A/N: Song for this chapter is "The House that Built Me" by Miranda Lambert.
Buttercup is slowing me down.
I thought I felt someone watching me when I left the house tonight, but I turned around and saw only a pair of green eyes, one half shut. That cat that won't leave my side.
About a month ago, when I began doing this, I admit I'd leave my door open a crack and all the windows open in hopes that he'd think I'd abandoned him and just leave.
But every morning that I'd set out to leave, he'd follow me. It's like now that she isn't here, he's given himself the responsibility of protecting me. There's not much he can do, but I let him tag along anyway. Sometimes he'll kill a mouse or a rat or something. It's like I have a miniature hunting partner.
The only thing is that if I wander too far away from a distracted Buttercup, he'll cry until I go find him. It's very frustrating to have an arrow ready to fly at a deer or squirrel, and then to hear an ear piercing, ugly cat cry and cause the game to run away. He's cost me quite a few choice rabbits and a deer so far. But I do this now for myself, not because I have to. So I tell myself every time that it isn't a big deal.
Tonight is the first time that I've decided to go there at night. Before, I'd go early morning. Sometimes I'd come back, sometimes I'd stay a night out there and then come back. Greasy Sae has noticed but I don't think she's said anything because Haymitch hasn't been hounding me about where I've been running off to.
I don't know what makes me go tonight. Maybe it was the encounter with Peeta. Speaking to him for the first time in a month brought a slew of emotions to the surface. Betrayal, anger, frustration, annoyance, happiness, relief…and…something else, I can't quite understand. Since I've been back, the only way I know how to sort through the mess of things in my mind, is doing this.
I see a family sitting outside their porch in the Seam when I get to my old house. They're close by, so I hide in a shadow until they go inside for the night. I don't know them, but I'm sure they know me. And I don't need anyone following me. Other than Buttercup. But that's only because he won't let me go alone and I don't have the heart to shoot him.
Once they're inside, I am careful of my stepping because I know the floorboards on my old house are falling apart and make a lot of noise. Thankfully, Buttercup is quiet as well, and he doesn't draw any unwanted attention our way.
There's only one thing left. A picture of my father and me fishing in the lake. I grab it and put it inside my hunting jacket. I then look around the house. I can still see my mother rocking my sister to sleep in the chair that is gone now but used to be by our modest fireplace. I can still see my father playing his guitar for me outside on the porch. I can still see the outline in the floorboards where my bed used to be in one of the bedrooms. And I remember the day that I woke up and my life changed forever.
As tears stream down my face, I shut the door to my old house for the last time.
I will not be coming back here anymore.
I loved this place, the memories it held, the time I spent here. I grew up here. I learned a lot of lessons here. I've felt loss and pain, but also happiness here. But in order to heal and move on with my life, I have to leave this area of my life behind me. Besides, now that I've taken all the momentos that I want, it's just a house.
As I walk down the street towards the woods, the house gets smaller and smaller in the distance. It will be someone else's house now. Since I'm not using it, our new mayor will allow someone to buy it.
The fence has since been taken down, but I enter the woods in the normal place.
It's dark, so I stand still for a few minutes to allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I can't help but feel like this darkness that I see is inside of me as well, and I need to adjust my eyes to it too. This darkness inside me is a result of the Capitol, the Hunger Games, and losing so many people. It won't ever leave, but I have to force myself to see it in a new perspective. Maybe then I can finally begin to live again.
I can see slightly better, but I find myself wishing for the goggles I had in the first Hunger Games, the night vision goggles. At first I'm walking, but the cool spring air feels good and so soon I find myself running. Sometimes Buttercup gets behind and so I have to stop and wait for him. Normally, when this happens, I just keep going and Buttercup gets there eventually. Because Buttercup knows the way to the lakehouse. He's followed me there many times now. But since it's dark and there's coyotes, I have to be sure he stays fairly close to me. For some reason I feel responsible for him now.
It's close to midnight when I finally see the water glistening in the moonlight. The lake. And the small cottage that is less than a few hundred feet from the edge of the small lake. The lone house, my sanctuary.
I walk inside the house and look around me. It was two weeks ago today that I finally gained enough strength to get here. I tried to come here the day that Peeta came back, but I ended up spending all day at Gale's and my meeting place because I didn't have enough strength to get this far.
