From Peeta's Mind
"Hey kid, pass me the bowl of brown mush there will you?"
I'm brought back to the present and it takes me a little too long to register Haymitch's request before I tentatively reach for the nearest bowl of food to slide over to him. I keep my eyes downcast, but I can see Haymitch as he slumps in his seat, looking like he just crawled out of bed in that same rumpled, stained pair of standard issue pants and shirt he never seems to change. He wears a large ugly green-grey sweater that is too large. Strands of greasy long ash-blond hair poke out from under his brown knit beanie.
"No, the other bowl of brown mush, the one with those little brown beans. "
At this, I look up and meet his eyes. He is the picture of weary indifference with his ever present smirk, but his eyes are startlingly intense in contrast. He looks thinner and gaunt and this thought surprises me - that I notice those details of what was then and what is now. I look for the food he describes and slide it across. He serves himself a big dollop as he mutters to no one in particular that at least he hopes those are beans. Something flickers in my mind and I almost laugh. I must make some sound because he looks up at me then and smirks. I return to stare at my food but that doesn't hold my attention any longer so I look around the table and see Finnick speaking quietly to a red haired woman sitting next to him. I realize the woman is Annie. She looks surprisingly well, like a doll that's been kept on the shelf for safe keeping and not for play like the rest of us who are now tattered and hardly recognizable. Her face is strangely serene and she doesn't seem to recognize where she is, but she does seem to respond to Finnick's voice, turning to him when he speaks to her. Seems she is making some progress. Finnick looks absorbed, but he must feel my gaze because he turns to look in my direction and smiles broadly, obviously happy. I try to smile, but it feels forced so I look back at my plate. I swallow a sudden tightness in my throat. Why is love so hard won? Why do we have to fight so hard for it or wait so long for just a small bit of it? I fought for my mother's love all my life but never won it. And now she's dead, along with the rest of my family. My father, the only one who showed me love, at least when he could sneak it past her, is gone now. But his love came with shame too, because it felt like we had to hide it like a bad thing, like a weakness. But I took whatever crumbs were thrown my way, I was so starved. My mother saw that as my biggest weakness. Silly needy boy, always with your head in the clouds. You need to be more of a man and stop your ridiculous drawings. No one will ever want you if you can't make a living for yourself. I remember thinking that I couldn't wait to grow up and have a family of my own. Then I would give them all the love stored inside. When I was rescued from the capitol, Prim was one of the first to visit me. She started to tell me stories she remembered about me - how I was well liked in school, how I competed in wrestling, how I was so friendly to all the customers at the bakery, seam or merchant. I never told her, but I was grateful for her stories filling in the gaps in my broken mind or sometimes, like with a key, opening up the locked spaces that hid whole intact memories, feelings, smells, emotions. Sometimes I cried because I was so overcome and she simply sat with me with no judgment, no shame. One day she told me a story of how I had loved her sister from afar for a long time. At first that idea enraged me and triggered an episode. When I think about that story now, I feel profound sadness, like a well with no bottom. I could cry a million tears but never fill it, never be done. Prim said she thought that Katniss loved me back but couldn't see it yet. I don't know if that part is true, but I do know that I am not, nor will I ever be, the same boy who loved her that way again.
I force my mind back to the present. I don't want to go down this path again. It is well worn. I'm about to try a bite of what I think is a small potato when the TV monitors sound an announcement from the capitol. I instinctively turn around, transfixed by the familiar music that accompanies news. Then I see her. Standing in the midst of an angry crowd. She is wearing a strange black shiny suit, her hair is loose, different, but it is certainly her with a signature black bow and shiny metal arrows strapped behind her. She is shouting something to a crowd and then to the cameras because she is looking straight at me now. I feel my body tense, my mind slipping and I stand abruptly, but I must stand too quickly because I feel like I'm about to fall. Then I hear a gunshot. Then more shots and I'm on the ground trying to escape the sounds. Did she shoot me? Did she finally shoot me like she wanted to the last day in our first arena? But then I think, no, she uses arrows and those were gun shots. I am paralyzed with a mixture of intense relief and fear. I feel the cold wave of adrenaline wash through me. Maybe it is over, finally over. I sense commotion around me and I faintly hear Haymitch yelling to someone to turn that damn thing off. Then everything goes black.
I wake up in my bed later to the sound of beeping and the sight of an IV strapped to my arm, but there are no restraints. The room is dim and quiet except for a soft snore. I turn to see Finnick slumped and sleeping in an armchair near the right wall. I feel rested but my body is sore and stiff. I watch Finnick sleep for a while, then gaze at the ceiling and try to empty my mind, think of nothing, feel nothing, become nothing. The next time I wake, it is to Finnick's shadowed face hovering inches from mine. I hear whimpering. He is shaking me gently, whispering for me to wake up, that it is only a nightmare. I realize the whimpering is coming from me right before a sob racks through my body and the tears spill over my face. I look to him as if to ask the question. Why? Oh God, Why? My body spasms and I feel him pull me up into an embrace. I hold on to him to stay afloat as the waves of grief threaten to pull me under. I feel him pulling me to him, tighter, tighter. I am only vaguely aware of what he is saying to me, words of comfort, calming words. I lose sense of time, of how long I cry like this. I come back to the moment when I feel him pull away and I instinctively fist the front of his shirt in panic. I look to him like a child that can't be abandoned, not again. He smiles gently and tells me he is not going anywhere.
"I just didn't want to keep crushing you."
In the darkness, his face looks wet too and I wonder if those are my tears or his. I touch his cheek to feel the wet, to feel the real. But when I look at my hand, the wet is too shiny and slick and I begin to slip. I am Not-Peeta. I am fragments of a motherless child, an accidental victor, a lover-boy with no lover. I am disappearing. And here I can let go. I can finally let go.