Maybe I am crazy. How did I let myself think that she could fall in love with after just a few days? Seriously, other than the crush, what did I know about her? I know she is beautiful, strong and smart. How else could she have survived the Games? Saving my life along with hers. I guess I always knew she really felt this way….that it was all an act, a way to make sure we both came back home. Why, though? Why would she bother to save me if she didn't care?! I surprise myself with punching the polished wall of the train. I am suddenly embarrassed by the way I behaved towards her. I should apologize, since she saved my life. But as I pass the window I see us slowing down, coming to the train station at District 12. The apology will have to wait. There will be cameras and we have a show to do. I find Effie, Haymitch and Katniss waiting in the main car. I pretend to not notice the rid rims that are Kitness eyes. Haymitch is whispering words to her and she sighs and takes a lung full of air. With some effort she puts a huge, Capitol smile on her face and reaches for my hand. I try to catch her eye as I take her hand in mine, but she is looking toward the door as the train fully stops. I muster everything I have and put on my most convincing smile.

Effie walks out first. Haymitch looks at us once and says, "For all the marbles." He's right, of course. No telling what they will do if we do not deliver. I slide closer to Katniss and whisper, "I'm with you."

Her eyes show a bit of relief and we walk out together, hand in hand. Star crossed lovers from District 12.

The sun is all I can take in at first. Then shapes come and I finally see the car to take us to the square. The ride is quiet and short. Everyone just looks out the windows and takes it all in.

The square is full of people. I find my family, quickly, standing on a make shift stage some thirty yards away. Next to them is Katniss's mother and Prim. The relief on the faces of her family is amazing and I realize that, no matter how much it hurts, the pain is worth getting her back to her family.

We wave and smile and answer questions from the mayor. There is one small moment that makes things easier for Katniss and myself, really. The mayor asks her mother what she thinks of me, her new boyfriend. With a kind and somewhat knowing smile, she says, "Peeta is a great boy. And will one day, be a wonderful gentleman. But Katniss is too young for boyfriends." I take the hint, give Katniss a small kiss on the cheek and step away. Keeping a coy smile in place I wink at Katniss when the cameras are looking and her mother is not. She manages a few little giggles. The capitol will eat that up.

Finally things die down and we are lead to our new homes in the seldom used Victor's Village. We are to be taped as we walk into our new houses separately. We live twenty five feet from each other. This is going to be harder than I thought.

The cameras are still rolling, so, since we left our families back in the square, I take her hand and pull her in for a quick embrace. I am surprised at the fierceness that seems to come from her during the small embrace and I allow myself to think, "Maybe it wasn't all show." Before my mind can banish the thought she is kissing me, not a quick peck, but a long, drawn out kiss that has my mind reeling and my body reacting in ways I have never known. I rub my hands along her back until I am pulling her into the frame of my body. I forget everything, the betrayal and hurt I feel and just live in the moment.

It's not until someone clears his throat that we surface, red faced and out of breath. Then reality hits me full in the face. It is all I can do to keep the smile on my face and too look innocently at Haymitch and say, "Just a goodbye kiss." Kitness giggles at my side. I kiss her again on the cheek and turn away from her, toward my new home.

The house is beautiful, of course. Only the best for the victors of the games. Of course, District 12 only has one other living victor, Haymitch. We'll all be neighbors now, I think bitterly. The doors knobs are brass, the wood is mahogany. Beautiful. I am not really excited by my new surrounding until I reach the kitchen. My own, personal wood burning stove and oven. This will help me find myself again. To bake, get back to what I know. Maybe make some little cookies and decorate them. I sigh and a small forms on my lips that I don't have to force. Maybe there is a life for me in this after all.

Later that night, after the cameras were gone and I am finally alone, I let the feelings crush me. I lay in my new bed, not thinking of the comfort of the mattress, the down pillows, the comfortable blanket. I just allow the hurt, the pain take over every inch of my body, of my being and my heart. I wonder if you can die from a broken heart. I let tears flow freely, not taking time to care that, as a man, I should not allow myself to wallow, to feel, to cry. Right now, I just do not care.

For a few short days I was happy, under the most impossible circumstances, I was happy. The people dying, other trying to kill us, to survive, but she was there. Trying her best to take care of me, to save me. Numerous kisses, hungers I could not explain. Afraid I would die, but happy to do so, if it meant she would live.

When I finally surface I notice no change in my feelings. I still love her. With everything I am, I still love that girl. I'm not sure it will ever change.

Suddenly, I can't breathe. I jump up and throw open the window. A slightly cool breeze hits my face, helps me clear my thoughts. Yes, I still love her, but I could not imagine just being her friend. I would just try to ignore her as much as possible. I look towards her house and notice candlelight in the front bedroom. A figure sits at the window, just as I am, with her head against the glass. I can't see her face, but I wonder what is keeping her up tonight.

I lay back down and finally get into a restless sleep, all the while dreaming of the other tributes, their bloody deaths, some at my own hand. Terror and happiness plague my dreams. I wake up scared and screaming at times. Other times I wake up happy, more than happy. Dreaming of her kisses, her warm body so close to mine in the sleeping bag, the smell of her skin. These dreams are worse than the bloody ones. To know that I will never have that future I came up with in my head. No more holding her, kissing her lips, feeling her body crushing up against me. That will drain the life out of anyone, anything.

