"Where's my drink sweetheart?" The slur comes from the bedroom where he is undoubtedly sprawled across, a drink in hand, but it's almost empty.
I rise slowly from the kitchen table, where I'm eating dinner alone again, and search the cupboards for his addiction.
If I had been told when I was twenty that one day I would end up with Haymitch, I would have looked at the person as if they were crazy. At twenty I was happily in love with Peeta, and I would have stayed that way if he hadn't decided to commit suicide eight years ago.
Peeta.
A sharp bolt of pain stabbed my heart making me gasp. I gripped the bottle in my hand tightly holding onto the present. I took a deep calming breath, Peeta was my past, Haymitch was my present.
My future? I didn't know who that would be, or if there would even be a future.
"Sweetheart." The drunken voice sang from the room. "Where's my drink?"
I gave a sigh. So many years, and he still insisted on calling me that name. When I was younger and first heard him say it, I was enraged. In my eyes, it was the most derogatory thing anyone could call me. The very name insinuated someone weak, prissy, someone loved, someone who was not me. Now, I kinda liked it, bit that I would ever tell Haymitch that. It was his way of showing his affection for me, even if it did sometimes have a sarcastic or drunken edge to it.
Like right now.
"It's right her darling." I said softly handing the bottle to him. He doesn't even register hearing me, he only takes the bottle and drinks from it. I look around our bedroom, Hazel does a good job of housekeeping. The only mess I can see is what Haymitch must have done today. Alcohol bottles scattered around the room, some shattered, dirty clothes strewn across the floor, and the book that Peeta and I made so long ago.
I bent down and picked it up off the floor, my vision blurred as I see which page it is open to. His blue eyes staring at me, but his blonde hair is getting in the way because it's falling in his eyes in the way that always annoyed me. My fingers ghost across the glossy surface of the picture. "Why is this open Haymitch?" I whisper.
He lets out a belch, "I felt like taking a trip down memory lane, seeing all those people that died."
He knows what my real question was, but he enjoys playing these games with me too much. Making me admit out loud what it is I really want to know. "Why this page?" I ask him in a barely audible voice.
"I felt like looking at the man you never deserved."
The words cut through me, because they're true. I never deserved Peeta, he was too good for me. His kindness, his consideration, his comfort, his love. I never deserves any of it. He was so pure, and I was dirtied with the blood of others. I cast my eyes towards the him and see the smug look on his face, he knows that he's right.
I move towards his and give him a kiss. "You're right, I didn't deserve him. For everything that I've done I deserve the drunk in front of me."