2 The Forest

I am fortunate to enter this enormous sanctuary where I can be free to release my pain. It is usually a place where I can freely live by my rules, and play my games. If I win, I'll have something to take home, but if I lose no one will know. And today, no one will know except the forest that I am losing it. In the three days since Peeta announced that he'll be making that Wilderness hike with the young men of District 12, I've been an emotional disaster. I hide it from Peeta, but I risk exposing it the longer we're in bed together.

So, I wake up earlier to make my usual trek to the forest. For three days straight, all I want to do is find a nice smooth rock at the edge of a creek to rest my head on and just cry. I wonder what has come over me, and I've come to realize that I really am what Dr. Aurelias calls my current case, "insecure." I call myself a silly ninny, convincing myself that I will not trouble Peeta about this. It's an issue Dr. Aurelias says has a cure. He said to learn to let things go. I know what we have isn't a normal relationship, not if Peeta's mostly the sane one, and I'm the one with all the issues. There's still a long road to recovery for both of us, but my heart has involuntarily commanded every part of my bone and muscle to take up the long haul. While using my shirt to wipe my slick face, I make a mental note to call Dr. Aurelias when Peeta's gone. I get up to start hunting when not too long after, I see it on the ground. A dandelion.

I smile, from the memory of the next day when I wanted to thank Peeta for the bread, but we both bashfully looked away. He ignored me, or so it seemed. But he would always remind me about that very day when we first made brief eye contact was also the day I first broke his heart.

He had accepted a girl's advances and kissed her to ease the sting of rejection, and the lashes caused by his mother. He admitted though, that it didn't. He waited weeks for me to say something to him, but he noticed a dramatic change in me unfolding.

He told me my once frail, vulnerable stature transformed overnight into this rugged, stern, overly serious persona. He lost the nerve to utter a word to me, fearing the bread gesture might have fueled a hidden rage in me. Peeta, speechless? Who would've thought? Eventually word got around about me quickly, at his family dinner table, where they feasted on minced squirrel meat. And many other dinner tables not used since the untimely death of my father were bringing families a meager sustenance again to make it through another night. I had gained a small-scale status of celebrity in the district which Peeta believed slated me as one of the girls way out of his league.

Now both Peeta and I are household names in every district and it all started with this one dandelion. I continue to stare at it and then I crane my head back to look up at the towering trees above me. I felt my father's presence surrounding me in a nice breeze brought on by a cloudy day. The trees swayed and the birds sang, and once again Peeta's words come back to me.

"I'm too aware."

Yes, I am, and I know even though there is not a single human soul out here with me, I am not alone. The dandelion, trees and wind speak to me, teaching me to survive, having led me to success in my former mission to help stave off starvation for the people of District 12. No longer do they need to depend on me though now that some livestock are being raised by several townspeople. Now that they are able to venture out past the perimeter, where the electrified fence once stood, many people took the opportunity to build houses close to the lakes, and cleared land to begin farming.

My mood had changed drastically from despair to delight as I pull several of the dandelion leaves and flowers to take home with me. I arrange the five dandelion flowers in a small vase as I prepare a meal for Peeta and I.

I didn't hear the door open or knew that he had been spying on me for several minutes, probably because the song that I was humming was amplified by the enormous ceiling in Peeta's newly renovated kitchen. When I turned around he was leaning against the frame of the back door. I almost dropped the plate of roasted chicken with rosemary, garnished with dandelion leaves, and pine nuts—the few ingredients I picked on the way home from the forest.

Peeta! I sighed. "Don't do that! You scared me!"

"I didn't want to interrupt. The last time I heard you sing, like that, was the first day of school. Real or not real?"

I went from blushing to burning with embarrassment having to answer that question.

"Real."

I wonder if he remembers the story he told all of Panem about our first childhood encounter.

He says, "My Dad told me the birds would all fall silent when they'd hear your Dad sing, and I listened that day, but it wasn't the birds that fell silent, it was the entire class."

He's leaning over, the dish still in my hand, as he kisses me.

When he pulls away, he tells me, "You were my first crush."

After our wordless moment staring into each other's eyes brimming with deep gratitude, Peeta breaks the silence by taking the dish off my hands and setting it on the table saying, "Packing for an extended camping trip sure does work up an appetite."

I retire to bed, happier than I've ever remembered being. Peeta is waiting for me and when I settle in he leans over smiling at me. The smile looks innocent, not the mischievous one he makes right before he makes a move on me. So I ask, quickly.

"What?"

"You didn't finish singing," he says, putting his hand on my thigh, sliding it upward.

"Okay!" I shout. What do you want me to sing?"

"Anything," he says snuggling beside me, closing his eyes.

"You want me to sing you to sleep?" I ask, indignant, and when he opens his eyes, they look straight up at me, so childlike, pleading, and so adorable. I couldn't refuse those baby blues.

I begin, and he quickly stops squirming spooned up against me.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.

Thoughts run through my mind as I sing. My mother forbade my father from singing this song to us, because of its dark and violent tone, but she didn't understand it that way my father and I did. The forest is telling a story, and if we listen carefully we can learn from it…

Strange things did happen here

That death won't separate true love, but it's even better to cheat it. Like what Peeta and I did with the nightlock berries.

No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

…not to look at the hopelessness, but to search for a way out of it.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here mklp
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

We almost shared the same fate of these two doomed lovers at the hanging tree, but in the arena, the forest spoke up and objected loudly, in the voice of Seneca Crane.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

This songs remind me now that both Peeta and I, together, conquered all the hanging trees in the clock arena, not one of them remains standing.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

I lose myself to the rhythm as I end the song. Peeta's even breathing lets me know that he has fallen asleep. I found another way to be happy, and I am starting to believe that I'll be able to bare our temporary separation. I spent the day focusing on making a dinner special, but at this moment it hit me hard in the gut, realizing that it would be our last night together. Tomorrow the boys leave District 12 for 30 days.

Please review. Let me know what you liked and didn't. Thank you.