For days I just survive. I wake up, bake bread, cupcakes, cookies, cakes, and visit my family. Just going through the motions. Days stretch into months, Katniss and I, when we do speak, are very formal, stiff. It's not until I get a call from Effie, that I start thinking about being back on camera. I am supposed to have a talent, something to keep me busy now that I don't have to work or go to school. I don't want it to be baking, to always be known for that. Instead I request some paint and canvas. That is where I begin to heal, begin to find myself again, in my office, smearing paint on blank canvas. I paint everything I remember from the games. The blood, the loss, the Cornucopia, and Katniss. She is in my dreams every night and I cannot help but paint what I remember. How she looked while I was seeing things, like she came out of a cloud. Beating my dirty shirt against that rock while trying to clean me up the day she found me, perched in the tree while the Careers and I had her trapped. Almost every moment.

Ever since the first night back I have to sleep with my window open. Some nights I hear her screaming, sometimes endless shrieks, sometimes just a name, usually Rue's, but sometimes mine. Those are the nights that hope swells in my chest and I have to beat it back down. Those are also the nights I weak up in a sweat, not from fear, but from the hunger for her arms, her lips.

My visits with Haymitch are probably the most interesting thing since starting my paintings. He's not one to hold back, especially since he is normally drunk. I keep him in fresh bread, try to get him to eat some before I leave. No one in town talks to me much, not even the friends I had before the reaping. I just normally go visit my family, purchase things that I really don't need to help spread the wealth around and deliver some little cookies to some of the older people in our town.

A call I get from Portia a few weeks later makes me realize that I am stuck in the star crossed lover's thing for a long time. The Victory Tour is in a week and Katniss and I have to act like we are madly in love and visit every district in Panem, ending with a great party at the president's own house in the Capitol. As Portia goes on and on about when the team will be there to get me camera ready and what I will be wearing and how I need to be excited, all I can think about is the borrowed kisses I will soon be getting from Katniss. I just cannot turn off the love, the longing I have for this girl.

It seems like just days later when I am waking up on the day we leave. I get up and start the daily bread for myself, Haymitch and the Everdeen's. Baking really takes me to a calm place, just like painting. While the four loaves bake in the oven, I let my mind wonder to what could have been, if things weren't so crazy. If we didn't have the games, didn't have to scratch and scrounge to eat. Or even if I just talked to her before the games.

My timer goes off and I am brought to my senses. Sometimes I let my daydreams get the better of me and even now, as I am about to take the loaves from the oven, I realize moisture in my eyes and quickly wipe it away. UG! Why must I pine over this girl?! I am a little angry at myself and I catch myself throwing the bread around a bit more than needed. I laugh at myself. What an upside world I live in. I am supposed to be a man. Men around here do not bake, well, except my father, and they do not cry over a broken heart! I should be tough, like the other boys in town, like Gale, then maybe she would love me too.

I finally stop thinking about myself and decide to head over see if I can wake Haymitch up. The cameras will be here in about an hour and I am sure he wasn't asleep until the sun came up. Might as well drop the fresh bread off at the Everdeen's as well.

It is beginning to snow outside when I open my door and trudge the twenty-five feet to the Everdeen's house. I knock on the door and wait patiently for the answer. Katniss's mother answers the door and I get away with a few, "No problems," about baking the bread. Twenty-five more feet over to Haymitch's. I don't bother to knock, he wouldn't hear it anyway. I push the door open and find it is not as hard to open as normal, as if someone else had pushed their way in today. The smell of rotten food, garbage and stale wine assaults my nose and it wrinkles. I hear talking from the kitchen and know someone else has woke Haymitch up. It's not until I hear my name from the voice of Katniss that I realize it was her, of course it was, who else cares if Haymitch is up for the tour?

"..You should have asked Peeta," Katniss says as I round the corner.

"Asked me what?" I answer, laying the bread on the table and reaching for the knife that Haymitch always has in his hand. I don't even look her direction.

Haymitch answers, "Asked you to wake me without giving me pneumonia." He hands me the knife, which I quickly douse with white liquor and wipe it on my shirt. I carefully slice the bread and hand Haymitch the heel. I take a small breath and look at her for the first time in days. "Would you like a piece?"

"No, I ate at the Hob," she says stiffly. "But thank you," she adds. I notice she is perched on the window sill, itching for an escape I suppose.

"You're welcome," I answer back just a stiffly. I look down at the bread and slice myself a piece. So many conflicting emotions in my chest right now.

"Brr," Haymitch says, looking between us. "You two have got a lot of warming up to do before show time." I sigh. Of course he is right. We have to be the star-crossed lovers again in just under an hour. I quickly beat down the thoughts of the stolen kisses and just think of hiding the pain I feel when I think of how I really won't have to act.

Katniss makes a face and just says, "Take a bath, Haymitch." Then she drops out the window and is out of sight.

I shake my head towards her direction. Haymitch slowly chews his bread, probably the first thing he has had to eat since bread yesterday. I notice the stove is on and smell coffee over the unnatural smell of the house. I grab the cleanest looking cup I can find and pour the coffee in it, taking care to keep most of the grounds in the pot. Haymitch is still working on the bread as I sit the coffee in front of him. He looks up at me and almost looks sad, well, as sad as he can look. I wonder what my face looks like to get that kind of look from our mentor. He looks down at the coffee and says,

"I never say thank you for keeping me fed," I am shocked, Haymitch doesn't express his feelings. Never. I know he wouldn't want anymore that the quick, "Don't worry about it," that I give him. Looking into his coffee cup he says, "Guess I should go get cleaned up. Almost show time." I nod. "See you in a while." I head outside and slowly walk back home. There's a car in front of Katniss's house. They must want to get a jump on her prep.