"I with thee have fixed my lot,
Certain to undergo like doom; if death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own,
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed,
[...] to lose thee were to lose myself"
-John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, 955-959
Run, run, run! Just run! Run, run, RUN! I leap from my pedestal and tear off into the nearby woods. My heart pounds in my hands and ears and skin as the cool air of the morning flows through the trees. It would be a beautiful day, if it wasn't one so deadly. I might actually find it all quite lovely, if I wasn't running to escape. Jumping over fallen logs and ripping through underbrush, I do my best to keep my head. Just run. Get some distance. Run! Don't stop to look. Just run. I can hear Haymitch's voice pressing in my head: run, run, run, run.
My lungs sharply burn, yet I don't stop. There is no path in the woods. The ground starts to climb, and my pace slows. But I keep running. Just run. How far have I gone? Far enough? It will never be far enough. I can still hear the sound of steel slicing into skin, the spatter of blood on grass, the thick thud of an arrow hitting its mark. And the cries of children: I hear that too. Wails of despair and victory intermingle in the atmosphere, a horrifying music.
So I keep running, though slower than before. I make it to the top of the hill, my chest heaving for air; the woods have closed in quite heavily now. Fir trees and shrubs and large broad elm and oak create a bulky canopy over and around the forest floor. And still I run.
Large tears suddenly fill my eyes; I can hear my breath catching as I dart through the trees. Don't let them see! Just keep going.
Eventually, I have to stop. When I do, I try to be as quiet as I can be to listen for others. Despite my heavy breathing, the woods is quiet. Quivering, I kneel on the mossy ground and try to slow my heart. It takes a long time. Too long. There is more in my heart than just adrenaline: so much more. Once my breath has slowed, I simply stare at a small wood violet growing at my knee. It is delicate and vulnerable, strangely beautiful. I shut my eyes, listening, thinking, feeling. my knuckles deep in moss and grass. The air is light, but it carries no sound of pursuant feet. With a heavy effort, my now exhausted legs struggle to let me stand; as I limp around looking for any kind of visual clearing in the trees, I strain to see how far I have come. The leaves crowd in and block any certainty, yet from the top of the hill I can see the distant glimmer of a lake. For a moment, I feel stupid; Haymitch had told us to find water first, and there it is, far in the opposite direction. Idiot! My heart races again, and I try to breathe. However, my mind, so tempted to race off into chaos and panic, steadies itself. I'm not dead yet. There might be water in a river or a stream; the lake looks pretty big; I might be able to walk to a more isolated point on its shore for water. There are a lot of options still. Just pick one. I sit down to further steady myself, and feel the chill of the grass, soft and wet. For a moment, I regret sitting in the cold, but then I smile a little. There is dew still. I grab a bunch of grass and suck the water off of the blades. It isn't much, but it is something. While I harvest the droplets, I think through my options. I could try and skirt the edge of the lake hopefully not running into other tributes, or I could travel in the opposite direction and search for water that way. Neither option feels particularly promising. In one direction, I could and likely would meet with tributes; the careers will most likely set up somewhere near all the resources, or so Haymitch said. I think back to his words to me in our private training session:
"Stay away from the Careers until the time is right. Hold off crossing them for the first few days if you can help it. They will be all blood-lusty, and won't think much of what you have to offer. They will just kill you and then ask questions. Stay away from where ever they are. They tend to be pretty predictably lazy when it comes to camp. They usually stay near all the resources and pick the best location near water and shelter. So unless you change your mind and have a sudden death wish right away, then stay away from the cornucopia. They might pick somewhere else, but I doubt it. They don't want to bother with starting from scratch somewhere else if they have it all right there."
In the other direction, however, I have no guarantee that I will find water. In select other games, the gamemakers have sometimes put tributes into arenas where there is no water at all; those games were very quick to end, and they weren't very popular years with viewers because the tributes all died so quickly from thirst, not combat. Thus, the gamemakers typically offer some chances of finding water somehow, not because of compassion but more out of viewership; however, that does not mean that there is more water in the arena besides the lake. The lake might be it. If I take my chances trying to find other sources of water, then I could be wandering for days, all to no end. However, I could try and drink dew in the mornings, as long as I can find grass; if I can stay out of the way and hidden, the first part of my plan, then I might have a chance to get down to the lake later.
I rub my face with dew; it run cold on my forehead. And I think of Katniss.
