My Loves:
paramore fanitic- Thanks for the comment again! Hopefully you will like this chapter :]
AlwaysBettingOnAlice- (I love your user name. I LOVE ALICE!) No comparison? You really hate Peeta that much lol? I love them both equally :]]
Mr. Norrel- I hope you and your friend got your Gale fix after this post!!
I can't help but think about the first day I returned from the Games...
"One more time for the audience?" Peeta asks me.
The audience. This will not be the final performance for "the audience". Our lives will forever revolve around others. From this day forward, I no longer am myself, I belong to the Capitol.
The town looks different to me somehow. Everywhere I look someone is smiling gleefully or laughing blissfully. This much happiness is unheard of in District 12. We are known for being poor, hungry, and tired.
Peeta and I are standing on the platform in front of every citizen of District 12. Actually, the cameras are filming, so probably every person in all of Panem is discussing us at this very minute. I don't like the thought of that. Sure, we have been scrutinized during the Games, but this is real life now, and I want my privacy.
I want my privacy, but not from all. Being locked up for a month has helped me understand just how important friendship is. Sill holding Peeta's hand, I look into the crowd for the face I want to see. The sun is beating fiercely on my back, and it is hard to see through the intense light. I search and search, noticing a couple of people from my school. No doubt, they will all chat up the cameramen and pretend to be best friends with me... Left. Right. Left. Right. No one is there! I keep seeking him out. There's no way he couldn't come, right?
The heat is not helping my search. Sweating along my hairline and forehead, I am even more glad that I am in my regular jeans and t-shirt. Drenching one of Cinna's expensive dresses with my sweat would make for a very embarrassing reunion with him. Not that he'd care what I looked—or smelled—like.
And there he is. I spot him sprinting from the back of the crowd, and he smiles when our eyes meet. I have never seen Gale grin like this. He smiled in the woods when we hunted, but that was more sad: a smile that was trying to cover his true fear of the world around him.
"CATNIP!" Gale yells. At that moment, I run, not caring about the façade Peeta and I are supposed to be playing. I jump into Gale's arms and cry. I cry a lot. Gale's strength is intoxicating. I stroke his muscular arms, not believing this is real. I have not been away more than two months, but seeing him has made me realize how much I need him in my life. I devour his musky scent and think of our woods. How has his hunting managed without me?
"Gale, I.. I am so happy to see you." I somehow manage to whimper through the constant tears.
"Oh Catnip. Trust me, I am a thousand times happier. Do you know the anguish I felt whenever I saw you on the TV? I needed to watch, to see your face. To make sure you were surviving. But at the same time, I couldn't. I could not just watch you try to stay alive when here I was, safe. Whenever I saw you, I kept thinking about those last words that I was going to tell you..."
At that point, I stop breathing. I had completely forgotten. The day of the Reaping, Gale had started saying something. "Katniss remember I..."
"... I should have protested against the guard to stay. To tell you that...," he continues.
Suddenly it feels like the world around me has stopped moving. Cliché, yes, I know, but that is the only description in my mind. I forget all of the people who are most likely staring at me, confused. I forget Peeta, whose heart is probably tearing in two. I only see Gale and remember how safe, knowledgeable, kind, and supportive he is.
Just at that point, Haymitch, somehow not drunk enough for me to fend off, grabs my arm and pulls me away. His face is livid and frustrated at the same time. "What the hell do you think you are doing? There are cameras here. How are you supposed to appear madly in love if you run into the arms of the first boy you see?"
"What, I can't have friends?" I furiously snap back, "Being in love means my whole life is devoted to only one person—and only him?"
"That's exactly what it means to the Capital. The people want to see you two and only you two together. And I mean all the time. Do you hear me?"
Now I remember another reason I never wanted to be in love with anyone.
"Yes." I heard him, didn't mean I was going to listen. I quickly glance at Gale. His expression somehow changed from the most jubilant I have ever seen back to the habitual Gale face- sad, mature, and serious. I mouth, "I'll see you at our spot later today" He sees and gives an uncharacteristic wink, walking away.
Haymitch somehow doesn't make his threat obvious to other people. I overhear a reporter asking him to, "Explain Katniss's adoration to that young man". He plays off my rebellion as "homesickness", and the man nods, disbelieving.
I slowly tread back to Peeta, who is just standing there, mouth downturned into a frown. I overhear similar conversations amongst the townspeople, but most think nothing of it. How could Katniss, the girl who would give her life for Peeta, love anyone besides him? It's just plain unheard of. I reach Peeta and he looks at me, but I turn my head, too afraid to see any more miserable faces today.
Haymitch's words bounce around my head, and I reach for Peeta's hand. He understands; he gives me his hand, but not in a warm way, not in a mean way either, just a melancholy way. I had never felt his hand like this. Our hands were touching, but there was no spark, no warmth. It was a hand of someone who had no feelings towards anyone or thing.
I think back to the first day we shook hands. He had given me a reassuring squeeze, as if to say that everything would work out. I do the same to him now. He notices, but does nothing to acknowledge it or me. Maybe he knows that everything is not going to be all right this time. I look up into his eyes. They are filled with murkiness and heartbreak. There goes my goal to not see another depressed face; wow, it lasted a whole three minutes. Must be a world record.
This is painful. Peeta has always been there for me, even when I didn't know he existed. He risked punishment to give a pathetic, starving girl bread. On that first day, there is no way he could have known that everything would turn out okay, but he grasped my hand consolingly anyway. I decide to follow as he did, and, again, squeeze his hand but with more emotion and love. He may not believe me, I may not believe myself, but either way, it's good to be there for someone.
:] YES! This post is due to the fact that I am DONE with finals!!! No more finals in high school! Celebration? I think so.
3 you all.
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