CHAPTER 3: Flowers are for the living
It was something about the way his blonde curls moved with the wind, or they way he holded his breath when he saw her, that made Katniss stand still when she only wanted to run away.
It was something about the way he looked a lot like himself than like the version she was afraid of that made her knees feel like falling to the ground.
She doesn't have anything to say but his name, because he caught her by surprise. Not that she didn't knew he would eventually come to her door step, but she just wasn't expecting it to be so soon.
So soon, yet so late.
She gazed into his eyes, and noticed that they were as blue as she could remember them, but not quite the same.
They were older, more tired. Restless.
And, mostly, she could see the fear in them. She knew it was rare of him to be afraid, her steady Peeta. But aren't we all?
Aren't them all tired and hurted and damaged? He was just as much as she, though a selfish part of her took advantage of the situation to mourn alone.
It bothered her that he would be standing here in front of her when she was confined to her bedroom. She couldn't get how he was even on his feet after all. And that was something Katniss could never accept – being second best. It was childish and stupid, she knew, but one does not have the right to get over his losses before she does.
Part of her just wouldn't care. The other part of her felt confronted. And a tiny, tiny one felt surprised. Surprised by how he could be strong while she was falling apart. A bit of hope – even if really small – grew inside her.
They were both speechless, frozen in place as if a force field was holding them there, for minutes.
Minutes that felt like hours.
It took her long enough to realize he was holding a box, full of stuff she didn't recognize at first, sort of embarassed and shy. Sort of a Peeta way of being embaressed.
When he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was caught in his throat, and it echoed at her ears in a broken, tired sound.
"Hello, Katniss".
She shifted in her steady position, making her left foot support her body weight as she holded on the door.
She watched carefully, trying not to stare, as he walked his free hand through the back of his head, messing with his own curls.
None of them had nothing else to say, and, even if not sure of her actions, she opened the door a little bit more and stepped back.
"Do you want to come in?"
The look on his face was unreadable. Something between confusion and surprise and fear, mixed together with a strong wish of running away. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and nodded at her.
He stepped in so shyly that Katniss considered if he would continue or hide away from her like a child does, behind it's parents legs.
She turned her back to him and sat on the nearest sofa, wrapping her arms around her as if she was cold. He sat too, his hands gripping the box corners too strongly; his eyes glued to the ground.
He was nervous, she could tell.
It took him awhile to say any other word, so she took this time to study him. It was Peeta, after all. Blue eyed, blonde Peeta, who reminded her of her sister for brief moments, like when he was kind and patient, or when he smiled just a bit and his eyes would gleam in a childish way, just like she used to do; her Prim. Her lost, dead Prim.
It was all silence, until he did look at her. Before he could even say something, she was already wondering what in the world it could be. Why he was at her house, in the first place, or what is in the box, or an explanation of why it took him so long to comeback (although she was willing to know the last one more than the others, even if she tried to deny it to herself). She wondered a lot of things, except of what he actually said.
"I'm sorry".
Just that. That and she lost her composure, sinking a little in the couch. This time he sounded so honest, so like he really meant it, that she got even angry at him for being sorry for something she knew that wasn't his fault.
She felt sad, because he was just as broken at her, but he was, as usual, the one apologizing. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't right.
What was he even sorry for? For the Games? Not his fault. For the rebellion? Not his fault, either. For the Quarter Quell, the explosions, his hijacking, h|r scars, the death of his own family, or Prim's? None of the items in that huge list of tragic situations was his fault.
Maybe they were not her fault too, but that she wouldn't afford to think. She can't forget it all and blame the Capitol for everything. A little bit of fault she has in that, yes. But he doesn't.
He only got hurted. Because of me.
She shook her head, this time her eyes were the ones searching for the ground.
"Don't be sorry".
He gulped and she raised her head to see him playing in a silly way with the hem of one of his long sleeves. He was sad, too.
It was a stupid question in their situation but she did it anyway. And she did it because, somehow, she really wanted to know. Because, if there's anyone that still need her support in this world, it is him.
"How are you, Peeta?"
He smirks a little at her question, too little to anyone who doesn't know him that well even see it. But she does.
"I've been better".
And it's so tragic that it's even funny. So she laughs. "Me too".
But that seems to startle him. And his eyes search for hers, his face serious and worried. "Haymitch said you are not.. well".
