Three: Peeta
It's still early spring, so the air is cold as it blows in my window. I stare up at the ceiling with my thin sheets pulled up to my chest, my hands tucked behind my head. The sheets aren't heavy enough to protect me from the icy breeze, and though I'm cold, I feel unaffected and restless.
I haven't been able to properly think since I left Katniss' house this afternoon. Prim did more talking than either one of us, but she'd been by my side for at least half an hour, our hands swinging within an inch of each other. It was more than I can say for the last sixteen years of my life. Is it sad that I'd never felt more alive?
The Wicked Witch is muttering in the next room, both hands clasped around the necks of liquor bottles that I brought home after my walk today to appease her. She didn't try to whip me tonight, and it's always a relief when I don't have to use my strength to stop her. I protect myself from her, always have, and I'm stronger than her. It's the only reason she's never been able to scar me after my father died and she went crazy. Well, crazier.
Dawn is approaching fast and I can tell it will be another sleepless night in the Mellark household, for both of us. I can't stop seeing Katniss looking at me with that sense of surprise and curiosity, and I know the Witch is having a hard time drinking while lying on her back. It doesn't matter though. I'm having a fantastic time replaying Katniss' facial expressions, especially since they are ones that I was able to experience first hand.
I lie there like a stupid, love-struck puppy until the cold streaks of silver announce the arrival of the sun over the mountains in the distance. My eyes are heavy and exhausted, but especially now I can't sleep. School is in just a few hours, and Gale and I have to execute our early morning hunting trip for the Hob if we don't want to go out tonight.
I'm just slipping my boots back on when I hear the three, sharp raps on my bedroom wall and I know Gale is out there. I knock back a four cadence sequence to tell him I'm coming and then poke my head out of my room.
The Witch is sprawled out on the love seat I managed to buy with a bear carcass last year—took me forever to get the whole thing into 12!—and it's wonderful to see that she's treating it with such care. Liquor stains on the velvet cushions, tears in the backrest where her nails have scratched in her mental spasms I'll never understand. Yes. It's such a good idea to buy her nice things and watch her destroy them. I guess that's what I get for being so naïve.
Her eyes are glossy in a drunken haze and she doesn't even blink when I stomp across the room to the door and leave. I feel myself growing angry as I always do when I'm forced to look at the Witch's condition. She should have been up at this hour, cleaning laundry for town folks, or scrounging up her supplies to clean houses or mend clothes, like other women in the Seam. She should have been a mother.
Gale notes my sour mood immediately as he hands me a flask of strong, dark tea that his mother has brewed for us this morning. "Good morning, sunshine," he says in a voice that is clearly not him.
I roll my eyes at him and begin stomping down the lane towards the woods. "Not in the mood this morning, Hawthorne," I grumble. It takes a lot for me to get angry and I rarely do, even at the Witch—even when she tries cutting me open with my butcher knife in the kitchen or throwing our only good water vase at me. But with thoughts of the reaping looming in my mind, and the Witch's infuriating ignorance to all that is around her, sometimes, I just can't take it.
"You look like the dead," he observes as he falls into step beside me. "Eat anything?"
I shrug and take a swig of the tea. "The Witch drank away yesterday's haul in one night. What do you think?"
"I've got extra," he says, almost kindly, exposing two golden coins in his palm before pocketing them again. "I was thinking we could treat ourselves to breakfast this morning, as a sort of celebration."
I laugh bitterly and look at him through the dimness of the early morning. "Celebration?"
He shakes his head, but there's a twitch of a smile at his mouth. "Can't believe you did it, Mellark. I thought for sure you'd wimp out before she even made it out the door."
All at once, I understand and my anger is immediately forgotten. "So you heard?"
"Heard?" He glances at me like I'm crazy, which maybe I am. "You know that townies are always targeting her. It would be hard to miss the Witch's Seam boy walking around with her."
I make a sound of disgust at the back of my throat and toss back some more tea. Not for the first time, I wish it was something stronger. "Ugh, Gale, please. I don't belong to that woman."
He nods as we approach where the Seam meets the town. "True that."
I look around, noticing that we aren't headed for the Hob, where I thought he was going to get us breakfast. "Where are we going?"
Gale has a glint in his eye, that kind he usually reserves for those small moments when he's actually fun to be around and doesn't act like a total stick in the mud. "Thought you'd want to see your girlfriend again, Peeta."
My heart stutters in my chest and I have to hide it because Gale would laugh and call me a girl if he knew how even the mention of her affected me so completely. "What?"
He shrugs. "Fresh bread, man. Can't get any better than that." Right. Because that's the reason he's dragging me along.
No, I know what he's thinking. He wants to see how I'll handle it; I know that he's curious to see if Katniss and I are as cozy as perhaps he heard we were yesterday. Honestly, I can't blame him because right now, I'm having a hard time believing that any of it actually happened.
