We sit, together, waiting for the dawn. It has long become our practice to meet in darkness, find our spots, and wait for the game to stir. These winter months have always been hardest, since dawn comes earlier and colder.
But it's what I look forward to most, now.
I'm not always there before she is, but I know my anticipation is greater than hers, which makes my trip into the woods seem shorter. Sometimes I find her, already at our spot, hunched over to keep herself warm. Other mornings I'm the first to arrive, and I sit, listening to my own heart thrum in wait. I feel it quicken when I see her – I never hear her – and I'm almost surprised that she, with her hunter's ear, can't hear the joyful beats just below my skin.
In the spring and summer, when the air is less raw, we wait side by side, arrows and bow loose but in our hands, ready to be picked up at a moment's notice. Sometimes either she or I will hear something in the darkness, but rarely do we risk a kill before we can see. It's an easy way to lose arrows, and to get into trouble. We are not the only ones in the forest, and though we may be predators to some, we can easily be preyed upon by others.
In the deepest nights of winter, though, when the wind bites and we know it might be hours before something edible might cross our path, she sometimes lets me hold her.
I'm not sure when we started doing it. I do remember it was after I had realized my feelings for her, and holding her meant more than just warmth. For me.
This morning we wait in our usual spot – low down, concealed by a large, curved bush, my back resting against a tree. An ideal spot to see and not be seen.
Most mornings, when I wrap her in my arms, I keep my legs to the side as I press her back into my chest, sliding her into my chest and wrapping my arms around her.
But today is different.
I felt it when she first arrived. I was at our stone, crouched low and breathing into my hands to warm them, when I turned and saw her. My heart had given its usual leap at her silent appearance, but my voice, brusque and cracked from the cold, mercifully, had betrayed nothing of my feelings.
"Hey, Catnip."
She hadn't said hello back. Nor had she approached me like she usually does, giving me a friendly, if somewhat sleepy, nod. Some days she smiles. But she had done neither of those things, choosing instead to stay at her spot, one hand resting at the strap of her game bag. She had just looked at me.
Was something wrong? I had stopped warming my hands to turn to her, fully, cocking my head to the side to ask her, wordlessly, what was going on.
Still, she had just looked at me. It had been different, that expression. There was no doubt that she had been studying me, but it was as if she had never seen me before. As if she were searching my features for something she wasn't sure was there. Finally, I had been unable to hold my tongue any longer.
"What is it?"
She had shaken her head, her grey eyes locked on my own. I had smiled, thinking that while we did have similar features, there was no doubt we were very different. Her eyes, while grey, are undoubtedly larger than mine, while her nose is smaller. It also turns up, a bit, at the end. And her lips …
My breath catches, a little, every time I think of them, and how I long to brush them with my own. There had been times in the past when I had caught myself staring at them, wondering what it would feel like to cup her cheek in my hand and run my thumb along her bottom lip.
Normally, I try and make myself stop when my thoughts go down that path. I don't think there is a single part of Katniss Everdeen that I don't want to touch. And over the past few weeks, in some incredible stroke of luck, I had been able to hold her during those darkest hours of the morning.
When she had just shaken her head at me, a fear shot through me that she was going to tell me we had to stop. That she thought it was getting too personal, too … affectionate. If I knew anything about Katniss at all, it was that she had spent years building up a strong resistance to that sort of attention. I could probably confess my undying love for her every hour on the hour and she wouldn't believe me. Or, more accurately, she would tell herself she doesn't believe me. I think, by this point, her ability to turn a blind eye to how people feel about her has become second nature. She is focused on keeping her family alive. Anything else, she would say, is pointless.
And I can see where she is coming from. Katniss and I understand each other plainly about that. We never have to explain or justify. We both just know, and understand. Yet I want more. I want marriage and children. And every day, I tell myself I won't be able to change her mind.
But every day, my heart can't help but hope.
I know it's foolishness to wrap my arms around hers every morning; to breathe in the scent of her and lose myself in the feel of her head resting against my chest and her body against mine. I should stop, and pull away. Bring an extra coat or something.
But I can't. I have to hold her. I have to.
And so it is relief – pure, stupid, unswerving relief – that surges through me when, after shaking her head by way of an answer this morning, she had dropped her bag, picked up her weapons, trudged over to our usual spot, and waited for me to sit first.
But this morning, as I sit and open my arms to her, she doesn't sit beside me. She drops down, moves my knees back in front of me, and parts them.
My throat goes dry.
