Chapter 1: Kisses Ensnare

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I finally attained freedom. Or, at least, as much freedom as you can get in a place like District 12, the poorest district in Panem. Older kids that I know have said you feel a certain weight lift off your shoulders once you are free of the Reaping.

For me, freedom from the Reaping and the Hunger Games has been mine for all of three days. And yet, I don't feel any different. And yet, I still feel nothing.

Gale would probably laugh at me, if I told him any of this. He's been beyond the Reaping for two years now, and is looking very much a man at the prime age of 20. He is the oldest of five children in the prominent Hawthorne brood. Works in the mines every day except for Sundays. It's a fine profession - well, almost one of the only professions available to a man in this district - but I know his widowed mother, Hazelle, won't be satisfied. She will be looking for her eldest son to further secure his future. And having seen the looks girls send his way, I know there are plenty of takers.

I won't be among them in line though. Now with my future guaranteed ahead of me, I have only become more resolved in my vow to die unmarried and childless. I don't know what trade I will learn to support myself once I move out from the home I share with Mother and Prim in the Seam. Probably hunting, as I have always done. I can make that into a life, right? Mother might disagree, but I don't care.

This bright summer's day is slightly cooler than the scorchers we saw in the days before the Reaping. It is as if the earth itself has deflated in relief along with me. The nice air brings out more animals from the longer, summer shadows, and Gale and I make a great haul and in even better time.

We are on final approach to the district fence now, chatting about preparations for next week's hunt. "I'll set the snares for next Sunday, Gale, and then we can -"

It comes out of nowhere, as Gale suddenly stops me and cuts off my ramblings, as he takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

I am completely unprepared. You would think that after all the hours I have spent with Gale - watching him talk and laugh and frown - that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I haven't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which can set the most intricate of snares - can as easily entrap me.

"Ermmmm..." I think I make some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I am vaguely aware of my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest. Then, after pushing his lips more insistently against mine, Gale just as suddenly lets me go and says:

"Catnip, will you marry me?"

My flushed, ravished and very kissed lips drop open in an astonished 'O.' A proposal of marriage sounds so foreign, coming from my best friend Gale. Not to mention the way he says it just sounds all wrong. If I have ever given thought to how some boy might ask me to marry him, I suppose I have imagined him getting down on one knee. Presenting a ring, or some other promise token. And definitely asking me for my hand with my full name - Katniss Sierra Everdeen - and not some childish nickname with an even more childish origin story (Catnip came about from Gale interpreting my introduction incorrectly, the day we first met).

All that aside, he just kissed me out of the blue. My first kiss, drawn from my mouth with no warning. I unconsciously lick my lips, and try to decide how I feel about the kiss, whether I liked it or resented it. One thing's for certain - kissing Gale makes me feel as though I'm kissing my brother. The conclusion is not far off. Everybody in the Seam is distantly related, in one way or another; I have been mistaken as a cousin of the Hawthornes often before. That soon is cleared up whenever my gorgeous mother and sister come into view, with their Merchant blue eyes and blonde hair and all around Aryan looks. Contrasted against them, I am very clearly Seam, favoring my late father.

And where does Gale get off asking me to marry him, anyhow? I am scarcely free of the chains that have bound me since the time I was a preteen, and now he wants to imprison me in the bonds of holy matrimony - a sentence that I feel is worse than a gruesome death in the Games? I thought Gale understood that tying my identity into being someone else's wife was something that I didn't want.

I should slap him. For kissing a girl without her express permission. Mother taught her girls the importance of consent in all acts of love. But instead, I merely fix him with a hard stare. "No." I say it simply, and his entire face falls, struck dumb, as I turn and flounce away, wriggling under the fence.

I don't need to say more, don't need to explain. I shouldn't have to.

Gale, of course, interprets my reticence to marry as stemming more from my displeasure at the kiss, than from the proposal itself. A week later, walking me home, he stops me and merely asks to kiss me again. Curiosity gnawing at me, I nod, perhaps against my better judgement.