She, a lingering and constant hum of presence in my mind, is somewhere in the woods too, hopefully. I picture her face, pale and sharp in the morning light, standing on her podium, poised to spring up to the cornucopia to snatch up the bow and arrows that lay there waiting for her. I could see that she was too easily being seduced by the glinting weapons: too soon. She was forgetting what Haymitch said, or she was ignoring it. I think of how her eyes flitted around the circle of tributes, evaluating what her chances were to make it to the bow before the others. And her eyes found me, just as the final seconds were counting down.
Part of me dreads this evening when they announce the dead tributes. Will her name be among the fallen? The thought terrifies me, but I can't let that overtake me now. Not now.
I have to decide where I am going. Either way, my end is the same.
Standing up stiffly, I once more look out to the lake; then with a sigh, I start walking in the opposite direction, hiking along the hillside. My progress is slow; I try to be quiet, but I know that I am noisy despite my efforts; every step I take makes something snap, and it makes my body more and more on edge. Every now and then I stop and listen for anyone nearby. Only once did I hear some distant voices, muffled in the air. And soon, they faded again.
Time drifts by remarkably quick. Before I really register it, the sun is past noon, and my stomach is crawling with a distant pang. However, there's nothing to eat around me, and as the sun gets hotter, I notice my thirst more prominently. Despite the dew, I know that I am getting dehydrated. And still, as I traverse the hillside, I can not hear or see any water. I don't really know what to be looking for. As time continues to slide by, I start to feel stupid for my choices. My adrenaline has lowered in the quiet of the woods, but I am still ever on edge.
Eventually, the hillside descends back down into the valley, and I carefully pick my way down the slope. In the stillness, my mind wanders to all the places of memory and horror. I try inwardly to remain calm, and only when I think about Katniss does my heart settle. Thinking about her helps me to remember why I am here, what I am doing, and what to do next. She reminds me of what is real and what matters.
The rest of the afternoon is spent slowly wandering the valley listening, walking, and listening again. While I walk, to calm my mind, I conjure up memories. I try to focus on what about my life has been good, not good in the sense of positive, but good in the idea of goodness. What in my life has meant anything? White flour, hard work, my father's eyes, my brother's laughter, the sunlight on the back of my mother's neck, a red dress on a little girl, long dark hair in braids floating in the wind, rain, burnt bread, Katniss. It seems to always come back to her. If I didn't know better, or if I was a different person, then I would probably hate her for how she has overtaken and flooded every part of my life without even knowing it. Even when we didn't speak or know each other, I always kept an eye out for her.
As I walk, the memories slam their way through my mind, shaking me with the violence.
I can remember it all with an alarming precision: the day that I saw her, the day that she sang, and the day when it rained.
The sun was hidden behind a thin sheen of clouds as I walked with my father to the train. He pushed an empty wheel-barrow, heading to the station to receive shipments of flour and raisins. He had taken me along with him despite my mother's protests. She had insisted that I needed to practice my kneading like the rest of the boys were doing that afternoon, but my father had countered that the shipments needed more than two hands and that I was the strongest to handle the sacks of flour. After a small amount of bickering, my mother had surrendered. My father walked with an ambling gait, puffing out deep breaths, his strong arms steady.
As we crossed the square, they were walking in the opposite direction: Mr Everdeen and his eldest daughter. I remember Mr Everdeen as a tall slim wall of grey flannel, his eyes deep and melancholy, his hands sooty and large. My father nodded to him, and Everdeen returned the silent greeting as he held his daughter's hand. When we had reached a far enough distance, my father muttered with a tone I hadn't heard before, "You see that little girl, Peeta?"
I turned around and looked at the little girl with dark long braids, then glanced back up at my father.
He continued with a sad voice: "I was going to marry her mother once."
In my child-mind, I was dumb-founded: "Why? Didn't you want to marry mother?"
"I hadn't met your mother yet." He explained. "I met Mrs Everdeen first."
"So why didn't you marry her?" I ask, confused at my father's strange and unexpected confession.
"Mr Everdeen sang to her, and it stole her heart away."
I looked back at the retreating figures of Mr Everdeen and his little girl. They didn't seem very spectacular to my eye.
"Why did he sing?"
"Because he loved her too."
"Why? Isn't he from the Seam?"
"Yes, Peeta. She was very beautiful."
