Gale stepped out from the hovercraft onto the ashes of District Twelve. Even now, dark flakes of his home floated around his head. The sky was gray. The district was empty. It seemed as if it was mourning. Mourning the loss of its people, its spirit, its very nature. As for Gale, he was mourning his very first love. Not Katniss Everdeen, oh no. Gale knew he and Katniss would never have worked. No, Gale Hawthorne was grieving for Madge Undersee.
Yes, the Madge Undersee. The mayor's daughter. The snobby rich girl. The girl who bought his strawberries, brought him medicine, made him feel like no one else ever could. Or ever would. She was gone, and she was never coming back again. The night of the bombings, he had promised her he would come to get her. Yet when he reached her house it was too late. The building had collapsed and was burning to the ground, with her and her family inside of it. He had stood there weeping violently for what seemed like hours, as a single scream reached his ears.
"Gale!"
Her last word had been his name.
Now it seemed that everywhere he looked there were ghosts of Madge Undersee appearing, reminding him of memories upon memories, moments upon moments. He would never forget her.
Right there's the high school where we met
We'd sneak out back for a couple kisses and a cigarette.
Gale walked by the ruins of the school building where he had held his first real conversation with Madge. He remembered sitting by her at lunch that one day when Katniss was in the arena.
"What are you doing here, Hawthorne?" Her intense blue gaze wouldn't let him go. She defied him to say anything, staring him down, demanding an answer.
"Do you think she's going to win?" He sidestepped the question, challenging her instead with a question he already knew the answer to.
"Think? I know she's going to win. Because she's Katniss, and surviving is what she does."
"How do you know what she does? The only thing you ever shared with her was a lunch table."
"Her favorite color is green. She can shoot down anything with one arrow. Her favorite food is rabbit stew and she is the sole supporter of her family. Her name is Katniss Laurel Everdeen and she is the strongest person I've ever met. And if you don't mind, I'm going to move away from this table, because I'm sick of sharing it with a complete and total ass."
He laughs at the memory, because he remembers the weeks and months that came after it. They would sneak outside during class, Madge abandoning her good girl status to be with him. He leaned her against a wall, kissing her time after time, murmuring sweet nothings in her ear. He remembers how she sighed with pleasure and kissed him back. Damn, she was good at kissing.
And that parking lot was our first date,
and her mama slammed the door when I dropped her off too late.
The first time he took her home for dinner, they counted as their first date. There weren't many places for proper dates in District Twelve, and certainly not for someone from the Seam. Madge didn't mind. All she wanted to do was meet his family, to prove to them that she wasn't the spoiled brat everyone in the district seemed to think she was. He remembers spending time in the square with her after dinner, just sitting on a bench curled up together and talking about his family, about Katniss and Peeta, about anything and everything. He took her home after that first date and didn't realize that it was about two hours after her curfew. Her father opened the door to let Madge come in and promptly slammed it in Gale's face.
The action was clearly meant to stop Gale from seeing Madge. Did it work?
Come on. We're talking about Gale Hawthorne here.
She's gone, chasing that wind
She's gone, and she ain't coming back again.
The brief moment that the memories lifted Gale's spirits was crushed as he passed the place where the Mayor's home used to be. Instead, new memories came flooding in, memories of a burning family, and broken hearts and people that will never be the same again. Madge is gone, he thought to himself. Madge is gone. Forever.
And this was the moment where the unbreakable Gale Hawthorne broke.
The tears started like a rainfall: first as a drizzle, and then as a storm. He couldn't stop them. With every sob that shook his body, he remembered the blonde that stole his heart.
This ain't nothin'
Nothin' but a goodbye town.
The streets are only bringing me down.
Gotta find a way to finally get out.
Out of this goodbye town.
He couldn't stay here. There were too many ghosts here.
He slowly walked out of the town and back to the hovercraft. He wasn't coming back. There was no way anyone could convince him to stay in the ghost town that was now District Twelve.