Gale kisses me gently, sweetly; it isn't as raw and rough as our first kiss. The taste of his pliant mouth against my hard, unyielding one still makes me hesitantly squirm somewhat, and not out of pleasure. But I suppose it could be worse. No one else has ever kissed me, so I have no one to compare this kiss to, but I do know that some fresh Peacekeepers like to heavily use tongue while kissing, greedily sticking their tongues down women's throats. Gale does not resort to this; our lips do all the work.

Somehow, without even thinking about it or previously discussing it, we begin to part at the fence for the evening by sharing a chaste kiss, a brief peck on the lips. I would never let Gale do this in front of my house, lest my Mother becomes excited and tries to play Matchmaker for her eldest daughter. Eventually, I learn to tolerate the kisses.

Three months later, as a stubborn September signals its preference for an Indian summer, while Gale and I share a soft kiss goodnight at the fence, he asks me again:

"Katniss, will you marry me?"

I eye him skeptically, almost... amused. Even as my heart constricts with fear, while also strangely feeling as though it will be torn in two. At least he used my given name when proposing to me this time. Perhaps this is what causes me to spill the word, "Maybe?" from my throat.

I regret my equivocation almost immediately. Gale's answering smile could outshine the light of the setting sun. All over again, I feel guilty. I don't love him. At least... not yet. I think I could grow to love him. I decide to give him a chance.

"Maybe," I say again, more sure of myself this time, "after you properly court me first." Gale nods his head eagerly, and when he asks me right then and there to share a bowl of soup with him in the Hob, I readily say Yes.

Gale woos me for the better part of the next year. Spring and summer roll around again and I turn 19 in early May. Out in the Meadow, away from Mother's prying eyes and ears, Gale gives me my present: a simple gold wedding band. I can't help but feel touched at his gesture. He must have saved up weeks of his wages to buy the ring. Usually, only Merchants can afford jewelry and other trinkets of this value. I can say one thing: I admire the man's persistence. And his patience. In that moment, I decide to show him mercy. By slipping the ring onto my finger without fanfare and saying solemnly:

"Yes."

Three months later, in the cold of winter, Gale Hawthorne and I are married. I wear one of Mother's old dresses from her Merchant days. We haven't enough money to rent out a white bridal gown; except for a few well-to-do miner families, most Seam folk can't afford one, either. Merchants pass down their bridal dresses as family heirlooms - an heirloom my mother forfeited when she ran off to marry my Seam father.

We conduct an initial ceremony in the Justice Building, signing our marriage license and exchanging rings and vows as we stand before a district judge. My new husband and I are assigned a house in the Seam - close to the Hob and the border leading into Town - and Gale and I move in immediately.

There, backlit against the warm fire from our blazing hearth, Gale and I perform the traditional District 12 marriage Toasting, as we toast a bit of bread and share it. I press a piece against Gale's lips, and he does the same to mine. Then, we seal our marriage with a simple kiss, the taste of bread still in our mouths. It tastes of ash, the bread, and this taste permeates into the kiss. I tell myself it's from the char, from where Gale dropped some of the bread into the fireplace before barely managing to salvage it. But my heart knows better. Knows that it's a lie. For when my husband and I take to our marriage bed that night, it doesn't feel like home.

When Gale mounts me, I don't fight it, and I spread my legs wide for him. Wriggling against each other awkwardly and sighing out cringe-worthy groans, I tell myself it is only right and good for there to be relations between a husband and a wife. For us to make love and consummate our marriage.

If I had known how uncertain Gale would be in his movements, how sticky his juices would feel against my thigh, the pain his taking me would bring me, I would never have even bothered.

Now, half-naked and turned away from my snoring husband, I frown as I realize I have no idea what all the fuss is about. It doesn't seem worth the effort, to have sex, though all the gossip I overheard in the Hob and at school suggested otherwise.

Yes, sex is indeed a pointless invention. Except in one regard.

And though my marriage vows have supplanted my vow of chastity, though my vow of abstinence has been shattered forever with my virginity, there is one vow to which I will not prove myself unfaithful.