Peeta
I pull the final loaves of bread out of the oven, set them on the counter, and go about cleaning up the mess I made.
It's only 5:00 AM and there's already a few dozen baked goods lining my countertops. Katniss is probably already deep into the woods, with countless game slung over her shoulder and dangling from traps. And Haymitch…is still sleeping. He will be until 5:00 tonight when I go over and wake him up, keep him semi-functioning.
It's just the three of us, living day-to-day. Well, of course there's about 500 others or so living in 12, and running the town's only bakery I do come in contact with them, but it's just as if I'm going through the motions with them all. I only care about Katniss and Haymitch. I may walk into town at times, and even more rarely, venture a few yards into the woods, but my life only really exists along the strip of land still known as "The Victors' Village." I don't really want it any other way for now.
I have all this food ready, but I'm not selling it today. It's Sunday, the day of the week that everyone in 12 takes as a day off now that the district has been nearly 100-percent rebuilt. So technically, Katniss and I should be following Haymitch's and the rest of the town's lead, and be asleep. But neither of us see much point in staying trapped in our nightmares longer than necessary, so we get just enough sleep to function. We go to bed rather early, though, to make up for it-we don't see much point in staying awake and living among the ghosts longer than necessary, either.
So where's the point in life? We can't stand being asleep, we can't stand being awake, and we aren't guaranteed the company of any of us all of the time. I never know when I'm about to slip from consciousness, my mind to plummet to the most unexplainable, nonsensical thoughts and give way to the demons. Katniss so rarely gets a full night's sleep and is always bound to wake up, thrashing and screaming out the names of all who've died, at least once, twice a night. Where's the point in life? Katniss and Haymitch may beg to differ, but I think that the point in life are those moments that fit themselves in between the depression and anxiety. You know, getting a photograph every few months of little Finn. Watching the Meadow spring back to life all on its own. The primroses never failing to bloom once the last bit of winter snow melts away. 12 bouncing back from the bombing.
The way I look at it, if we were dead, we wouldn't see any of those moments firsthand at all. We probably wouldn't even know they'd existed. So we weather the storm, and get enthralled with the patches of sunlight that pops up along the way.
Sunlight. I walk into the entryway and turn the blinds open, watching it pour in through the slots. I can see Haymitch's house, identical to this house-turned-bakery and mine and Katniss's next door.
Oh, Haymitch. The subject of many a late-night conversation between Katniss and I. But…if his time in 13 didn't keep him sober, nothing will. Forcing him clean would only benefit us, not him. It's as good a guess as any that if he dropped dead from liver failure tomorrow he'd be just as happy for it.
We try and keep him going, Katniss and I. We do it for us just as much for him. I figure we'd go truly insane if we didn't have another person in our presence, but any more than Haymitch and the occasional visit from Greasy Sae and her remaining family drag us down.
We invite him over most nights, and he'll come a couple of times a week, sober or not. He and Katniss play chess by the fire and I'll be painting. When he's sober he wins, when he's drunk she lets him win.
Despite the quiet atmosphere and the nearly tragic mood, those evenings leave us all a bit more contented than before. We just live in the moment and try to put everything else behind us. Sometimes it actually works.
I think I could live like this forever. It's a better life than it seems even to me, and it's the best life I'll get at this point. Katniss. Haymitch. Baking. Painting. Heck, Buttercup and the geese add to my quality of living.
Most of my memories are recovered, which is both a blessing and a curse. But I would undoubtedly live all the horrors I've been through over again just to retain my memories of Katniss without breaking a wall. And whenever I'm unsure I just ask. I think Katniss likes taking her mind off of her mind for a minute and focusing on another's. I should probably ask her. When she's done hunting.
So, here we exist. There. That's the word. We exist.
And the one thing I remember is that life is not fair, but it goes on.
So I guess I'm on a roll today. :P I have 1000+ words of the actual plot written as well, and that might come up within a day, too. I'm debating whether or not to do an intro with Annie-what do you all think? I'd also like to just let you know that the actual title of this story is "[Happily] Ever After," but the story uploader wouldn't let me use brackets or parentheses, and I detest the way plain "Happily Ever After" looks. I'm picky, I know.
So I'm taking suggestions for the title of this piece, because I'm not the fondest of "Ever After," either. Suggest away!
