I rub my eyes and try to focus on my ceiling. The ceiling fan rotates slowly, trembling slightly and creating a soft rattle that is soothing to me most nights. However it is doing nothing to soothe the splintering headache spreading in my brain. My eyes blink hard as I roll over and let out a groan. All that wine and tequila was a bad idea. Probably one of the worst I've ever had.

Well, it did help me temporarily forget about Katniss. My eyes settle on my bedside table where a cup of water and two crystal blue pills glistening in the sunlight coming through my window are placed. A window I regret leaving open because the sun is making my already splitting headache worse. I palm the pills and swallow them down with the water, sighing as I place the plastic cup back on to my table. The sound of gunfire from my living room jerks my attention quickly. The only time I'm woken up by loud noises of fake gun battles is when Cressida sleeps over.

Cressida. Oh my fucking God we slept together. As I swing my legs out from underneath my blankets I realize I am still nude from the night before. Fuck. I grab the nearest clothing I can find - my bra and my pajama shorts - and venture groggily into the next room. Cressida is on the couch, legs crossed Indian-style with her headset on her head, controller in her hand, relentlessly pushing the buttons.

The floor creaks beneath my feet and I see Cressida look at me briefly and flash me a smile before returning very seriously to her game. She doesn't look nearly as worse for the wear as I do. She's wearing one of my high school sweatshirts and a pair of my jeans. I sit on the back of the couch and fall backward so my spine hits the cushion and I watch her play upside down.

When the match is over she exits her session and places the controller on the table. She stretches her feet out to the coffee table and looks down at me with bright blue eyes. "Worm, you finally got out of bed!" I groan and rub my face, trying to will myself to remember the events of the past night. "I thought you'd died in there."

"I think I wish I had," I respond, stretching my arms above my head and touching the rug below us. I run my fingers over the braided fabric, trying to block out the pain of my hangover headache. Cressida lets out a few giggles and I glare in her direction. "How are you so fucking chipper? Did I drink alone?"

She looks down at me and threads her fingers through her hair, flipping it all to the right to expose her tattooed side. Her lips purse into a smirk. "No, I've just got a larger tolerance than you. You're kind of a lightweight, love." I narrow my eyes at her and she runs her eyes down my body, biting her lips to suppress a smile. "Good thing it's winter. I may have let a bit of a mark or two on you."

My eyes widen as I turn over onto my stomach and crawl off the couch. I scamper into the bathroom where my vanity mirror isn't totally helpful but I do have a few light purple hickeys over my chest and the top of my stomach. A glance down at my legs shows more marks there as well. I storm back into the living room where Cressida is already in a giggling fit.

"Oh this is funny to you? I look ridiculous! Why did you bite me everywhere?" I ask angrily, placing my hands on my hips.

"I'm just havin' a laugh," Cressida responds in between guffaws at my expense. I keep my glare in her direction until she calms down enough to talk. "I only did what you asked, darling." My eyebrow practically leaps off my face I've raised it so high. I don't remember asking her to turn me into a chew toy. "Do you really want to go through this? I imagined we'd pretend it never happened but if you want to talk about it, I'm more than happy to tell you the things you told me to do."

I sigh and pad toward the kitchen to begin making some coffee. I pop the Keurig cup into the machine and wait in front of it, my palms grasping the edge of the counter. "No, I believe you," I reply finally, grasping the hot mug of coffee. Sipping it slowly I look around the room. Our boxes of chicken wings are cleaned up, as well as the bottles of wine we had consumed. I look to Cressida who is busy turning off the console and the television.

I can't remember a time when I didn't rely on that blonde woman for just about everything. When we fumbled through our sexual awakenings together, getting our hearts broken by girls as we plodded through college. We celebrated the joys of her landing her gig down at the station and mine of opening my business. She understands me in a way only my mother does, but even more so because she's gay. She gets it. Anyone else would've judged the hell out of me for the past few weeks. For sleeping with a married woman, for falling in love with that same woman, for taking advantage of my best friend while I was an emotional mess. But not Cressida.

I almost wish I was in love with her because I think we'd probably make a great couple. And if the soreness between my legs and exhaustion in my chest is any indication, the sex was great. But I'm not in love with her and I never will be. My heart belongs to someone else. Someone who doesn't deserve it and broke it. Someone with eyes like a placid lake, not bright and blue like Cressida's. Someone whose voice and touch turns me into something I don't recognize.