It is lucky, perhaps, that I am frozen with shock. Otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to resist putting my hands on hers and pulling them higher up my thighs, reaching forward, and capturing her mouth with a kiss.
Without a word, she turns her back on me and wiggles her way in between my knees, tucking her legs so mine can fold around hers. As I wrap my limbs around her, I inhale her familiar smell and, for a moment, abandon myself to the sheer feel of her: how her tiny arms feel in my big hands; how I can see her pulse beating in her neck through the slightest bit of skin exposed to me.
This morning there's something new, too: how her legs feel pressed in between mine.
I close my eyes and swallow, willing myself to stay in control, reminding myself of what I might lose if I allow my body to do what it so desperately wants to do.
"I'm still cold," I suddenly hear her whisper. My reverie is broken, and I realize she has turned to face me ...
... and she is looking at me, expectantly. I don't move, though. I don't trust myself.
So she moves for me, slowly reaching up to unzip my coat, and then moving to unzip her own.
It's odd – the wind seems to have no effect on my newly exposed skin. I see her withdraw her arms from her sleeves and then, making sure her coat is still over her shoulders, she moves into me and wraps her arms around my waist.
She nuzzles her face against my chest.
I immediately zip her into me and then, emboldened by the way she tightens her grip around me, slip my arms from my own sleeves to wrap them around her, underneath our jackets. I have never felt so much of her body pressed up against mine. I feel her shivers subside as I let my cheek drop to rest against the stop of her head.
It is, perhaps, my happiest moment.
Until.
I am not sure how much time has passed, but judging from the sky and feel of the air, it can't have been more than a few minutes. Our breathing has become rhythmic and synchronized, and for the hundredth time this morning, I find myself longing to share a bed with Katniss – to feel her breath rise and fall, to see her as she sleeps, to simply have her next to me in the moments of peace and solitude that night brings.
I feel her stir, and when I turn to look at her, I see that she has lifted her head to meet my gaze. Now when she looks at me, her eyes aren't questioning. They're affectionate. But there's something more to them, now; something more than just friendly affection.
Her gaze lowers to my lips, back to my eyes, and then drops, again, to my lips.
"Gale," she whispers.
My heart stops.
Slowly, with aching deliberation, she closes her eyes and presses her lips to mine. They are cold, but soft. My eyes won't stay open and my stomach constricts in an explosion of feeling that rockets through me, leaving me feeling almost dizzy.
I hungrily press back, my arms tightening around her, pulling her even closer to me. I devour her, crushing her lips with mine.
When her tongue hesitantly brushes against me, I nearly pass out, but I gather myself enough to respond. My eagerness, my hunger for her, grows with every passing second. Her moans are soft, but they echo through my head until I can feel them in my chest. I don't stop kissing her until I can't stand to go any longer without air. And then …
…. I open my eyes to darkness. Except no, the faintest hint of grey is seeping through the window.
I am alone, in bed.
My first, stupid thought is that I am late. That she will be wondering where I am. That she is waiting, in the cold, without me.
And then I remember.
She is hundreds of miles away, in a damp cave. And she is not alone.
No, she is in someone else's arms. Someone who kisses her. Someone who loves her. And someone whom she is started to love back.
Without warning, I roll over and vomit over the side of the bed into the bucket I have learned to keep near me. I have needed it more than once, watching her. With him.
I pull myself to sitting and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I am almost looking forward to being in the mines today, with the hard, distracting, dangerous work. It is the only escape I have from the anguish and misery that the rest of my life has become.
I cannot not watch her. I have tried, tried to stay away from all but the mandatory viewings. Even those, I attempted, at first, to avoid, by shutting myself away upstairs. Once the Games started, that no longer became an option. My mind would torture me with images of what could be happening to her. No, I had to watch because I had to know.
The first time she kissed him was the first time I was sick. My mother sent for Mrs. Everdeen, to make sure it wasn't the flu. But I think she knew. I think they both knew.
Now, the images my mind conjures for me are more torturous than before. When I am not watching all I feel is the same sense of nausea, as well as a kind of pain I have never experienced before. It is some combination of jealousy, heartbreak, and sickening worry. I used to long for the escape of sleep, until the dreams found me.
Nearly every night, I hold Katniss in my arms. Some nights we exchange words of love; other nights, no words are needed. But every day, without fail, I open my eyes to darkness, and I am alone. And she is still hundreds of miles away, in a place where death can claim her at any moment. Falling in love with another man. The pain I experience every day, just in waking, is unparalleled.
Some people may call them good dreams. To me, they are nothing but nightmares.