My throat is tearing. My eyes are spilling tears.
Just like every night.
I revisit the repeated destruction of District Twelve, except somehow every tribute I've ever met or killed is dying with my people. Burning alive. Just as I am. And screaming.
Screaming, like I've done just now. I'm normally awoken by Peeta when I have a nightmare, but I'm stranded without him tonight. He is out of town temporarily due to an engagement in District One that he was practically begged to bake for.
I had begged him not to go.
"I'll only be gone for a day or two," he said, kissing my nose. "Besides, it'll give you good time to be with the kids for a while. Perhaps you could all go hunting together or something."
I said nothing, just clung to him tightly. I couldn't explain the racing of my heart or the sudden chills of fear that overcame me because of Peeta traveling to another district.
I think Peeta understood, because he began to stroke my hair. He knows this calms me down, and it did a little. But I couldn't have been more frightened that he would never come back. That he'd get captured and hijacked and the entire ordeal we had suffered in our adolescence would repeat itself all over again. I knew it was irrational to think this way, as Peeta had told me so many times. And I had to be brave for the children. They, of course, had no problem with this. Daddy was only going to be gone a day or two, what's the difference? I felt a pang of jealousy at their certainty, because I was never certain.
Now, I desperately wish I was certain of whether or not my latest nightmare was real. Since I don't seem to be burning, I assume it is not. But the feelings of reality are harder to convince.
The solidity that I find such solace in is gone tonight, and all I have for comfort is the thought of Peeta. But as I try to drift back into sleep then even that turns dark and wild, Peeta's face becoming a harsh white, his angry sprawling mouth hurling an insult or a death threat. I'm half in, half out of my nightmare, and I have no one to console me. No one to hold or kiss me. As an afterthought I remind myself never to let Peeta go out of town again.
Suddenly I hear small feet patter the floor and I sit up in bed, finally breaking free of the evils in my head. I'm trembling. No, I'm shaking. I wipe the tears off my face but more of them come, so I simply let them fall. Peeta's absence is worse than ever.
Then I hear it.
"Mama?"
The boy, my son, has heard me screaming. An entirely different jolt of dread passes through me as I think of ways to explain this to him. But as I soon know, he needs none. The boy climbs up on the bed. I feel my gray eyes survey me with curiosity.
"Do you miss Daddy?"
More than he knows. I nod a little, trying to mop off my face with the bed blanket.
He crawls closer so that we are directly facing each other. He isn't done interrogating me.
"Did you have more bad dreams?"
What my son doesn't know is that I have these dreams nearly every night. But usually Peeta's here. I wonder if my daughter has heard everything and is just saying in her room for fear of having to ask me why I've been screaming.
Whatever the case, my son is not afraid. He moves toward me, climbs up onto my lap, and hugs me around my neck with his small, pudgy arms. It takes me a few moments before I hug him back, because I am too shocked initially to return it right away.
"I protect you, Mama," he says quietly, and my eyes well up again. Oh, how he is like Peeta. Too much like Peeta. I know my son can't possibly understand how badly I need his father. Or maybe he does understand, in his own way. More tears fall at my son's gesture, and I try to keep myself from clinging to him as hard as I can. I can only cling to Peeta; my children are still young. But I hug him as tightly as I feel it's safe to hug a young child.
I recall that before this I have found difficulty in fully allowing myself to love my children, only because I still fear they will be snatched at any given moment.
But right now that doesn't matter to me.
I am crying quietly now. I can't help it. The boy lets me go and puts his small hands on my arms.
"Lay down, Mama," he says. I obey, because I am too touched to refuse. Once I've settled myself back on my still-warm pillow, my son lays down beside me.
He takes one of my hands.
"It's okay, Mama," he says. "I keep you safe. I keep the bad dreams away. Don't be scared, Mama, sleep now. I sleep here with you."
There are still tears running down my face, but at my son's coaxing I begin to drift off. He pats my head with his one hand as he holds the other. Firmly, like his father would.
As I fall asleep, I find I feel warm again.