Chapter Two- Talking

My first stop when I get back to the old President's Mansion is a plush room on the third floor. The room is empty but there is the goosebump-inducing sound of running water from behind the bathroom door.

"Annie!" I bang on the door.

"I'm in the shower!"

"Then get out of the shower! I need to talk to you!"

"What about?"

"Out here now!" I stomp over to a couch in front of the window and flop down on it.

The water shuts off and I can hear her moving around. She didn't used to be so loud, but then again she's carrying extra weight now isn't she? When we were both here in the Capitol together the first time, she was a quarter of the size she is now. I guess I was as well…I don't know they didn't really have a lot of mirrors. I probably looked worse than her; she still had her hair.

She didn't talk to me a lot then. I didn't really talk to her either. In fact, I only said three words to her. They brought her in to try and unnerve me. There wasn't anyone else closer to me that they could have used, but they knew how much I cared for Fi—for my friend, and he loved her.

"Who was your Capitol contact Johanna?" they asked me.

I shrugged.

"Your friend is very fond of her isn't he? Wouldn't it be a shame if she wasn't as pretty the next time he saw her?"

I shrugged again.

"None of us are pretty anymore," I told them.

"Yes but what a pity if she'll never be a mother… now will you tell us?"

I looked right into Annie's sea green eyes and said, "Sorry but no."

At least the Capitol is well-known for lying because when she opens the bathroom door, her pregnant belly is the first thing that appears. She's absolutely enormous now, even though she's still got two months left until what we've been calling Baby-Day…at least that what she calls it. I call it something else when she's not around.

"Am I in trouble?" She pokes her head around the door, her sea green eyes fearful.

"You're damn right you're in trouble," I tell her, my arms folded. "Sit down."

She emerges, wrapped only in a fluffy white towel, her wet, dark hair dripping down her back. She perches on the edge of her perfectly made bed.

I'm angry at her for talking about me with the 'doctor' but as much as I'm dying to let rip at her, I can't while she's sat there.

"Look, you don't look very comfortable, sit here." I get up and gesture to the sofa.

"I'm ok here," she tells me.

"Right fine!" I roll my eyes and start to pace the room. "You've got a lot of nerve talking to Dr Big Books about me, Annie."

Annie's face immediately flushes pink, she's been caught out.

"He said it was confidential! I…I didn't…I'm sorry…I didn't think you'd find out," she stammers.

"So you just thought you'd get me into trouble and I wouldn't find out?! You're such a tattletale!"

"That's not what…it's not what I meant by telling him. He told me to tell him about the funeral…he said it would…help." She gulps, her eyes sparkling with tears. "I just said that I could see you were…hurting. But you sat at the back on your own, and I thought you were just dealing with it in your own way…then I found the n—"

"But you didn't need to tell him that!" I clench my fists down by my sides. "It was a blip! I didn't talk to anyone! I didn't interfere! I haven't done it again! It was a mistake! You didn't have to even mention it!"

"I thought you had it all together!" she pleads. "I thought I was the only one falling apart…again. I just told him that when I discovered that you were high, it made me realise that I wasn't on my own."

"He's signing me up to at least three more sessions! You've planted the little seed in his mind that I'm a junkie that turns back to morphling the second things get tough!"

Annie's silence is telling.

"Damn it, if you weren't pregnant Cresta," I growl.

"Odair," she says quietly.

"You know I'm not calling you that," I snap.

"Maybe it would help you if you talked about it with someone."

"We're talking now aren't we?!"

"You're shouting at me, that's not the same as talking about it Johanna."

"Well it might have escaped your attention, Annie," I stomp over to the door. "But I don't have a lot of people left to talk to. Thank you for proving that I cannot speak to you either without everyone finding out about it."

I slam the door behind me and stalk down the grand staircase to the floor below where my room is. I pace some more, just working off the frustration I feel pounding in my chest.

How dare she? How dare she discuss my business with Dr Big Books, and then her excuse of 'it made me feel better knowing you'd messed up'.

I bang my fists down on the mattress of my bed and cry out as I do it. It's not just anger that I'm screaming out, it's betrayal, and shame.

I don't remember much about the funeral in District 4. The lead up to it was awful. Annie spent a week gathering up his things to put in the boat that we were going to send off. We had no body so Annie wanted to do a special memorial thing. We'd put some of his stuff in a boat and send it off to be claimed by the ocean. She showed me loads of things that I'd never even seen before: a favourite book, a childhood blanket, a few self-invented fishing flies. It all blurred together in the end and I knew that I couldn't bear to watch it all float away, because even though I'd never seen it all before, it was still him.

The night before the funeral, I found a healer who accepted an extravagant amount of money for a sixty-millilitre vial of morphling and a syringe. I didn't really have any intention to use it at that point. It was only when the men arrived in the morning to accompany the boat down to the beach that I felt that all encompassing panic, and excused myself, promising to meet them there.

I shot up in the bathroom, putting the needle in the same place the hospital in 13 had. It kicked in just as I got to the beach, so I sat at the back hoping no one would try to talk to me because I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to form words.

No. No, I'm not thinking about this again.