"Whoa you've got that thinking face on," Cressida says as she walks toward me, taking a swig from a beer in my fridge. I grimace at her and she shrugs. "What of it? It's one in the afternoon. It's a perfectly respectable time for a pint."

"Thank you," I reply softly, looking down at my cup of coffee. She stares at me quizzically. "For everything. For being here for me. For ..last night." She grins and I feel the heat in my cheeks increase.

"What are friends for? If not for a sad, but bloody ace roll in the hay when the other's feeling down?" She takes my coffee cup from me and places it on the counter top on my left. She puts her hands on my hips and curls her mouth into a smile. "Johanna. More than anything, I want you to be happy. As your friend, what we did last night, that was just us making each other happy. And it was brilliant. Which was good seeing as how I was waiting ten years for you to finally come around." She kisses me on the cheek and brushes some of my hair from my face. "And now, maybe you can start moving on from Katniss."

I sigh and lean my head back against the wall. What she's saying makes sense. Sleeping with her has proved to be a good distraction from my heartbreak but that's all it is - a distraction. Inevitably that brown-haired beauty will crawl back into my brain and root there. She is inevitable, like the ocean's tide or the rise and set of the sun. I can't escape her. "I wish I could."

Cressida makes a disapproving noise with her tongue. "You can. You just won't. Look it's only been a day or so. Why don't we do something fun today?" Her eyes light up in childish delight. "Let's go do laser tag or something." I roll my eyes at her. "Okay, what do you want to do?"

What do I want to do? Storm into the Mellark house, take Katniss by the arm, kiss the life out of her and never let her leave my side. Force her to divorce her husband, move far away and live out our lives together.

But instead my mind goes to the elderly couple we met in the museum. His wife is in the hospital. I somehow feel compelled to go see them. I almost feel like I need to tell them Katniss and I aren't a couple. I don't know why this is pressing on my consciousness but it is. I bring my eyes up to hers. "There's someone I need to visit in the hospital."

"I want to do something fun and you want to go visit someone in hospital? You are bleak." She turns from me and walks back toward the apartment, shrugging her shoulders and settling herself back down on my couch. Cressida presses her controller button, turns on her XBox, and places her headset on her skull. "Horses for courses, I suppose. But you really need to get a life."


I enter the hospital, a small bouquet of daisies in my hand. The hospital is always a source of anxiety for me, as it is for most people. My father died in this exact hospital not too long ago, attached to clear tubes and surrounded by family and beeping machines. You're never at the right age to lose a parent. From toddler to adult, you're never prepared to see the person who gave you life, the person who was your rock, suffering and helpless in a gown and slippers.

"Hi, how are you today?" The attractive redhead behind the desk greets me warmly, deep amber eyes gazing into my own. She almost looks like a light brown-eyed Amy Adams, complete with the Anglo-Saxon pale skin and chipper personality.

"I'm well, thanks, yourself?" I lean on the counter, allowing myself to appraise young beauty. She looks a bit younger than me, maybe 20 or 21. The girl blushes lightly under my scrutinizing gaze. She's wearing a light blue set of scrubs with tiny foxes printed on them, and a single gold necklace with a small pendant on the end in a 'V' shape.

"I'm fine, thank you." She seems flustered by the question. From my time in the service industry I know people can be brusque unintentionally when they need something. I find it endearing that she is so taken aback by some common kindness. I glance down at her nametag, affixed just above her chest.

"Finch, hm?" The girl looks frazzled and then peeks at her own nametag. "That your last name?"

She nods. "Yes. That's what everyone calls me. I don't like my first name much," she babbles. "It's kind of strange. My-my first name is Verbena." My eyes widen. "Like the um, like the -"

"Like the flower," I interrupt, smiling. "Do you know what that flower means?"

She clasps her hands in front of her and nods enthusiastically. "Enchantment. Or, um, sensibility or something equally as boring." She ducks her head in embarrassment and I raised my eyebrow.

"Is that right? Well I'd say it's far from boring. Verbena has been used in almost all recorded history. It's got supernatural elements to it." Her eyes light up as I continue to speak, setting the flowers down on the counter. Luckily there is no one behind me in line. If there is, they'll have to wait. "The ancient Romans called it Juno's tears. Faulker wrote a whole story about it." I still have it. The ability to charm a girl with a cocky grin and a little knowledge. The way she's batting her eyelashes, well, if we were in a nightclub she'd be pressed against a stall wall with her legs around my waist.

But we are in a hospital and I am probably reading this entirely wrong. "Something tells me that if you didn't really like your name, you wouldn't wear that V around your neck."

