In my life, I have spent an uncountable amount of nights stuck to Peeta, embraced in such a way that he was everywhere around me and I was everywhere around him. There was also a lot of kissing, false and then honest. But I don't think I had ever considered taking the further step. Probably because I didn't have time to think about it, with the Games and then the war going on. I'm not saying I didn't ever feel any desire for him. I did. But I just pushed it aside, because my personal pleasure had no place in the life I was living.
I'm afraid. I guess it's natural to be. I have no idea what I should do, I'm afraid to seem ridiculous, or not to be good enough. I know it's the logical follow-up and that everybody does it, and I feel desire for him. But I'm afraid.
We're at the District's drugstore, buying the pills that will keep me from becoming pregnant. He keeps telling me that we can wait if I don't want to do it tonight. I keep telling him that it's okay. I smile, and he smiles back.
On our way back we drop by the place of my old home. They're building walls. I stand there, looking at my old home becoming a new one. Probably it will be bigger. I wonder who will live in it. I shake my head to chase the image of Prim, so cute in her reaping clothes. Prim walking towards the stage where Effie Trinket stands.
Peeta is behind me, he grabs my shoulders. "Katniss."
I don't turn to him when I say: "I'm going to hunt."
He lets go, and I know that he nods. "Yes, you need it. See you later."
I head toward the woods. They made a door in the fence. I open it, and suddenly, it's another world.
Suddenly, I'm young, I'm alone, and I must feed the family. Danger. I can feel it. Adrenaline rushes through my veins. I grab the hidden bow and the set of arrows, and that's me against the wild, me against death. I must fight, kill, and hide. Yes, my Hunger Games had begun long before I volunteered. I cross the woods, killing animals and stuffing them in my game bag; I am not human anymore. I am something more, or something less. Probably both. I am the predator.
When I get home, there's the smell of something freshly baked. I make it to the kitchen, where a cake lays on the table. It's green, my favourite green, and orange, like sunset. It's the woods and the sky. Truly beautiful. On it, there's something written. "Real."
I sigh, and a smile appears on my lips.
"Hey, beauty", says a voice behind me. I turn to him. "Hmm, muddy beauty." He bursts out laughing. A mirror makes me realize how dirty I am, indeed. In front of me, there's a wild girl, a free girl, covered in mud, with her game bag full of squirrels and rabbits. Her eyes are tired, but vivacious, they reflect attention and readiness. I know this girl; for the first time in months, in years maybe, I fully recognise myself. And it feels good.
I wash myself, change clothes and go to the living room. Peeta is sitting on the sofa, cutting the cake. I join him. He offers me a slice, I take a bite in it. "Mmmh, Peeta, it's so good." He smiles at me. I take one bite more, then can't stand it anymore: I put my slice back on the table, do the same with his, push him back, lean on him and kiss him.
It is soft and hard, peaceful and wild, there is pleasure and pain, contradictory feelings linked together, allied, mixed together to make such an immense explosion of sensations, and I would like to freeze this moment and live in it forever, because I can't think of anything else than the moment, the absolute present, I can't see anything else than us, our bodies making up a whole. The world is reduced to us, only us, just us. And there is no measure to how good it feels.