"But you're a baker. Why didn't she chose you?"
"Because...when Mr Everdeen sings, even the birds stop to hear him."
I didn't understand it then. It made no sense to me, and I found myself a little angry at Mr Everdeen and his child.
"But baking is good too!" I retort.
"Of course it is, Peeta."
And my father simply continued his walk, steady and slow. I didn't understand it: not until a few weeks later in school.
Her dark braids, the red dress, her quick hand, and her voice: she won me over when the first few notes of the Valley Song filled the small classroom.
I don't know how to explain it in a way that makes sense or that is rational. When I heard her sing, some how in my childish mind, I knew that I would always be drawn to her, that I would do anything for her. It was more than beauty. It was more than fancy. It was something else. Something that I still can't quite understand. In that moment, I saw her for what she was in her most vulnerable form, standing there by herself on the chair above the rest of us. At school, she was withdrawn and quiet, yet when she started to sing, she became something completely different. It was like a veil was drawn back, and you could see the little person inside, eager, beautiful, curious, a small girl who wanted to be heard: not in a grotesque way, but in the way that a bird naturally sings for the morning. It isn't being arrogant; it just is.
And like a bird, she so easily flew from grasp, retreating into her guarded personae, intimidating, beautiful, and distant. How can a child even begin to understand all of that? For years after that, it was easy to simply watch the songbird from a distance. There were so many times I tried to gather courage to talk to her, but every time, I grew too fearful. She didn't need me. She didn't need anyone. Why should I bother?
The only time I ever dared to approach was when it rained. The whole week had been a steady downpour, dark and grey. I had heard that in the mine collapse, her father had been killed along with so many others. She had been absent from school, and I hadn't seen her in weeks. My mother was running the shop, and my brothers and I were working on the next days quotas of loafs. I heard a clamouring from the back door, my mother's voice suddenly shrill and angry. Peaking out the small window near me, I saw an impossibly thin figure retreating towards the pig pen in the sheets of rain. It wasn't until she turned to the side and I saw her long braid that I knew who she was. My mother entered the kitchen angrily moving pans and muttering to herself, her eyes flashing.
"Damn Seam kids" she mumbled, then hearing the front door bell ring, she left to tend to the customer.
Once she was gone I looked at Katniss in the rain again. She was sitting under a tree near the pen, her thin legs gathered up under her like a grasshopper.
For a moment, the world seemed to pause, my eyes trained on her, my mind in suspension, my hands holding two fresh loafs, ready to be wrapped in paper. Then: a tangible snap in my head and heart. It felt like an elastic band that had been stretched in me so long finally had worn thin and snapped back with a sharp pinch. What I did next didn't even really register in my mind. I simply took the two loafs I was holding, checked to see if my mother was still busy, then leaned over the oven and placed the bread directly onto the fire. My brothers smelt the smoke soon enough, and yelled out in objection and warning. However, I kept my focus on the loafs, waiting till the outside was charred enough to be deemed unfit for sale. It wasn't that I wanted to give Katniss burnt bread; I really wanted to just give her the perfect loafs, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to get out of the kitchen carrying good bread, not with the Capitol cameras watching. That was part of how we were never able to store away goods for ourselves, even if we wanted to. The government always kept merchants like bakeries under careful watch, making sure we were not cheating the system. They were stationary cameras, nothing particularly fancy, but even my father had to be careful and block the view whenever people came by to trade. However, if the bread was burnt, then there would be nothing to do but throw it away. And of course, I knew a better option than just throwing it to the pigs.
I was so lost in my thoughts and plans that I didn't hear my mother come back into the kitchen; she had heard my brother's protestations and had excused herself from the customer for a moment to check what was wrong. What she saw upon entering the kitchen, of course, was me, holding the burnt bread, with an absent expression on my face. And of course, she was angry.
My mother has never been a particularly tender person. Instead, she is rational, free of sentiment. I don't remember many embraces from her growing up, but I do remember her constant prodding for us to be better. My father explains it that she is simply disappointed with the world and wants for us to have better-that it is her way of loving us, constantly demanding that we be better than we are. And when he explains it like that, I can understand. However, when her hand too often hits the back of my head out of frustration at my blunders or she angrily pinches our arms to make us knead faster, I fail to grasp her.
So, when she roughly grabbed my arms and jostled me with her anger, I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised when she shoved me out the door with a slap to the head into the rain, sharply telling me to throw the wasted bread (and the money that we could have made from it) to the pigs.