I lift my head from the pillow I've smushed it into and decidedly stride back down the stairs to one of the many sitting rooms in the mansion. I pick this one specifically for the discovery I made a few weeks ago in here.

One of the cabinets, the one nearest the window, doesn't open outwards like the others. If you press down on the top of it, the surface pops open, revealing a mini-bar inside.

I hook out the expensive looking bottle with a shining gold label and a big glass, and set up shop in one of the deep armchairs.

I'm on my…fifth drink I think, when the door behind me closes with a quiet click.

"Uh oh, caught in the act," I murmur.

"Thought you might be in here," comes a gruff voice.

"Thought you were in 2," I reply.

"Back for an important meeting. I think I've got time for a drink before bed though."

The handsome, olive skinned intruder takes a seat opposite me.

"You're assuming that I'm going to share," I tell him and purse my lips, cradling the bottle under my right arm.

"Aren't you?"

I roll my eyes and offer him the bottle. He takes a swig and then hands it right back to me.

"How's the family?" I ask him.

"Good, yeah good. Rory's got a girlfriend," Gale replies, sitting back in the armchair.

"What a player," I giggle into my drink, then drain the remainder.

"Her name's Griselda…"

I gape.

"Are you serious? I've heard some names in my time…Griselda…"

"He's getting a lot of grief from all of us about it."

I drink from the bottle and then offer it back to him.

"Have you heard from Katniss?"

He lets out a long sigh before he takes an equally long drink.

"No," he coughs, wincing at the strength. "I've tried to call her a couple of times but she doesn't answer. You?"

I shake my head.

"The same. But if that's what she wants, she wants to be left alone then I'll leave her alone." I reach for the bottle back. "I mean it might have been nice for her to call and have a conversation, but she's had a tough time. But do you know what Gale, haven't we all? Just because some of us don't stare into space in the middle of conversations or try to assassinate people, doesn't mean that we're fine right?"

Gale tilts his head to one side.

"You've fallen out with Annie again haven't you?"

"She told my shrink that I'm using again!" I exclaim.

"And are you?" He pries the drink back out of my fingers.

"No! Of course not! Don't even…" I clench my fists again and press one to my lips before I say something I shouldn't. "Look, do you want to just go and have sex or something because I tried this talking thing and it's not really working for me."

A smile plays across Gale's lips and he looks down at the bottle.

"I'm absolutely terrified of what's going to happen when I say this but: No thank you. Not tonight please."

I tut.

"Well fine then." I stumble to my feet and the world swims in front of me. "Woah!"

Gale's strong arms grab my shoulders and steady me.

"Do you even want to have sex with me?" he asks gently.

"It wasn't too awful last time…" I murmur.

"Not too awful, thanks. Especially considering I'd had a lot more of this stuff." He drops the almost empty bottle back into the cabinet.

He's right, it had been a drunken fumble in the dark one night a few weeks ago and I can't even remember most of it. All I remember is the disgusting hangover and the early morning slink back to my room, just like old times.

"Might as well suffer the hangover in my own bed," I say to myself, but I think he overhears.

"That's the spirit. Come on." His hands on my shoulders again, he guides me up the stairs and to my room, where he pauses at the door. He leans in a little closer and I think he's about to kiss me. I press my body a little closer, feeling the warmth of another living person. There's a flash of the time before, and then another reminder: a kiss on a porch in District 7, and another body holding mine tightly.

Then I realise my hand is on the doorknob. I don't want this so I turn my head away.

"See," he says. "I knew you didn't really want to." He walks over to the banister and hunches over it.

"Sorry," I mutter.

"It's ok. I just need to stop having a thing with you girls who don't know what you want."

I don't really know what he's saying but I feel bad for him, and his posture looks sad.

"Sorry," I say again. My bed is right behind this door. I just need to go to bed. "It wasn't going to be more than a 'thing' ever."

"Yeah, I know." He rests his chin on his crooked arm on the banister.

"Have a nice meeting tomorrow." I open my door.

"Thanks. Good talk."

I'm just about to close the door behind me, when the memory of the warm chest pressing against mine reminds me of something.

"Gale!" I call.

He's only got three steps down so he turns back expectantly.

"When you were in District 2… did you get many Peacekeepers from the Districts coming back?"

"Yeah, a few I guess. Not as many as there should be. The rebels in the Districts didn't take too kindly to the Peacekeeper presence once everything kicked off. Why?"

"No reason, it doesn't matter. Good night."

I flop down on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I guess it was pretty cruel of me to do that to Gale, especially after everything he's been through with Katniss. I did try to talk to him, but just like with Annie, I ended up ruining it.

No wonder I'm so lonely. That's what it really is. I'm lonely, but the moment someone tries to get to know me, I just push them away.

The only person that I haven't pushed away is a Peacekeeper that I met in District 7, but it sounds like the rebels might have taken care of that job for me.

I sigh, and roll onto my side, squeezing my eyes tightly shut and wrapping my own arms around me.

"It's going to get better," I repeat over and over to myself. "It's going to get better. It can't stay like this forever," and gradually I drift off to dreams of bright white lights and pouring water.