I could see them in the yard; their laughter could be heard blocks away.
The boy reminds me so much of her. Olive skinned; prominent features. But those blue eyes, so wrong, so intrusive; like the accidental pint of tangy mint in a cup of bitter milk tea.
To me, the girl is a stranger. Blonde hair; paler skin. She would've been easy to overlook, if it weren't for her eyes. Grey like a pool of mist, so gentle yet so strong.
The boy and the girl, so carefree, playing tag on the lawn; they are the very objects of their love, of my Katniss and the boy with the bread.
The very sight of them is like knives digging into my flesh.
But I don't hate…I can't hate. However hard I search my heart for that last bit of animalistic feeling, I can't find it. Not when they remind me so much of her.
Katniss. To the world she's the girl on fire; to me she's just my Katniss. Sometimes I see her watching them playing in the yard. She's smiling like she's so happy. How can I hate the very things that make her happy?
She doesn't know I still love her. And she doesn't need to, not when the dust is just settling. To her, I'm her best neighbor, and the occasional babysitter.
Katniss, do you hear me? I'm right here, so close yet so far.
I try to reach out to her, my thoughts expanding its wings and flitting over the evening sky. As if in recognition, she steps out of the house.
Hair, movements, voice, eyes…everything comes rushing back. Swiftly she runs out to the boy and girl, her white dress billowing in the slight evening breeze. Those grey eyes, so bright, and I can't help thinking how beautiful this scene is.
"Kids, its dinner time. Your dad has made your favorite blueberry cream pie!"
Then it shatters into a million shards of ice, piercing my heart a thousand times over.
What is she saying?
I cover my head with my arms to stop the pain from building, and I don't hear the rest of her words. What she says seems so wrong, anyway.
It's all I can do to stop myself from screaming out to her. I can't be so selfish; her life is just about perfect…
She doesn't know it, but her perfect world is built with shards of my broken heart. Every fake smile, every pretty lie cuts away at me like I'm a piece of wood made for knife-sharpening.
But I'm so tired, Katniss…
So exhausted from hiding my feelings, from pretending to be the perfect best friend and nothing more.
But how else would she be able to move on? To choose?
Maybe it's better like this, not knowing. It would hurt ten times more if I didn't pretend to fall away from her and she still chose him.
Him. Peeta.
Just thinking of the name sends hard waves crashing against my feebly beating heart.
How is my heart still beating? How does she still not realize?
That her perfect world is built with shards of my broken heart.