None of this was unexpected. In fact, it made my plan a lot easier. I would then have a solid excuse to give Katniss the bread without having to explain it later.
The rain ran cold on my bare arms as I walked through the mud towards the pen. She watched me with keen eyes, and under her glare, I suddenly shrank from her intensity. I became afraid. What could I say to her? O Katniss, here is some bread that I burnt for you. Hello, Katniss, I'm the boy who has loved you since I was five. Have some bread, on me. Suddenly, my plans seemed stupid, my tongue heavy and words stuck to my throat. I reached the pen and paused.
Then with a subtle toss, just in case any one was watching, I lobbed the loafs to the grass in her direction. They landed softly in a lump of damp grass, and I couldn't look at her. I was immediately flooded with shame. I had made it worse. I was not even brave enough to hand it to her myself. Full of sudden despair, I simply turned and went back to the kitchen, heavy with my own self-deprecation.
When I glanced out the window again a few moments later, she was gone, and so was the bread. Soon, she came back to school, sullen and silent. In the schoolyard, she sat amongst a cluster of dandelions, while I simmered in self-hatred, knowing she'd never forgive me for being so rude. I didn't blame her at all that she didn't speak to me. I felt happy for her when she began eating lunch with her boy; I was just happy that she had lunch. I felt too ashamed, too unworthy. Why hadn't I been brave enough? I was a fool, and for weeks, months, and years that followed, I remained more or less content to watch her from afar, knowing that I would never have a chance, sour with my own failure.
And we never spoke, until after the reaping.
All of these things swim violently in my mind while I spend hours looking for water.
However, as the air turns chill with the setting sun, I change plans and look around for some kind of shelter. The trees around me are sparse at the bottom, and there are only a few shrubs nearby. For a moment, I consider turning around and heading back up the hill, but then I spot a small knoll, a cavity in the earth. Quickly, I set to work, gathering moss, grass, sticks, branches, whatever I can find. In the fading light, I arrange the undergrowth starting at my feet and working up my legs, covering my body, camouflaging it for the night. My work is slow, and by the time I reach my shoulders, arranging pieces of moss around them, the sky is almost dark. I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and tighten it around my ears. A large leaf-laden branch will cover my head and face, which I have smudged with dirt. If I lie still, in the night if anyone should go hunting for tributes, then I will remain unseen, I hope. Perhaps it actually looks really stupid and obvious and I will be found easily. But this is all I can hope for now that it is dark.
I settle in and sigh, just as the anthem begins ringing out over the night air. Opening my eyes, I see the faces of the fallen tributes flicker into the sky. My heart rate elevates as I wait for the end, for twelve. However, Katniss' face does not appear in the sky. She's still alive, somewhere in the arena. She's still here. Still fighting. And so am I. The thought makes me smile for the moment. And even though I am getting cold from the damp earth, I am able to breathe.
Willing myself to try to sleep, I shut my eyes to the world, and do my best to think of anything other than where I am. I think of home. I think of warm bread. And I think of Katniss.
When I wake from perhaps a few minutes of sleep, I am absolutely frozen, so much so that it stuns me, shuddering from the cold. The dark lies thick over the woods, and silence heavy. I carefully try to move my hands into my jacket to warm them, but it doesn't really help much.
It is so cold. The ground is wet with it, and I am soaking up the chill.
Teeth chattering, I try to shut my eyes to it all. However, it does nothing to stop the shivering of my body.
For a while my resolve to stay put remains firm, yet as the time slowly goes by and the cold reaches into my core, I start to consider my options; I need sleep, but I won't sleep if I am cold. I need warmth, but I have nothing to start a fire, and starting a fire, as Haymitch warned, would mean the end far too soon. What am I supposed to do? Freeze to death? I feel so helpless and useless, like a fawn in the paws of a mountain lion.
I saw a mountain lion once-only once. I was thirteen and had caught a glimpse of her braid disappearing into the trees. Only that one time did I dare try to follow her. I had slipped under the fence scratching my wrist and clamoured into the brush in a mad haste. I just wanted to talk to her, to tell her how sorry I was. How I wish I had gone out in the rain, how I knew I couldn't make it up to her, how I wish I could do it over again. All good intentions.
