Disclaimer: The Hunger Games? Not mine. But a girl can dream...


Ups and Downs

"Flowers"

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up... I thought we could plant them... For her."

I remember Peeta saying these words, or something along those lines, every time I walk by the window, every time I come home and see them on the side of the house. Those once-scraggly primrose bushes that are now healthy and well-kept, thanks to Peeta. He spends time out there each week in our small garden with a pair of shears and the hose, pruning and weeding. I don't really understand at first why he works so hard to care for those bushes, but he does, and I can't say I don't appreciate it. It shows that he knows it means a lot to me. Even more, he's clearly proved to me that he loved Prim, too.

Sometimes, I am tempted to go out there with him and lend a hand. I don't exactly know why I haven't - it's not like it's really hard work or that it will take up a lot of my time. But there is something about those roses that... disturbs me. They're beautiful, of course, but I think it's the fact that they remind me so much of my sister that is painful for me. In the yellow-white petals I see her face, the tone of her fair skin, even her blonde hair.

I wonder if she would be upset with me. If she could see me now, in my constant self-pity, in my fear of everything that reminds me of the Games and the people I lost... would she be angry? Probably not. Disappointed? Most likely.

This thought is the one that drives me to get up from my window seat one day and walk out to the garden. Peeta is kneeling on the ground; a small pile of green, pulled-up weeds lies next to him.

"Need any help?" I offer as I approach him. He turns his head to look up at me.

Squinting in the bright, mid-day sunlight, he hesitates, clearly confused. He had asked a few times in the past if I wanted to join him in the garden, but I had always refused. After a while, he stopped asking.

"Uh... sure," Peeta says. He nods to the ground next to him, gesturing for me to kneel, and brushes the dirt off of his hands. "I was just about to trim the bushes."

He grabs a pair of small shears. When he holds them out to me, I give him a look that must be somewhere between hesitant and just plain lost; he chuckles and says, "Here. I'll show you." He reaches over to one of the bushes and gently takes a brown, shriveled bloom in his fingers. Raising the shears, he snips off the rose from its stem. "See? Easy."

Peeta hands me the clippers and smiles encouragingly. I reach for another dying bloom and hold it cautiously in my hand. "Don't worry, they don't have thorns," Peeta assures me. I hold up the shears to cut the flower when a bird squawks loudly somewhere in the distance, startling me. My hand slips and I cut a stem. It wasn't the bloom I intended to snip; it was an entire branch, with four or five healthy flowers. The branch lay in the dirt at my knees.

"Katniss," Peeta says. But I ignore him, throw down the scissors, and get to my feet. "Katniss, it was an accident. You didn't-"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" I say loudly, looking at him angrily. "I still did it!"

"It's just a flower." Peeta pushes himself up from the ground and tries to calm me down. "It'll grow back."

"No, it won't. Not the same." I storm away from him, back into the house, hating Peeta's stupid flowers, hating myself for killing them. I know I'm overreacting, but chopping off those primroses, those flowers that remind me so much of my sister... It felt like an insult to her memory.

But still, I don't want to think about how disappointed she would be in me for yelling at Peeta for a stupid mistake I made. It wasn't his fault. I'll apologize to him later, I tell myself. He'll understand. But would Prim?

I wipe my eyes and think frustratedly, get over it, Katniss. But I can't. The flowers will grow back, and I'll be okay. But I know I'll never get over Prim, and no flower bush can change that.


Author's Note: Sorry this one is so short. I dunno how I feel about it... I wanted to post it, though, because I don't know how long it'll be before I update again.

I want to thank everyone who reviewed. I will say, though, that if you want to review (which I completely encourage), please be nice. I'm aware that I have a lot of improvement to do when it comes to my writing, and I'm open to as much constructive criticism as I can get. But please don't insult me. If you're a writer, you can imagine how much it would suck to be told that you're bad at what you love to do.

But, on the upside, I did get some positive feedback, so THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!