Misery.


The first figure I recognized out of the blurry, morphling-induced mess was the very last person I wanted to see. Tall, dark, and intimidating in the doorway of my hospital room, he was still Gale Hawthorne. Still the teenage boy from District Twelve. Still my best friend, my accomplice, my kindred spirit. Or was he?

I stared at him, unblinking. Traces of smoke and flame, smelling like burnt hair and clothing, surrounded him. I honestly couldn't tell if they were real or yet another nightmarish illusion. Sometimes I heard her voice crying out my name, and then just an awful high-pitched ringing in my ears. My baby sister had been torn violently from me, and he had the nerve to come here and see me, the person who had manufactured that very bomb.

I wonder if he knew what those little pieces and wires would do someday. When he was building it, did he ever think of who or what it might destroy? I knew that Gale would never purposely, knowingly kill a child, but ever since the incident at the Nut, I had felt uneasy about him.

The closer he got to my bed, the more I wanted to crawl away. I wanted out of my restraints so I could hide in my quiet, tiny closet back in Thirteen. I longed for the privacy that had been mine before all this happened, especially now, when no one's words were doing anything to comfort me.

"Katniss?"

There he went again, saying my name. If this was his idea of repairing what we had together, it wasn't working very well. All I heard when he said my name was the small echo of my sister's voice. Confused, surprised, relieved to see me alive…and then gone forever.

I rolled over onto my side, facing away from him. Not now. Please not now. But Gale was even more stubborn than I, so he sat in the chair by my bed. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head, and then I understood why Peeta strangled me upon our reunion. We were both poisoned to believe the person we loved had hurt us so deeply, so irreparably, that it would be better if they were out of our world than still in it.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not shake that burning rage inside of me. I could not rid myself of the desire to completely eradicate him from my life. The bad things I held him responsible for – the bombing of the Nut, the war that raged on in my heart, the death of my sister – would all be gone, if I had my way. No more crying for Soldier Everdeen. But if I erased Gale from my life, what would be left? Peeta was hopeless. My mother had sunk into depression again. Prim, Finnick, Rue, Cinna, Boggs - all dead. I have no friends other than Gale.

If he were to leave me forever, I wouldn't have the kiss in the woods. I wouldn't have the thousands of smiles, laughs, embraces, and thoughts we shared. I would have nothing left of the boy who had helped me survive for years, and who had been my only real friend. All I would have left are ashes.

"I'm…I'm so sorry, Katniss," he whispered. He moved closer to me, and this time I didn't budge. There was a slight trembling in his voice that I had only heard once before, when I kissed him while he was healing from the whipping. A sniff confirmed my suspicions, and that was the second time I ever heard Gale cry.

I rolled onto my back and stared at him, confused and hurting everywhere. He looked as handsome as ever, now with battle scars that matched mine, and the tears that lingered in his eyes but didn't fall just yet were enough to make my heart lurch. He was beyond trying to be tough now, but I wasn't. Not just yet. I had been strong every moment until now. He leaned in to say something, something about Prim and how he had done everything in his power to protect her, but the spark inside of me had ignited into a full-fledged blaze. A disembodied voice that vaguely resembled mine, hoarse and worn, screamed and yelled and cried all at the same time. None of the words were distinctively English, except perhaps no. Over and over again, kicking and slapping him, attempting to bite him, thrashing in my bed – I was an animal unleashed.

He didn't fight me. All he did was hold my upper arms, his grip gentle but strong, and he tried to look me in the eyes. I was having none of it. The shattered remains of what had once been my sane, peaceful mind screamed mutt! Mutt! Mutt!

"Katniss…Katniss…"

Mutts hissing my name. Katniss. The stench of roses. My hands covered in the blood of everyone who had died because of me. Snow's smirk and the mystery of whether or not he had been lying to me all along. The refusal to believe anything that anyone told me in an attempt to make things better. Katniss. The old man who whistled. The flowers in the meadow. The crunch of bones beneath my feet in Twelve. Watching myself get shot on television. The girl in the lemon-colored coat. The finger-sized bruises on my neck. Playing Crazy Cat. Crazy cat, crazy catnip, crazy Katniss. Katniss.

A few nurses had been alerted to my tantrum and came running into the room. They insisted that Gale get out of the way so that I could be sedated. I stopped writhing around long enough to see his face, which I had scratched up pretty badly, but he didn't seem to care. He held the nurses off and all was quiet for a moment. He leaned in, pushed my hair out of my crazed eyes, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

"Goodbye, Katniss," he whispered. I was stunned as a couple of tears fell onto my forehead, and I realized they were his. He pulled away and the nurses parted to let him leave. I whimpered and weakly tugged at my restraints, but that wasn't going to stop him.

This was what I had wanted, wasn't it? To be rid of him and all the trouble he had caused? To finally stop the fire that we had made together, and that had gotten totally out of control? People were dead because of me, because of him, because of us both. Yes, it's good he goes. You can't be around him anymore. He's nothing but trouble.

The morphling entered my bloodstream from a needle that I didn't even feel in all of my grief. Softer images now. Hiding in the fur shop, riding on the hovercraft, kissing in Thirteen, kissing in the woods, kissing in my house and everywhere else. With every image that flickered into my brain for a fraction of a second, there was a small stab of pain that got worse as I slipped into dreamless sleep. It was the pain of letting go, and it was worse than any wound I had ever sustained. He was gone. I was alone with the remains – no, the ruins of us. And it hurt like hell.