However, as soon as the woods had closed in over me and the air had thickened, I realized that I couldn't see her; I couldn't hear her; I might as well be prey for her bow myself. In sudden regret I stopped and listened. Nothing. The woods was full of wind and leaves and moving air, but nothing else. She had vanished.
I could have gone home; I probably should have gone home, but I didn't. I waited. Choosing to be stubborn this time, I sat at the base of a tree and waited for her to return, willing to wait hours despite being needed at home. That was the time when I saw the mountain lion; hours had passed; the light was changing, and I must have been sitting downwind, because at dusk it came quiet and steady without any attempt to hide, like big cats normally do. The hide was grey in the fading light and faint clouds of steam rose from its flanks. As it strode along, I noticed quickly that its mouth was full: dangling from the lion's jaws, the body of a small fawn. The lion had the fawn by the throat and carefully walked with its prey. It made me feel a little sick. A baby. Why the baby? Because ...it is easy to catch; it doesn't know yet what lies in the woods. A fawn is ignorant and clumsy. It makes too much noise. It hasn't learned to be mistrustful.
As I watched, suddenly the fawn jostled against its imprisonment. It wasn't yet dead. Surprised, the lion must have loosened its jaws just a little, enough for the fawn to drop a kick to the neck of the lion and fall to the ground. Its shoulder was broken; bone and blood pierced the downy hide, yet it tried to run. Despite its wounds, it tried to escape. Of course the fawn did not make it far. And I stayed quiet till they had gone, then with a sick heart quickly went home.
I didn't go to the woods again after that.
And now, I am in the woods again, vulnerable, frozen, and empty.
Perhaps I can try to sleep when the sun is up, covering myself in the same way. It won't be so cold then. The idea is so seductive, and too soon I resolve to get up and walk up the hill to get my blood moving.
Just when I am about to sit up, I hear the quick sound of footsteps rushing through the fallen leafs and grass. Someone is running. Someone is breathing hard and coming closer. Someone is sobbing. And soon I hear others in pursuit.
Opening my eyes, I see a boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, wildly clamouring through the trees. He's breathing so hard that he can't run straight. In the vague moonlight, sweat and tears run in a mingled sheen on his face, terror and desperation caught in horrified expression in his eyes.
And sure enough, I can soon too see a pack of careers, careening after him, gleaming knives and glinting swords in hand. The dark doesn't let me see their features well, but I know who they are. Cato, Clove, Glimmer, Marvel: Districts one and two, they easily catch up with the boy, strange glasses on their faces. They are able to navigate the dark more easily than he can.
With a firm slice, as if he's been practicing, Cato runs his sword along the back of the boys leg cutting his hamstring and sending the boy with a shrill cry flat out on the grass. They are all about 50 feet from my knoll. Suddenly I have forgotten about the cold; I've forgotten everything, my plans, Haymitch's warnings, even Katniss in that moment. All I can see is a fawn trying to run with a broken shoulder. Without much forethought, I try to sit up, but my limbs are so stiff with cold that I can hardly move.
Circling like hounds, the careers kick and cajole the boy. My hands are frozen in fists. They won't grip the tree roots to pull myself up.
"Couldn't keep running?" taunts Clove, digging her heel into the boy's open wound.
"Looks like he's got a lame leg." smirks Glimmer.
"Aw, dear," Cato leans down and lifts the boy's head by the hair. "That's a shame."
"Don't! Don't! Please!" the boy begs, still struggling to breathe. I try to push my legs into the earth, but they don't respond. I can't even breathe, the cold and horror has taken the air out of me.
"No! No! Don't!" Marvel mocks, laughing thinly.
"You don't want to die?" Cato inquires, wryly.
The boy shakes his head: "Please, I just want to go home. Please."
"Well," Cato says with a disturbing amount of calm. "We all want to go home."
Then as if catching himself, Cato glances around as if looking for cameras, and then takes out a small knife.
"You want to go home," Cato repeats. "But that's not going to happen today." I try to squeal out a cry, but my voice only rasps in the icy air. And Cato is too quick for me.
With a setting of his teeth, Cato slices the throat of the boy, quickly, with a rough and fast jerk, like how I have seen Mr Broon the butcher do with a goat that is to be slaughtered.
The rest of the careers fan out around him in shouts of strange delight.
"Oh! Great line!" laughs Marvel, "Were you practicing that one?"
"Nope," Cato stands above the body of the boy that is flooding out blood into the grass. "I'm just that good."
