Star-Crossed
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games, but I wish I did. This fanfiction is strictly for entertainment purposes only. The plot is mine, but I don't own any of the characters or novel concepts.
Summary: AU. 1800's. Katniss and Peeta are both being forced to marry people they don't love.They fall in love with one another, but are trapped by their circumstances. What will they do? Will they marry the people they don't love? Will the run-away together to begin anew? Will they marry those they don't love but then still see one another?
Chapter 2 – Peeta's POV
*** Still 6 months earlier ***
"You are absolutely out of your mind!" I scream at my mother before leaving the room. I have to get out of here. I have to escape before I explode. I feel so trapped. Trapped in a life no longer my own. Hatred, an unfamiliar emotion, cuts through me like a serrated rusty knife. Slicing me in half and forcing my blood, black as bile to spill out and onto the pale floorboards.
I replay the last hour over in my mind – searching for a way out of my new future – a life that would be filled with torment…and regret. My family owned a small bakery. We made a modest living and I had always been content. My older brothers married, not into prominent families, but the seemed happy enough. I was the youngest. My mother was difficult to live with at all times. She hated me. She despised me. She had wanted a daughter so badly, but she had gotten me. The doctor told her she would not be able to carry another child to term. She blamed me of course. My father loved me, but rarely stood up to her. They had been forced into an arranged marriage by their parents and they had never really been in love or seen eye to eye.
Now, my mother told me it was time to prove my worth to them. Delly Cartwright wanted to marry me. The Cartwrights were the wealthiest family in our community. Delly was an only child so whoever married her would obtain the family's entire fortune when her father died. I never cared for wealth, status, or privilege, but my mother did. She wanted me to accept the proposal. I was stunned. What could Delly Cartwright possibly want with me? It was true she followed me all through the last three public events I attended. But why? I never gave her any indication that I was interested in her because I was not. I never had been.
There was only one woman I could love and she did not know I existed, well not in the way I would have liked. I had seen her at various social functions most of our lives. I was always intrigued by her. She was different. She was so special.
I was to turn twenty one next week, my mother wanted me to marry and move out long ago. I had been holding out for her, for a way to obtain her. I wanted to marry her. I did not want to marry someone else. She is the only one I could ever picture marrying. Delly Cartwright was not an option…not to me.
My father found me in the study. He approached me cautiously. I was so angry with him.
"Peeta? Are you all right, son?"
"No." I murmured.
"Peeta" he began again his voiced pained. "I need you to accept Delly's proposal, son."
Shock, sadness, and hatred coursed through me. My father had always been on my side. Always.
"Why?" I asked him in a broken voice not even bothering to hide the tears in my voice.
"I'm in trouble, Peeta. I'm bankrupt, and all my debts have been called in – I am going to lose our home and our bakery if I cannot pay my debts back in a month."
I am frozen. I do not speak. What could I really say in this situation? Nothing he wanted to hear from me…I knew that.
"If you marry Miss Cartwright her father promised to settle all my debts, Peeta. I have no other option."
I hang my head. I am so angry with my father. How could he ask this of me? I thought that I would have the freedom to wed the woman I loved. I did not want to end up in a marriage like my parents had been. Anger boils in my veins as I rise and push him out of the way. I run out of our modest home, down the street, and into the woods.
I come out to the woods every now and then for the tranquility and to collect my thoughts. I also enjoyed painting here when my income allows me to purchase such supplies. Tears sting my eyes but I am so angry that I refuse to let them fall. My family was selling me for money. They were literally selling me to the highest bidder.
I sigh and then stop in my tracks. She is there right in front of me. She is sitting in the soft meadow grass with her knees pulled up to her chest and her face in her hands. I have never seen her cry. It hurts me to see her cry. I approach her slowly then sit beside her in the grass. She turns slightly and sees me. She tries to stop her tears, but they continue to fall down her cheeks.
"Are you all right, Miss Everdeen?" I address her formally, but in a gentle voice.
"No," she says softly still looking at me as her gray eyes burn into mine.
"Is there anything I can do?" I cannot tear my eyes from hers and I never want to.
"No, Mr. Mellark. There is nothing anyone can do now."
She knew who I was. I never thought she really noticed me before.
"What is wrong? You can tell me, you know?" I know it is none of my business, but I have to know. If someone harmed her I would tear them apart. I expect her to tell me to mind my own business, but she does not do that.
She looks down at her hands in her lap. "I have to get married…to someone I do not love."
It is as if all the air has been sucked out of my body. No. Not her.
"Who…who are you engaged to?" I choke out and try to swallow back my pain. What was wrong with me? We had never really spoken until now, but I am drawn to her completely.
"Gale Hawthorne." She says in anger.
Of course I think. It would have to be the richest man around. He had wanted Katniss for years I know, just as he knew about my feelings for her. We were not friends obviously.
She continues when I do not respond. "I have to marry him. If I do not marry him then my mother and my sister will be penniless. I cannot allow my sister to…" She could not finish as fresh tears well in her eyes.
I recall her father's funeral. She had stood so strong and brave comforting her sister and her mother. I remember the vacant look in her eyes for weeks after. Twice a week, would bring freshly baked bread to her home – to just do something, to just be there for her the only way I could be since we were not really friends. Gale had always sent servants with meals for them, but Katniss seemed indifferent to him as well.
I want her to know my predicament. "I am also to be engaged to a woman I do not love, quite frankly, I cannot stand her. My parents say I must marry her to secure her fortune and to pay our debts."
She is staring at me again with sadness and something I do not recognize in her features. She reaches her hand out and wipes away a tear on my cheek. When did I start to cry?
"We are in quite a predicament you and I." She whispers while her hand is still resting against my cheek. My entire being is flooded with the warmth of her touch.
I have to touch her. I reach out hesitantly and hold her hand she has in her lap interlacing our fingers. I feel her intake of breath as she pulls her other hand off my face and interlaces it with my other hand. I feel desire, need, and want flow through my body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
"Meet me here tonight at midnight." I blurt out, knowing we both have to get home for dinner shortly. I am terrified she will refuse me, but she does not. Her eyes are alight with the same fire mirrored in my own.
"Yes." She whispers before squeezing my hands and turning to go. I watch her walk away from me and my heart swells. I don't know what we are doing and frankly I do not care. All I know is that I must see her again tonight. I must.
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Thank you so much to my readers who read "Lost in a Haze." It was sad for me to finish that story because I loved writing it so much. If you haven't read it yet, it is finished so go and check it out and review to let me know what you think of it!
I hope you liked this. Next chapter will be from Katniss's POV. What do you think so far? Will they get married? Will they run away together? What do you think? Please review!
