.
It was just another way to cope and exponentially less destructive than drinking my liver to ruin like Haymitch does. Which I still do, when I have my moments of it all being to much and the memories come flashing in my eyes like a flurry of arrows. But I don't drink often.
I'm with her now. Johanna. She gives me reasons not to drink, not to hurt myself. And I do the same for her. Occasionally, I bite my lips and spend my days in bed, hating how in each window pane I can see their faces: All of them. Playing their deaths over and over again like a television special the Capitol put on to celebrate their victors.
But at least Johanna's there with her limbs wrapped around me like chains, keeping me from doing anything stupid like killing myself. She tells me it would be stupid anyway.
Who would be here to keep me from killing them all?
She asks me this when I feel like I need to die, and I can't argue with her logic because I'm the only who can contain Johanna Mason.
My lips, they ache, but Johanna encases them with hers and I know:
They'll Heal.