Never Be Mine
By: Michelle Rose Landau
Summary: The only way she'll notice me, the only way I'll know she's interested either way, is if I just talk to her...Love, sex, marriage, and family in 12.
Genre: Romance/AU; there's still Hunger Games, but Katniss and Peeta won't be Tributes.
Pairing(s)/Characters: eventual Peeta/Katniss, Gale/Katniss, Gale/Madge, OC/Tributes
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games series. They are the sole creative property of Suzanne Collins.
~four~
Over the next couple of weeks, I just ignore Katniss altogether.
I hate to admit it, but I'm kind of pissed off at her, and I've really begun to rethink my feelings.
It's probably a sign that I just need to move on, and see if I could eventually feel the same feelings for another girl.
I've gone with other girls before, but only briefly.
Even if it's temporary, I need to start opening my heart up to possibilities.
Now Zulee-Mae Holdren and I are going together. It's not serious, but we're getting to know one another. She's attractive, with dark skin, thick, kinky hair, curves, and compassionate eyes. She's smart, caring, and creative.
She's a Merchant, so, there's no controversy there, and I've been wanting to get to know her better.
With the festival coming in a couple weeks, I figured I could just kill two birds with one stone if I, in my brother's words, "Take my balls back" and ask out Zulee-Mae.
By asking her out, I'd have a date for the festival dance (if my mom decides to let me and my brothers go), and I'd stop Kitty from asking me everyday if I have a date yet.
I pulled her aside at lunch and asked her if she'd be interested in going with me, and she said yes and she kissed my cheek.
I know her parents in passing, and they seem pretty nice.
I knew that my mother was going to hate her, so I avoided putting her through the drama of having dinner with my family and agreed to have dinner with hers.
She's got two younger siblings who are a handful, but she's close with them. Her parents seemed to have liked me well enough. After we finished dinner, Zulee-Mae took me upstairs to her room and she showed me her sewing station.
She makes dresses, satchels, hats, and other things. She knows how to mix colors and dyes for the fabric she scrounges up.
She showed me her sketches. She's talented and she's got a steady hand.
We eat lunch together, we look at art books together, and we walk home from school together everyday.
Things have been pretty good, but not good enough.
After we finish up in the bakery and close for the night, and have dinner, my parents head to bed early, my brother goes out to the bar down the street, and me and Arden go to our room.
"You like Zulee-Mae a lot?" Arden asks as he reads his book.
I nod as I focus in on my sketch. "I do. We've got a lot of things in common, so..."
Arden snorts.
"Yeah, you sound real interested..."
"I am," I insist.
He gets up and snatches my sketchbook away from me and he laughs.
"And yet you're sketching Katniss Everdeen..."
I'm going with Zulee-Mae, and I'm sketching Katniss, when I'm supposed to be ignoring her physically...and mentally.
I get up and punch Arden in his shoulder and take it back.
"Dammit, Peeta," he growls as he rubs his shoulder. "Touchy subject?"
"No," I snap. "Just don't be an asshole."
He glares at me.
"You're the asshole. You're going with one girl while still thinking about another."
"Shut up!"
"You haven't stepped up and said one damn word to Katniss, but you give her bread and cookies and expect her to just know how much you love her and fawn over you? Open her legs for-"
"Shut the hell up!"
Before I know it, we're brawling, and Arden gets a few punches in, I get a few punches and a knee in his gut in, and we tumble to the floor.
My dad comes in and pulls me off of Arden and then he gets us to opposite ends of the room.
I've got a bloody lip and my eye is stinging and will likely bruise, Arden's nose is bleeding, his lip is also cut, and his cheek is already bruised.
"What the hell is going on, boys?"
"Nothing," Arden and I say in unison.
"Doesn't look or sound like nothing," Dad says angrily.
"It's fine Dad," Arden says. "We're good."
"Yeah," I agree.
My mother appears in the doorway, and she smacks both of us for good measure.
"Clean up," she growls. "And you better not have gotten blood on the rug."
"Yes ma'am," me and my brother say in unison.
My parents go back to their bedroom, and Arden and I pick up our room.
I mull over what Arden said to me, and as we clean up and then make our way downstairs to ice various parts of our faces, I have to admit that he's right, much as it pains me.
"I forget that you're solid, bro," Arden says as he presses ice to his cheek.
We both sit at the table.
"You're right," I admit. "I haven't been fair. But you know that's not who I am..."
Some Merchant guys do favors for Seam girls, get them things that they can't get themselves, preying on their desperation, and in return, sex happens. It's sick, and it's low. I hate the guys that do that and I have to fight the urge to punch them every time I see them.
Life is hard enough for everyone in Twelve...but then to take advantage of someone's body? It's a damn shitty thing to do.
That's not my intention with Katniss, and I don't think Katniss would ever let a guy use her like that. She's too pure for that. What I feel for her is deep, she means too much to me for me to ever sink that low.
But I am angry.
I'm angry at myself, and at her.
"Arden...she didn't say a word to me. Not even thank you. I was kind of hoping that it would be a chance to finally, really talk. I thought it was the right time. But I think she's made it pretty clear. She's Gale's girl, like everyone's been saying. So yeah, I'm still thinking about her while I'm going with Zulee-Mae. Look, I owe it to myself to have these feelings for someone else, you know?"
He shrugs. "I guess. But you love who you love. Going with Zulee-Mae, or any other girl for that matter, isn't going to change that if you really think that you love her."
I consider this.
I've known for a while that what I truly feel for Katniss Everdeen is love. I'm old enough now to know what love is...kind of.
Every time I look at her, I feel this rush of happiness and warmth that I don't experience with other girls. I know everything about her, I love her voice, though she hasn't sung in public in years. She's beautiful, intelligent, caring, world weary, and tough.
I love that.
I love her...I mean, it's got to be love, right? Am I supposed to feel this way at sixteen? Is it supposed to be this real, this...final?
"I guess I am in love with her," I say out loud, and I feel scared, and relieved at having uttered it.
"In love with who?" Sal asks as he comes into the kitchen, and he stops and looks between me and Arden, taking in our battered appearances. "The hell happen to you two?"
"We were just being assholes," Arden shrugs, explaining the short of it.
Sal snorts as he grabs a roll left over from dinner. "What else is new? Oh, Peeta, there's a girl outside...I think it's one of the Everdeen-"
I don't even hear the last part of his sentence as I get up faster than I ever have and nearly tumble down the stairs to the door.
I go out to the front and I see Katniss beginning to walk away.
"Katniss!" I call out to her, and she stops and turns around.
I begin to walk toward her, but she turns and walks briskly down the road.
"Wait! Katniss!"
She's gone.
I sigh, then I look to the side, and I see a bundle sitting gingerly on top of a package.
I pick it up and I take it upstairs.
I join my brothers in the kitchen, and I set the package on the table.
"What's that?" Sal asks.
"She left a package for me," I say as I undo the bundle.
It's wild berries, and they're ripe and aromatic. I haven't had these in ages.
I next open the package, and it's a bound pad of canvas, which I'm pretty sure came from the Hob.
Now I really feel like a bastard.
I've been ignoring her, doubting my feelings, stewing in my anger, going with another girl, and in the meantime, she's been putting this gift together to show her thanks.
Dammit.