We walk the rest of the way to the bakery in silence. Every step that brings me closer makes my heart beat a little faster and there's a curl in my stomach that I can't identify. I think it's one part dread and two parts anticipation, but I can't be sure. Katniss does a lot of things to me that I can't be sure of.
I'm almost relieved when we arrive and a very sleepy looking Prim is dozing with her head on the counter. Gale and I step up toward her, our boots scuffling against the wooden floors and her head shoots up, an apologetic look of shock on her face.
"Peeta! Oh, I'm so sorry," she says in a blur, smoothing back a few stray hairs from her open face. She looks so frantic that I can't help but smile, hoping that my easy expression will put her at ease. Her sweet demeanor is just too hard to dislike—anyone heartless enough to scowl at Primrose Everdeen would be just that: heartless.
"Good morning, Prim, this is my friend Gale," I say. "Early morning?"
"Hi, Gale." She relaxes and rubs her eyes tiredly with a sheepish smile. "Katniss dragged me out of bed early to help her in the kitchen before my parents got up. She wanted to surprise them by getting things started for them. We usually don't get up until six," she explains.
I laugh lightly and smile wider. "Your sister sounds as if she was a bit of a tyrant this morning."
Prim giggles, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "Oh yes, that's Katniss alright. The biggest, meanest bully I ever met."
"I'll bet," I say, going along with it. I hardly remember that Gale is standing next to me, taking all of this in with his sharp intuitions, that I haven't gotten a wink of sleep in over a day, that the reaping is Sunday. Right now, I'm only Peeta talking to Prim very early before Monday classes start. "Is she always so cruel?"
"Of course!" Prim continues jovially. She doesn't look as if I just caught her sleeping at the counter anymore. "So very cruel. Yesterday, she let me use her paints and snuck me one of her frosting flowers!"
"The nerve!" I exclaim and then we are both laughing.
"Something funny?"
I stop mid-laugh and look up sharply to see that Katniss is leaning against the wall, the apron tied around her caked with flour, her hair stuck to her head from sweat caused by the heat of the ovens. Her posture is casual, but her eyes tell me she's heard every word of my conversation with Prim and I don't know whether to be embarrassed or ashamed.
Gale seems to be enjoying this, though. His mouth twitches again. Wow. A good day so far; almost two smiles in less than an hour.
Prim seems a bit shy when she looks at her sister. "Look, Katniss, we have a customer."
Katniss' eyes roam over me slowly and flick at Gale before she nods at her little sister. "I see that." She takes a few steps forward, coming into the light of the candle burning near the counter and then I see the bags under her eyes, the ones that must match mine. She's gotten as much sleep as I have; I immediately want to know what caused her such distress and tell myself that I will ask her. Later.
"We're just here for a loaf," Gale says in a low, smooth voice, speaking up for the first time since we entered the bakery. He digs the two coins out of his pocket and places them on the table.
Katniss stares at the money for a moment before turning around and opening one door of the warming rack. She takes out a fresh loaf of cheese bread and wraps it in wax paper. Prim watches her sister for a moment before glancing at me. We exchange a smile, and I know both of us are too embarrassed at being caught talking about Katniss to say anything else to one another. I find myself liking Prim more and more.
Gale nudges me with his elbow and raises one eyebrow. I make a face at him because it's the only thing I can think to do that will save my dignity. He told me I was whipped and I denied it, though it is so obviously true.
Both Gale and I start as Katniss shoves the loaf across the counter and with a straight face, says, "No charge."
He takes the money back immediately, probably figuring it's decent because we'll most likely end up bringing back some goodies to hand off to the Everdeens later, but I can't help it when my eyebrows furrow. It's not that I know she's pitying us for being Seam people because she knows we are more than capable to provide for ourselves using the wild. She's not. I know her family needs that money.
"Are you sure, Katniss?" My tongue feels clumsy because I'm always clumsy around her.
She nods at me and brushes absentmindedly at her cheek, smearing flour across her skin. "Really, Peeta. I know what I'm doing."
Gale nudges me again. "You heard her, blondie. Let's get going before all the game has taken their morning drink at the pond."
"Bye, Peeta!" Prim calls waving madly at us, a grin split across her face. "Bye, Gale!" Gale grunts something in reply and is out the door in two seconds flat. I'm right behind him when I hear Katniss speak, and look over my shoulder to make sure that I heard things correctly.
"I'll see you at school," she says, and then turns and heads back into the bakery. I recover quicker than I did yesterday and turn on my heel. Suddenly, history class seems a lot more exciting and I've never been more eager to be inside the symmetrical, perfect lines of a Capitol inducement.
