Written for the Peeta's Paint Box PiP day three: yellow.
A Love Like That
The meadow looks more yellow than green, covered by a sea of dandelion heads that almost glow in the summer sun. It's almost as if they're special – not touched by the cloud of coal dust that everything else in the district seems to be blanketed with. Even our new home, in the part of the district you would think would be perfect, is marred. In fact, it may be the darkest and dustiest of all.
Beside me, Lady begins to fidget anxiously. The ribbon I tied around her neck has come loose so I stand to adjust it before we walk home. I tie it off in a bow and then pull on her rope, urging her to follow after me. She does because she's a good goat. My sister helped me train her.
The walk to the Victor's Village takes us right through the Seam. I've never fit in very well there, as much as Katniss always believed I did. With my Town features, fair and light as the sun, children who once played with me in the schoolyard grew wary of me as we aged. That only increased after they watched my sister in the Games.
I walk quickly.
There is a pen that we have to put Lady in out behind our new house. I think Peeta built it when he needed something to do with his hands. It was during that dark period before the Tour when he and Katniss weren't speaking to each other. I honestly think Katniss convinced herself that it came with the house.
I learned very quickly that they weren't in love. I think my mother did too. But most in the district believed it at least a little. Since they never saw Katniss or Peeta aside from the few times a week Peeta makes a trek to the bakery, the folks outside our little bubble are left to their own devices in coming to terms with what they saw on the screens. Some still believe it, some don't, and some don't want to because, even when they're both Victors, they're still separated by a line and different sets of coloring.
In hindsight, it didn't surprise me that they avoided each other when they returned. As much as I loved seeing it during the Games, once they were both home, I tried to delude myself for a few weeks that their way of ignoring each other was merely because the transition back to home life was hard. But their interactions, when they were forced to interact, were icy cold. It was almost as if the two people who returned home were completely different from the kids that we watched on the screens. It was sad that I learned not to speak about Peeta in front of Katniss when I, for a while, thought that would be the only thing that would wake her from the suffering.
Once I finish with Lady, I walk into our brand new house and shout, but no one answers. My mother must be with a patient. Katniss could be anywhere. While she still spends a lot of time in the woods, she has been spending more time with Peeta. Some switch was ignited during the tour. Whereas they couldn't stand fifty feet from each other before, they can barely be away from each other now. And it's not just out of obligation to their engagement – I know because Katniss wouldn't care about that. It confuses me because I look at Katniss and Peeta and now wonder if they are in love. Or at least getting there. But as much as I want my sister to have that element in her life, she's been so adamant against it for so long that I'm not sure she would let herself understand what it means to love.
On my way upstairs, I hear something coming from her room. The door is ajar and so I wander over, sticking my head in through the crack. My mouth is open with my greeting when I have to quickly swallow my words.
Katniss and Peeta are sitting on her bed, their backs against her headboard, their shoulders touching, a book spread across their laps. I'm not sure what they're reading because their words to each other are spoken so softly, like whispers. It's almost as if they don't want to be overheard, even though they know the house is empty - or thought the house was empty until I showed back up.
I watch as Peeta takes her hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of it. The gesture is so sweet, but it has a flair of continuity to it. As if he has done it hundreds of times before when it's only been a month or so since their return. The dandelions in the grass outside are still new.
Katniss rests her head on his shoulder and I feel as if I'm intruding on a moment between them. The gentle way that Peeta takes her hand seems absurdly intimate. The girls at school talk about love in many different ways and many of them happen to involve the slag heap. This is the love that I always imagined – the kind warmth that I vaguely remember my parents having, where they didn't need to be kissing to show their affection.
It surprises me that my mind goes to that. In what world did I ever think I'd see my sister fall in love? She doesn't even realize it. Probably doesn't want to either. But I can see it almost as plain as day on her face. Her face has lit up like a summer sky even if I know she's still haunted by the darkest demons in the world.
When Peeta kisses the side of her head, I turn around and shut the door as quietly as I can so as not to disturb them. I'm afraid that if I do my sister will run away and that's the last thing she needs right now.
Instead, I walk into my own room and pull a book out of the shelf, setting the dandelion from the meadow that I had placed behind my ear earlier in the day on the desk facing the window. The sun illuminates it, makes it glow, kindles the bright yellow in a warm embrace.
It must be hours later when I hear Peeta's heavy treads, the permanently audible evidence of his time in the arena. I set a bookmark down between the pages and stand. When I peek through the door like a little kid trying to catch a glimpse of a secret, I see them walking toward the stairs. They aren't touching or being overly affectionate. But there's something different about the way they walk, close enough to have their fingers graze each other's as they swing their arms.
Peeta leans down and says something in her ear and she laughs. My sister actually laughs. A big belly laugh that I haven't heard out of her in years. She actually laughs so hard that she has to stop and lean against the wall, putting her face in her hands.
"You okay, Katniss?" Peeta asks in a voice that just sounds like he has a smirk on his face.
She moves her hands from her face to his chest and pushes him. "Get lost," she says, with laughter still in her voice. "You're the worst."
He fake-stumbles back a few steps and puts his hand to his chest. Before he can get a word out, she shakes her head and continues. "Don't even start, Peeta Mellark."
"Uh oh, full name. I'm in trouble now."
They chase each other like toddlers down the stairs and I resist the urge to follow them. I've been nosy enough for one day. Instead, I sit on the top step and listen as they say their goodbyes. Peeta invites Katniss to dinner and that's when this little perfect charade falters. She mumbles a bit about me and my mother, how she has to help me with dinner for us three. I sigh and wish she would just say yes. Give in to what her heart is trying to tell her because I know if she listened to it she'd be a lot happier. I hope Katniss lets her guard fall. I hope she allows him all the way in. When she does, when not if, I can just imagine it – how they'd chase each other around in the meadow full of sprouting dandelions, like the couples in the story books I've found in the shelves of this house. A happily ever after for the two people who need it the most. They're already sort of there, just hiding from it although I don't understand why. They have the best kind of love, the kind that starts out as a friendship and develops into so much more.
I hope I can have a love like that one day.