They swagger around the body for a few minutes, waiting for him to fully die. I can't move. The choking sounds churn my stomach and sicken my heart. Cato sighs as if tired.
"Come on," he whispers to the air.
As if in answer, a canon shot hits the night.
"Finally," Clove gives a slight kick to the body and checks the boy's pockets for anything useful. Nothing.
Then as quickly as they came, the careers vanish into the night, taking no notice of me. I suppose my camouflage has succeeded, yet I feel no pleasure from it.
Slowly, I move my limbs up and away from there.
Away from the blood and the body, away from the path of the careers, up the hill again, my heart pounding with unutterable things: there is no use in staying here. Others will mourn him properly. I can't. I'm still here. He is or was an innocent. The real horror of all of this is that I have killed him too, and that in order for Katniss to live, as I plan for her to, then it means that not only will I die (which I have always known) but the rest of them will too.
Suddenly, it feels like by saving one I murder the others. Why her? Why not them? Those questions have been thrown at me from nearly every person that I have confessed my plan to. Haymitch, my avox, Portia.
As I thread through the trees, a wind picks up, and I remember those conversations, the questions the warnings. In particular, I think of Portia.
When I met Portia, I was trying my best to keep all the licking flames of sorrow shut away. If I let myself, then I knew I would dissolve into the fire, like so many of the others I have watched; so many of them simply choose despair and shrink into the true horror of the games: people who so desperately want to live. I don't want to be that. I have had some time to think. I want to remain myself. I want to be brave. I don't know what everyone expects me to be, but I'm not yet overtaken by fear or grief or desperation because of it. I can't be-for her sake. I'm not a fearful person. I'm just..me. My father always told me to be gentle with life, and I suppose that I have heeded his advice. I know that I am not like her at all, or like her boy. They are wild children, hardened and weathered by life in the Seam, desperate, resourceful, keen, clever, and cruel. All the Seam folk are like that, and I would be too if I wasn't a Town boy. Living on the scraps of scarcity tests everything that you are. My family lives on slightly better scraps, but I know all the Seam folk resent us for it. They don't know that we go hungry like them, or that we are only allowed to eat the rotting bread or the stale leftovers. Unlike us, they do not have to look at food all day, beautiful food, all the time; they don't have to touch it, fondle sweet cakes and tarts and rolls, forbidden to even sneak a taste. But I don't blame them for how they hate us. I would too if I were them, I suppose. My life is so different from hers. Or rather, it was. She lived by her own resourcefulness and wit. She and the boy would often come by my father's bakery with squirrels or berries, their skin brown from the sunlight, and I would steal a look at her sometimes catching her eye. She's cold, but it is the kind of hostility that you wouldn't begrudge an animal that crosses an intruder in the forest; anyone is a threat; everyone is either a foe or simply a neutral: none are friend. Except for the boy I guess, and of course her family. She's a wolf guarding her den with its vulnerable pups, hungry and thin. And he trots beside her, lean and grey, just as guarded and just as bold. The Seam kids always stick together. I never was brave enough to reach out and speak to her. I should have.
Now she is somewhere, waiting, just like me. We aren't altogether different now. Our lives used to be so distinct; now they have the same path.
Yet, there is still a difference; death isn't for her. She is a survivor. And she will be. And I have to help her survive. Suddenly all of that doesn't seem so noble anymore.
"Why her, Peeta?" I can almost hear Portia's smooth voice asking me.
Portia: dressed in deep purple with silver edgings and eyelashes, tall and slim, with eyes and pupils that seem much larger than they should.
When I had met her, she had said to me:
"Peeta Mellark, I'm sorry that this happened to you, and I'm sorry for whatever trouble is to come."
She had taken a sheet that I hadn't noticed her holding and draped it around my shoulders, covering my nakedness in the prep room.
"I am Portia, your stylist. My job is to help you make an impression for the sponsors. I work in collaboration with Cinna. He is the Lead stylist for District 12."
"And he's with Katniss?"
"Yes, Cinna and I will be coordinating our efforts for the both of you. District 12 has been ignored for so long. We want to unify our work in order to make sure no one forgets about you."
"Both of us."
"Yes of course."
"Now, Mr Mellark, how are you?"