Gale and I bring in a good, healthy haul considering we've only got two and a half hours to shoot and make it back to the Hob before school. By the time we are walking the dusty lane toward the school grounds, we are each jingling with the weight of ten coins a piece.
Since Gale is older than I am, we have different class schedules, and he gives me a friendly shoulder punch before parting for his first hour, a girl I knew he took to the slag heap last weekend trailing after him like a lost dog. I grin to myself because I know she's going to be one of those girls—the kind he has trouble shaking. It's good for him. At least, I think it is. It's funny, at least.
My mind is a muddled mess before the first bell rings because I'm so eager to see her. Will she look at me? Smile? Talk to me? I don't know what to expect anymore now that things are different.
She enters the room just as the final bell sounds, the bags under her eyes more definite in the full lighting of the morning, the tense bunching of her shoulders more prominent that I'd realized. Something is on her mind.
A shock runs through me when she takes the seat directly in front of me and I feel a warm tingle of pleasure follow the sensation. It's impossible to worry about the reaping when the girl of all my dreams is finally realizing that I exist, impossible to worry about anything, really.
We don't talk during the entirety of the history lecture, and when the teacher is finishing up, he clears his throat. "It's reaping week," he announces glumly, and immediately the kids in the room pull taut like a bow string. Clearly, he's under as much oppression as the rest of the citizens of District 12. "So. . .no homework tonight."
The atmosphere in the room lessens a bit, but not by much. We've been given five minutes of extra class time that we never get, but how can that ever compensate for the terrifying idea that someone in this room may be fighting for their life in just a few short weeks? I don't have time to think about it right now.
I hold my breath, wondering if I should be the first one to say something, when she turns around and looks me in the eye.
"Can I ask you something?" she says bluntly. Well, hello to you too, Katniss.
"Sure," I say surprised. How can I say anything otherwise when she ambushes me like that?
"And you have to tell me the truth." Her gray eyes narrow slightly as a strand of loose hair falls from her braid and into her eyelashes. She brushes it away with a sense of purpose and controlled urgency.
"Of course," I reply. Other kids in the room are chattering too, though I can feel more than a few eyes directed our way. I get the feeling they're talking about us.
Katniss regards me for a few moments before speaking. "Why are you following me around all of a sudden?"
All of a sudden? So I've been expertly sneaky these past eleven years? Excellent. "I—."
"Because if you're just trying to talk to me as some part of joke, it's not going to work." She looks completely confident in herself and a little scary, if I'm being honest.
"Joke?" I echo, trying to get on track with her thoughts. Where in the world is she going with this?
Now she looks uncomfortable, and likewise, so am I. I want to put her at ease, but I don't know what's going on in her mind. I may have watched her for years, but this is the first actual conversation I've ever had with her.
"Yeah," she replies. "You know. Between you and your hunting buddy."
And then I get it. She's worried that I'm only using her. For my own entertainment. So that I can make fun of her later when she can't see or hear me. The fact that she even thought of that possibility at all makes me scathingly angry, but not at her. How can people have treated her so wrongly throughout the years that the first time someone tries to be her friend, she's afraid it's not real? It's disgusting, and I don't blame her for doubting me. Not for one minute.
I lean across the wooden desk on my forearms, suddenly intense and earnest. "I would never hurt you that way," I say honestly. Perhaps too honestly, but whatever. She needs to know the truth about me, and with reaping day approaching, sooner may be better than later.
She is carefully unexpressive when I tell her this, but she looks relieved. Her shoulders drop slightly and she releases a breath. I'm just glad to know that she believes me so easily; it must not be difficult. Everything she makes me feel is written clearly across my face for her to see.
"Thank you for being so kind to Prim," she murmurs, her eyes flashing to my face and away. "I know everybody from town loves Prim, but I didn't realize that Seam people were also subjective to her charms."
I laugh as I think of Prim's sweet, infections smile. "We're people too, Katniss," I say, and then I'm more serious. "Some of us are awful, but others. . .they're only trying to survive." And by that, I mean me. Surely she knows that.
The bell rings and she stands up abruptly, her eyes flickering down at me for a moment. "Come find me at lunch," she says, her voice nearly drowned out by the sound of kids filling the hallways. I try to reply to her, but she's out of the room before I can even get out of my desk.
I spend the rest of the morning anticipating lunch. I don't know what to expect, but I understand that Katniss wants to share something with me, possibly something important. Possibly alone. Suddenly, I feel flustered.
Throughout my next two classes, which I share with the mayor's daughter, Madge Undersee, I catch her staring at me with furrowed eyebrows. I try to avoid her gaze because I know how much her father despises the Witch. The day I received my father's medal next to Gale on the steps of the Justice Building, the Witch clamored into the building and started screaming on and on about faults and wrongdoings and blame.