Two weeks ago, I came to this house with a single item in my hand. The pearl that Peeta gave me on the beach in the second arena. I was just going to leave it here, and forget about it and all the other reasons that I still hung on to Peeta. But then I had a better idea.
I needed a place that I could go and be alone. I realized that this lakehouse would serve that purpose perfectly. No longer do I need to go and find a closet to curl up in, or anything like it. Now, I come here.
So in the past two weeks, I've come here almost everyday. And each day, I've brought something from my old house or from my new house. The second day I brought a ribbon Prim wore to her reaping, the one I volunteered to take her place in. The third day I brought a small quilt that my mother had stitched when Prim was a baby. Each day, I brought something else that I attached a good memory to.
Sometimes I wouldn't leave. Sometimes I'd stay the night here. Once, I stayed two nights. Sometimes, when it was cold, or when it was too late to turn back, or when I just didn't feel like making the three hour walk back to the district, I'd stay here, alone in my thoughts. Exiled from civilization at my own doing.
Sometimes I think the only reason that I go back at all is so that no one comes to look for me and finds this place. This place is mine and only mine. This is the place that I can go and relive a happy memory. Close my eyes and live in another time, a time before all this mess. A time when things were much simpler.
The first thing that I do is go outside in the back of the small cottage and grab some wood from a pile that I'd placed there two weeks ago and bring it back inside.
I toss the three pieces of wood into the fireplace and take out a match, lighting a fire to keep warm. I sit down in front of the fire, on the quilt that my mother stitched. Buttercup curls up next to me and falls asleep right away.
This is when I take out the final piece to this house. The picture of my father and me fishing. At this very lake. I close my eyes and relive it for just a moment.
"Daddy, what's that song you're whistling?"
"It's called 'The Hanging Tree.'"
"What's it about?"
"Well, this man lived in a bad time, when people punished other people for no good reason. The bad people hung the man in the tree. And the man called out for his love when he was dying, so that she'd come hang herself too."
"Why would he do that?"
"Because he didn't want her to live in a bad world when he couldn't protect her any longer."
"That's a nice story," I said as I cast out my line into the lake.
"I think I got something dad!" I said, and as he helped me reel it in, the two of us whistled the tune together.
I hadn't caught a fish. I caught some type of root.
"Aw, I thought I actually caught something!" I said, flustered.
"Sweetheart, you did catch something. This is Katniss root."
"Katniss root? The one you said you named me for?"
"Yes. Your mom can make some good stew with this." He said, patting me on the back and smiling. Then he whistled the tune again while casting out his line.
I open my eyes. I was seven when he told me that story. He was always able to hide the brutality of the way that the world was from myself and my mother and Prim, yet he never had to lie in order to do it. He had a way with words like that. I hug the picture close to my chest and whisper "I miss you."
It's been seven long years since he was taken from us. Almost eight. I shake loose the memory and I get up to place the picture above the mantle of the fireplace, next to a few other pictures, and Peeta's pearl. To my right, there's a bookshelf containing books that my father had collected over the course of his life. I cleared space in the almost full bookshelf for just one more book. The one that my father started and that I am finishing. I'll put it there when it's done.
To my right, there's a small nightstand in the corner. A few momentos of Prim that I brought from the old house sit on top of it. There's a small lamp on the table as well but there's no electricity in this cottage so I've no idea why I brought it.
Behind me is the little kitchenette. There must have been electricity here at some point in time, maybe for the family that used to live here. But this place has been abandoned for a long time. So I don't have a use for that stuff either, but I don't know what else to do with it.
Directly across from the door I came in, is a hallway. In the hallway are three doors. The one in the middle is a small bathroom, but there's no plumbing. The other two doors each lead to very small, quaint bedrooms. The beds are still there. But other than the beds, the night stand, the kitchen, and the bookshelf, there's no furniture in the house.
There's only the quilt that lies on the floor across from the fireplace. I go back to it now, and decide to stay here. I knew that I would anyway, I guess, as I left around nine at night and it's now close to one. I curl up on the quilt, and let myself be engulfed by the warm fire burning three feet away from me, as I drift into a deep sleep.