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District 5
Cinna scrutinizes me, eyes roving up and down the latest unbelievable dress he's just helped me into. "What's wrong?" I ask.
He touches the electric yellow fabric around my waist. "Stand up straighter, please," he requests kindly. I do so – I guess I was slouching, but I'm so tired these days posture is hardly heavy on my mind. He frowns. "It isn't falling right."
I look down; feel how the clingy material only just brushes my skin. It makes no sense for Cinna to suddenly not know my measurements, so it must be me.
"Have you been eating, Katniss?" he asks gently, tucking wavy dark hair behind my ear.
"Yes," I say. "Well, trying to. I haven't had much of an appetite lately," I admit. The food on the train and at the dinners is quite good – but with all of the other pressures weighing me down my stomach has been turning after a few bites. I know Peeta's noticed as well, but he hasn't said anything.
"The tour is a lot of work," Cinna agrees neutrally. I can see the question in his eyes, and I want so badly to share what's wrong (which is everything, basically) and have him comfort me. But this tour is a Capitol creation, and you can bet there is hardly a moment a pair of eyes or ears isn't on us. "I'll just take it in a bit. We have some time before the dinner."
He helps me out of the dress and I sit in my tasteful underwear, watching his expert hands work amazingly fast. "I hope you're taking notes," he says suddenly around the pins he's holding between his lips. "You'll never improve your talent otherwise."
The comment catches me by surprise and I laugh aloud – my first genuine laugh in a while. He proceeds to explain what he's doing to the dress in an overly simple tone, glaring at me every so often and asking why I'm not writing it all down. Cinna doesn't know how his teasing lifts my mood.
When Peeta and I meet later to head to the dinner, my lightening dress is flawless; one would never know it had to be altered. He looks handsome in his dark gray suit – together we look like a powerful storm. I remember the way his pale arms encircled me when I woke up this morning, how the sun highlighted the light hairs on them.
He grins as I approach. "You look amazing," he says, a variation on what he says every time, but somehow there is never any less meaning in his words. I slip my arm through his and ignore my insides, already twisting nervously, hoping that maybe tonight will be the turning point, tonight will be the night everyone is convinced and the uprisings end.
Six stops to go.
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