I remember blocking most of it out, but it's hard to forget the image of her being stuck in the neck with a syringe after going on such a public rampage. The mayor was humiliated and I frowned upon. That was going to be the first of many days in which District 12 sneered and whispered about my existence.
Still, Madge has no reason to be unfriendly to me. I'm even sure her father likes me, with all the strawberries Gale and I bring to their backdoor all the time. After all, I like to say that I've proven myself worthy of being treated like a person. I'm not crazy. I'm not the Witch.
Then, I feel stupid because I realize who Madge is. Katniss' best friend. Of course she's giving me funny looks; if Katniss thought I was just using her for my own sick entertainment, then what must Madge be thinking? I'm not afraid of her, and when the bell rings just before lunch, I hurry to her desk and stop her before she can leave the room.
"You can stop glaring at me," I say in a low voice that I'm hoping doesn't carry. "I've not done anything wrong."
Madge picks the dilapidated book off her desk, avoiding eye contact. "I'm not glaring at you. You Seam boys, always creating so much drama in school. . . " She shakes her head and then tries to step around me.
"I just want to be her friend," I tell her softly.
She pauses and looks up, our eyes meeting. I hope she can read the total sincerity on my face because I'm giving it the best I've got. "It's not smart," she replies gently. "I have nothing against you, Peeta, but it's just not smart."
I want to demand why she thinks that way, but she slips out of the room and I'm left to follow her. I remember that Katniss is waiting for me to find her and then I'm hurrying to dump my books off in my shoulder bag, flying across the courtyard to the soot-ingrained picnic tables. Since spring is coming on warm and fast, we are able to eat outside again.
My eyes search for the dark braid once I'm in the commons. Easily, I spot Madge at their usual table, but no Katniss, and when I spin around, that same girl who was following Gale earlier is sitting close to him at our table. I could swoop in and save him, but I've got to find Katniss.
I pace anxiously along the fence that separates the commons from the boundaries of District 12 on the opposite side of the Seam, my eyes scanning the crowds of people. I stop in surprise when I hear my name being hissed from the opposite side of the fence.
"Peeta!" she's saying.
I glance through the diamond shaped metal links, looking for her face. Everything appears normal except for the chunk of bread tossed at the base of a tree. This is how I know that she's waiting for me beyond the fence. My eyes follow the barrier down to where there's a small alley between it and the building, hidden from the view of most students.
I make my way down there and shimmy under a hole I find easily on the ground and into a bush. My hands push me along on the ground for several yards until I'm shielded by the trees and them I'm looking for her.
"Katniss?" I say quietly.
She steps out from around the trunk of a tree and I'm struck again by how tired she looks. I'm used to getting very little sleep, but it's apparent that whatever she's got on her mind is weighing heavily on her.
Without really thinking it through, I'm rushing towards her and we are standing only a few feet apart under the boughs of a weeping willow tree.
She's in a surprising state of distress. Her braid is coming loose, strands of it draping across her shoulders and her gray eyes are troubled and wary.
"I don't know why I came to you," she says immediately in a quiet voice. Though the din of the lunch crowd is rowdy, we can't risk being found out here. "I hardly even know you. But I needed to tell someone and I don't have many options." She looks up at me and I know that Prim wasn't one of them.
"What is it?" I ask, trying to sound understanding and trustworthy. I want Katniss to come to me; she has to know that whatever happens, she'll be safe with me. Always.
She leans in a little bit, her voice dropping even lower. "Yesterday, my friend Madge stopped by the bakery and gave me this." I feel a shock of warmth when she presses her hand into mine, a wad of paper the only thing separating out skin.
In order not to look like a complete bimbo, I shake the warmth away and open the crinkled paper, reading it once, twice, three times when I can't believe what it says. A knot tightens somewhere in my body and I don't know how to believe it right now.
"What the hell?" I say, bending down. Our foreheads are close now and if things were suddenly so terrifying I'd have noticed it with a blush in my cheeks.
"She doesn't know what it means," she tells me, shaking her head, "but she thinks that the Capitol is going to tell her father tonight who the tributes are." I can see in her eyes that she's just as scared as I am. The Capitol has never hand-chosen the tributes; it's always been a thing of chance. It doesn't make any sense that they would do this now, not when 73 years of tradition have declared it otherwise.
I wish I knew what to say to make her feel better. "There are about three-thousand of us eligible in District Twelve, Katniss," I say gently. "The odds of you getting sent to the arena are slim to none."
She shrugs and meets my gaze fearlessly. "It's not really me that I'm worried about."
I try not to see the double meaning in that, but a part of me wonders if it's not just Prim she's thinking about. Unthinkingly, I touch her hand, before pulling away, remembering my place. "Thanks for telling me," I say.
She smiles a little, though there is little to smile about right now. "You're welcome, Peeta."
