I don't remember when it started exactly. Perhaps it was the day he started digging out earth for the primrose bushes but even then, I was too far-gone to truly even believe that he and I would ever have the chance at a normal life again.
For months, I had positioned myself in a rocking chair close to my ash-laden fireplace. In the hours that passed by, I realized that is all I ever would be, ashes. My fire had gone out and all that remained was a lifeless soul floating about. I had no home, no family and no hope. I quietly wished that I would just slip away in sleep one day. Greasy Sae would find me forever asleep, and then they would bury me someplace near the woods or in the meadow District 12 graveyard with my lost friends and countrymen, dead because of me.
The thought consumed me. Even in death, I would be circled by the long list of names of those I had indirectly murdered. So death was not an option, either. Snow had made sure that I would never again find peace.
It was on one of these gray and lifeless days that I heard the noise. I noticed the dull scraping sound and heavy breathing rather quickly since all I had heard these past few months was the screams and bombs bursting inside of my own head.
Somewhat curious, I stepped out of my usual place and ran outside, unsure of whether or not to be scared. Unsure, I decided the best feeling I could come up with was annoyed. How dare someone disturb my depressed state. I was about to scream a string of curse words when I turned the corner. That's when saw him.
He looked at me with those blue eyes I had come to know so well. I shuddered at the sight of him. He was skinnier than I had remembered, his hair was somewhat dirty, there were some burn scars along his neck and even at 17, he looked aged.
He didn't look or act like the murderous boy I had once known and the change in personality frightened me.
"Hi." I said as I exhaled in surprise.
"Hey," he said.
"What are you doing?" I asked, suddenly curious.
"They are for her. I hope you don't mind." He turned his body to reveal a wheelbarrow of wild bushes. Primrose bushes.
I could feel my breath getting heavy, my eyes becoming glassy but then I felt something happen that I had not felt in the longest time. Pure warmth radiated from my heart and filled my body with a smallest sense of joy. It caused me to upturn my lips into a small smile, the first in many months.
"Thank you." I said, my voice just above a whisper.
"You are welcome." He said.
He seemed to be studying me, looking me up and down to assess the damage. I become self-conscious, blushing from embarrassment. He looked heavenly compared to me.
My matted hair sat in large clumps at my shoulders and the blanket I clung around me was ragged and dirty with dust. I pulled it tighter, trying to hide my skinny form. If he saw me, he would immediately want to feed me but I didn't want him too. If anything, I wanted him to leave me to die. Facing him was too hard.
With this thought, I turned and ran inside, locking the door as I went. I stood in the kitchen for a moment, frightened. The quiet darkness was present until it was replaced with the sound of the shoveling again.
Peeta was home and he was better. I was home and a complete wreck. I slipped back into my rocking chair in front of my ashy fireplace, listening to the beat of the shovel against the dirt and the small grunts that fell from his breath.
Just like the small eruption of joy that I had after seeing the bushes, I felt something similar only more powerful. It was a calm sense of despair and happiness that combined in my heart. Now that he was home, I would be forced to move on, no longer meet death but be forced to hope, he would see to that, no matter my struggles against him.
So somewhere between my mixed feelings of grief and newfound hope, I managed a small tear that fell from my eyes and across my cheek. Leaving a wet river that told me that I was no longer void of emotion.