"I...I don't know. I'm not exactly feeling well but..." I was not being sarcastic; her expression and tone dissolve any of that. "I know that the odds aren't in my favour. The tributes from 12 don't usually do well, and I...well...I'm not...I'm a baker...you can't exactly kill someone with baking...I know that I am likely going to die...My mentor made that pretty clear."
"You're right, Mr Mellark. The odds aren't in your favour, but that doesn't mean that I am going to give up on you. And you shouldn't either. You're so young. I promise you, Mr Mellark, I shall do all that I can to help you. I want you to survive."
Do I want to survive?
"Don't you want to live, Mr Mellark?"
"Of course I do, but not if..." the sentence snuffed out before I could finish it. I couldn't even utter it. How can I?
"Not if what?... Mr Mellark..."
"You don't need to call me Mr Mellark."
"I know. Except I want you to feel that I am at your service, not the other way around. The Capitol has taken everything from you today, but that doesn't mean that I can't still see you as human. You merit the respect due to any human, even if they mean for you to die."
"Well, I don't mind Peeta, then. Mr Mellark sounds too much like my father."
"Very well, Peeta, I realize that given where you are and what your next few days will be like, I know it is the last thing in the world that you want to do, but I need you to trust me. Please believe me when I say that I truly want you to make it. However, in order for me to do my best at my job, I need to know you, as much as possible. I'm not explaining this very well. Cinna does a better job of it. You see, the Capitol wants you to be as just a tribute, not a boy, not a human, just a tribute, a sacrifice. They want to make you less than human so that they can feel legitimate in sentencing 23 of you to death every year. It is easier to do if you aren't real, if you aren't human. If the world just sees you as a flat glossy tribute with no ties and no hope, then there is no ...Well, they don't think twice about it."
"I see"
"So whatever you can tell me about yourself will help me, whether its good or bad, I can use it to help your image. Cinna wants to craft you both in such a way so that you are unforgettable. It gives you much better odds in the actual games."
"But two can't walk out of there. Only one can survive."
"And I want that to be you."
"But...I can't be the one to survive."
"Why not?"
"Because...Katniss needs to be the one to go home."
"Katniss?"
"Yes."
"Why? Why not you?"
"She has a family to care for. Her sister. She volunteered for Prim. She deserves to go home."
"But..."
"No, she does. No one needs me. My family. I have brothers to help my father."
"Peeta, why?"
"It would take a while to explain."
"I have plenty of time before we need to get you ready for the tribute parade. Please. Tell me."
With a breath, I had told her: everything.
"I don't know how to explain this... well...you see...I know Katniss. Or I guess it is more that...I have known of her all my life. My dad knew her mother. Actually he was supposed to marry her, until she met Mr Everdeen. But I saw Katniss at school, and I ...I guess I have had a crush on her since I was a kid."
"A crush? Is a mere crush worth getting killed?"
"No. It's more than that."
"Then what is it? You love her?"
"She never noticed me, but I never stopped caring...I never stopped wanting to help. I care about what happens to her. I want her to be safe. So...now that we're both here, I can't let her die, if I can help it. If I went home and she wasn't there, I...I made my mind up about this long before the reaping ever happened. I will do what it takes to help her survive. No one can change my mind about it."
"...Well...No. Of course not. Not if that is what you really wish. You will still allow me to help you as much as I can, won't you?"
"Yeah, there's no harm in that, I suppose. I just thought you should know from the start. My strategy is never going to be for me to win. I want to last as long as I can, but it won't last. You can tell your partner that too."
"O Cinna has plans of his own of course, but yes, I will relay your wishes. Does she know all this too? How you feel?"
"No! No! I've never said anything!"
"And you don't want her to know?"
"I don't think that would help her at all. The games are complicated enough."
"Yes, well, let me think on that. As I said before, any and all information can be used in the games. It might end up helping you stay alive for as long as possible."
Suddenly, I trip over a root in the dark, and end up sprawled on the forest floor. My memories of Portia trickle into silence as I look around me in the night.
I hear the hum of a hovercraft coming for the body.
So much guilt and shame fills me.
Is this what it will come to? Am I willing to let everyone else die, so that she can live? Slumping down on a log to catch my breath, I sigh.
Yes.
There is no question.
There is no debate.
This is not about being noble.
There is no room for nobility here.
There is no right way to do this.
The only path I have is to try and make her way to survival sure and certain.
That's all.
That's love, I suppose.
That is all that the games have left for me.