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hope you like the latest chapter:-)

Days passed.

I wouldn't even be able to tell how many.

Since my evening with Peeta, I have been broken, totally broken. If I had been chopped to tiny pieces I think I would be in less pain.

I'm even more broken than when I was before I started healing, I am as far gone as what I was before I left for home from the Capitol.

Although then, I thought the chances of getting better were slim, but now they seem impossible.

Back to square one.

This is a different type of pain, unlike the pain of injury or that of loosing a loved one, the type I'm used to.

There are no physical scars, and from the outside, to the onlookers, you look fine.

The damage is beneath, where no one can see. No one can tell, and no one can understand how it feels, to be too broken inside to even see the benefits of waking up in the morning.

It's worse than grieving over the dead, at least then, as much as you try, you know you can't reach them. They're gone.

But this, this feeling, is the opposite. It's seeing what you lost, and it still being there, where you lost it.

Only now, you can't reach it. It's just beyond your reach, just beyond you're words, just beyond your retrieving.

You can do nothing but look at it. Wanting to change your actions.

Wishing you could save it.

But it's all too late.

I drift in and out of sleep, and with sleep comes nightmares, rarely but occasionally offering a good dream.

I class having a dream, that when I wake, I'm not crying or screaming, as a good dream.

Good dreams in which I take a walk through the woods with my father during summer time or I see Prim, and she tells me she's happy, and safe now. Or when Peeta tells me he loves me.

The last dream had been real. He did.

And even though that dream makes me happy when I wake, that feeling is quickly replaced with longing that turns to hurt and sadness, and complete exhaustion with my state, once more.

Waking up after yet another dream of happy times with Peeta, I think to myself, these good dreams are worse than the nightmares.

The good dreams, they give you a false sense of security. They trick you to believe something is good, and that you are okay.

But, they are not true, and they are not real.

And they make waking up and living reality almost impossible, heart wrenchingly difficult and painful.

A week or so passed, and after various failed attempts of carrying on, failed attempts of seeing reason and failed attempts of forgetting, I decided today I was going to do something.

It may only be little, but I needed to get out, I wasn't helping myself by staying cooped up in here.

I needed to run, to get away.

It was early, and I wasn't yet hungry, instead I packed some food in a bag, pulled my hair into a plait and made my way outside. I was thankful no one was up to see my departure.

When I was out of sight from the Victors Village, I slowed down, still wheezing from the fast pace.

I ambled across town towards the woods.

I decided that, although I was long overdue taking Rory out hunting, I couldn't do that. I needed some space today. And spending hours and hours with the little brother of a man who loved me and whom I could've been happy with right now, would not be a good thing.

Would Gale have stayed away for my safety and happiness? I thought to myself. I already knew the answer.

For the answer is why he's not here now.

Although that's only partly true, the main reason Gale is not here, is because I pushed him away.

I decide, there and then, that even though things might not be working with Peeta currently, I wouldn't want Gale to take his place anyway.

My love for Gale is a totally different one from my love for Peeta.

I loved Gale like a brother.

But I was in love with Peeta.

I am in love with Peeta.

And all at once, I realised why I had been feeling like this, everything finally fitted into place.

From the moment he walked away from me, tears rolling down my face, and from all my emotions since. I realised, which I should've done much, much sooner.

I am in love with Peeta.

I don't just care for him and he's not just a friendly neighbour, or a fellow tribute turned victor, neither is he just my best friend or just someone I couldn't live without.

He is holding a special place in my heart, a place for someone you love so dearly, that you would die for them, or risk your own safety to protect them. You'd do anything to protect them.

Another thought crosses my mind. Peeta must love me. Still. I cling to this thought.

Why else would he stay away in order to protect me, from himself?

A memory resurfaces, and I remember him saying, 'I love you too much to hurt you'.

I had overlooked that, overlooked it all.

He loves me.

Of course he does. I knew that he used to, all through our first games and second. I never thought he felt like that, well and truly, still.

Now I've realised that I do love him, his love has a whole new feeling.

I've been traipsing through the woods for hours now, and I don't think I've ever been this far. Everything looks so unfamiliar.

I sit myself down, and out of my bag I pull out some apples and some bread.

How long have I been in love with Peeta? I ask myself, and it seems impossible to put a point on it, it's come along steadily, but I do know that I have cared for him since fate brought us together for the games. Fate.

I do love Peeta.

Still overcome with my revelation, I lean against a tree and let my mind have a rest.

I close my eyes, and remind myself when I get back to visit him.

Life's too short to be falling out with someone you love. And especially someone who doesn't realise.

I drift off with a smile on my face.

I wake up, and fear pounces upon me, almost instantly. Where am I?

It's dark and the trees loom over me dangerously.

I look down at my bag and unfinished apple, brown and shrivelled.

I've been asleep.

It must be late now, I'm stumbling rapidly, as fast as I'm able to move, my body suffocating with dread.

I've never been out this late in the woods, let alone this far into them. I run, not even knowing whether I'm heading in the right direction for home.

Surely if someone realises I'm gone, they'll come and find me? I think to myself.

But that thought is suddenly pushed from my mind.

No one saw me leave.

And for the past week I have not left the house once, no one has seen me and no one has checked on me.

As far as anyone knows, I'm tucked in my bed, in danger from only my nightmares.

Terror wraps itself around my like a snake.

But it appears that that is the least of my worries.

In my panic, I've staggered and slipped forward into an old stone pit.

I land, crushing my arm under my weight as I put it out to save myself.

Smacking my head hard against the wood, I fall over, desperately trying to hold on to my consciousness.

Cold sweat is coating my body, blind panic and dangerous thoughts swim around my head.

I attempt to scream, but I know, I know there will be no one to answer me, no one to save me.

I raise my head, just enough to locate areas of searing pain, and just enough to see a light. A light somewhere above me.

I try to reach out, but my arm won't move.

I'm dying, I think.

I'm dying, without telling Peeta I love him, without saying goodbye to my family.

The light comes closer.

I had tried so hard to keep my eyes open, in the fear that if I were to close them, I would loose consciousness, but now I let them slowly shut, and think of only my family, Peeta and happy memories.

I lie there, unable to push the idea of dying without Peeta knowing I love him, out of my mind.

My arm throbs and my head bangs, and the light just comes closer and closer.

Im going.

I just manage to whisper "Peeta, I love you" through my lips before I let go.