She's doing it again. Somehow she manages to do it every day. One moment she's here with me and the next she's not – her eyes are distant, and there's a glint in them I can never capture. A longing that I can never grasp. I don't understand it, and I don't think I ever will. Of course I want to know what she's thinking about, what she sees with those fragile grey ice. But she isn't fragile, she's stronger than all of us. And they aren't cold, they burn with fire. It's just none of us our lucky enough to see it yet, and why should we? She's impeccable, and she'll never be mine. She'll never be anyone's. That's the thing about a wild soul, you can look at it all you like, but you can never cage it. Cage it and you destroy its flame, you suck the life out of it, you put out the beauty. Either that or it burns you to hell.

"We could do it you know. Take off, live in the woods." I'd take care of you know. I would hold you in my arms and I'd protect you and our families until my last breathe. You would kiss me and we'd be each others. I promise I would make you happy. Somehow. I wouldn't chain you down with expectations; I wouldn't stop you from doing what you need. I wouldn't destroy your fire, your essence. I wouldn't destroy you.

"They'd catch us." She doesn't mean us. It's the way she looks over the horizon and her nose scrunches up a little. She's taking in the smell of the crushed violets, the untamed land of the forest. Inhaling the good before we return to the bitter seam. She means us and our family. Because the idea of it just being me and her, just the real us, is unfathomable for her. They'd catch me. I'd be the one they'd catch because I'd tell you to run with the others and she'd run. I will never let them catch her.

"Maybe not." Maybe over my dead body. We'd be free, we'd be safe, we'd be alive. But we both know it's only one of us that can be free. And only I know that I will always let her be the one.

"We wouldn't make it five miles." We'd make it past that. We'd get to places we never even dreamed could exist. We'd start our own world. Where fire thrives and doesn't destroy. She's not destroying the Capitol. She's destroying herself. She doesn't belong here, she doesn't belong five miles from here. She belongs somewhere further than that and somewhere I'd never stop searching to find.

But I never told her those things. And I never held her hand in mine. And I never promised to her that I'd keep her safe. Because I couldn't – and now the fire is free. And that's ok that it never was and never will be part of me, because I count myself lucky for having witnessed it rise from the ashes in the first place. My Katniss, became their girl on fire. The girl she always was. The girl I still feel I will never truly know. The girl that stole my heart but threw it back knowing she'd set it alight if she kept it forever.