She releases a bothered breath. "Haymitch says a lot of things".
"But you aren't, are you? I know it".
She shakes her head at him, because he, too, knows her really well. "No, not really".
He lets go of the box and clasps his hands together, sitting a little forward in the couch opposite to hers. "Let me help. Please".
Her eyes roll before she evens acknowledge them to. "You can't help me in this".
The look in his face is disappointment, and this time he shakes his head and sighs.
He still wants to take care of her, after all this time.
"I do. Please, Katniss", he says, and then looks at her skinny arms; "You need to eat".
She says nothing, but she knows, deep down, that he is right. She is not hungry, but that may also be part of her 'depression', as some doctors said before she came back home too.
"What's in the box?", she says, and points at it.
Peeta seems to have forgotten about it, so he jumps at the sight of the instruments in his lap.
"Oh. This are.."
She looks at him, waiting for him to go on; and his Adam's apple bobs up and down as he gulps again.
"I have been... gardening"
"I know", and she indeed knows, because she lost count of how many times she caught herself staring at him working on his garden through her window.
"Right. And.. lately, I ordered some seeds and.. there is a package of.. primrose's seeds that... Well, I thought you would like to have them".
Her voice stucks in her throat. Primrose seeds. Primrose seeds for gardening.
She doesn't know how to feel about that. Having Prim planted in her garden is not exactly what she wants, but it's something her sister would like. She used to like flowers. And her garden is already too dead. And she doesn't want to see death wherever she goes anymore. Actually, she does not think too much about it, because if she does she will end up saying no and locking herself again in her bathroom to cry alone. So she says the only thing she can say to him in that moment.
"Okay".
His eyes go wide in surprise. "Okay? You really want me to..?"
"Yes. Okay, Peeta. Plant them".
He smiles.
He smiles and she melts a bit. Because it has been a long while since she last saw him smiling that way. So, as if for impulse, she smiles too. It's not a proper smile like his, but still. She feels like crying, but instead looks out the window because facing him is suddenly hard.
He gets up and leaves, not to his house, but to her front garden. She sits in her porch and watches as Peeta works in the land. The sun hits her eyes and she turns her head to see Haymitch at his porch too. She can't see his face from here, but she swears she can see a smile before he turns away and step inside his house.
Sitting there, in the porch, with her oversized t-shirt and pants, she realizes she has missed fresh air. And her heart aches when she thinks about the woods, once she doesn't hunt since around five months ago. She is not sure, though, of how many days she has been locked inside, because a minute of solitude feels like a decade. A day in that dark, empty house, without Prim or her mom or even Buttercup, the cat she used to hate and now wonders where the hell it went, is a century of pain and mourn.
She missed the sun. She missed her porch, even, the wooden floor that makes annoying sounds when she steps in it.
Along with all the people she lost, she notices that she can also miss the people who are alive.
She misses Johanna's jokes and Annie's kind smiles and Gale's company and her mom's smell. Mostly, although she tries to deny and hates to admit; she has missed Peeta. Not only him, but him and what he does and how he smells and his attitudes and the way his blue eyes are always blue, always there.
And she knows she can't bring herself to say all those things to him, or to anyone but herself; she knows she can't do anything to fix him or to fix their lives; she can't do anything to bring those who she lost back. All she can do is stare at the garden where primrose's flowers will grow and hope for tomorrow to be better.
Maybe tomorrow will be better, after all.
So, later, when she is eating a cheesebun he baked in the afternoon and offered her; she says "Thank you".
And when he looks at her from his side of the kitchen table, she knows that he knows what she meant. She is not thanking him only for the cheesebun (though it tastes really, really good) or for planting primroses in her garden. She is thanking him for everything he ever did and keeps doing for her.
She thanks him for being him.
That night, she lays down in her bed with a content stomach, full of baked goodies she managed to eat even though she still wasn't hungry.
That night, Peeta felt like a heavy weight has left his shoulders. That night, he sleeps for the first time in months.
She dreams of Prim.
He dreams of her.
A/N: Hello, everyone!
I am so, so sorry for taking so long to update the story. I was travelling (trying to make the best of my short hollidays, if possible) and spent almost a month out of my country. As soon as I got the chance to write I did, so here it is. I hope the chapter was worth the waiting.
Thank you for all the support, keep reviewing!
Love,
Gabriella.