She looks down at her necklace and pulls the small pendant away from her chest, fingering the small letter in her fingers. "Oh, this isn't for that. It's a five. It's my lucky number. I was born at 5:55 on the fifth day of May on Fifth Avenue. And, turns out, I'm only going to be five foot five inches. So, I figured why not commemorate it?"

"Why not indeed?" I ask, chuckling. "Well, Verbena, I was hoping you could help me. I'm looking for a woman who's here, her name's Michelle? I'm afraid I don't have a last name. I know her husband's name is Hank. Elderly couple, crazy sweet."

Her face turns sullen. "I'm so sorry..."

"Johanna."

"I'm so sorry Johanna, but we only give out room information to family. Even if you did have a last name I'm not sure there would be anything I could do," she apologizes nervously.

I smile and lift the bouquet off the counter. "It's okay. You're just doing your job. It was a long shot. Thanks for your time." I turn away, a smirk on my face. I know she'll want to continue talking to me. Girls are easy to peg.

"How do you know them?" she calls out to my back. I turn around, feigning surprise. I take a few steps back toward the counter.

"I met them at a museum a week or so ago. The husband, Hank, came into my flower shop over on Seventh Street and bought flowers for his wife, telling me she was ill. They were extremely nice to me and my -" I catch my words. "My friend and me, so I thought I'd return the gesture with a few flowers. My father always told me to return the kindness of strangers, because you never know who's needing it."

Surprisingly I see a small tear escape the corner of her eye. I don't think I've laid it on that thick but she looks quite upset at my story. "Oh I wish I could help. Do you know when she was admitted?"

"No idea. Not that long ago. Within the last few days." Verbena's fingers fly across her keyboard and her amber eyes scrutinize the monitor in front of her. After more typing, and a few clicks of her mouse, she brightens considerably. "I think I might have found them." Her voice lowers to a conspiratorial whisper and her eyes dart around. "Third floor, room 307. Should be on the right as you get off the elevator. But please don't tell anyone I told you."

The girl quickly scribbles out a sticker pass for me and hands it to me like we're making an alleyway drug deal. "Your secret's safe with me. Thank you so much for your help." I draw a daisy out of the bouquet and hand it to her. "It's not quite verbena, but it'll have to do." I flash her a smile as she blushes harder than I have seen anyone blush in my life and I jog toward the elevators.

I walk past a few white-clad nurses on my way toward Room 307. I dodge a few slowly-rolling gurneys and finally get to the room. I can hear the loud blare of Wheel of Fortune playing inside and I gingerly knock on the open door. There is the shuffle of feet against linoleum and the door opens wider to reveal Hank, whose face breaks into a smile.

"Johanna!" He claps my back in a hard hug, pulling me into the room. Michelle is laying on the bed, sitting up and eagerly eating what I hope is cherry jello. Something ruby and gelatinous. "Michelle, look! It's Johanna, the woman we met at the museum. Her wife was the one who knew about the paintings."

The woman's eyes look up at me, and after a few moments, she places my face. "Oh Johanna. How wonderful of you to come and see me. Are those flowers for me?" She looks a little tired, but luckily not all that sick. It makes me feel immeasurably better to see her looking almost well.

"No woman, they're for me," Hank interrupts with a wink. He takes the flowers from my hand and goes toward the vase on the table that holds the other flowers I'd helped pick for her. "Our daughter was just here, it's a shame you missed her. You remind us of her."

I sit down in the chair beside the bed, trying to hide my nervousness. "How are you feeling?" I ask the woman, placing my hands in my lap.

She shrugs. "As well as can be expected. Damn doctors are treating me like I have consumption." She levels her gaze at me. "I have a cough. Because I'm over sixty, evidently I'm dying."

I let out a chuckle and shake my head. This woman's personality reminds me a lot of my mother. Hard-headed, straight-forward. Women who both participated in convention by being housewives and popping out kids, but defied it by keeping their identities separate from their families. "That's great to hear."

"How's your wife?" she asks, smiling at me. I feel the smile fade from my lips. I can't possibly keep up this charade. I hadn't wanted to do it in the first place. Katniss has that effect on me. She can make me do almost anything with just a quirk of her lips.

"Katniss is fine," I respond slowly. The woman places her gelatinous goo container on her tray that is suspended in front of her and looks toward me. She gives me the same expectant look my mother had perfected when I was growing up and she knew I was telling a half-truth. "Katniss isn't my wife." The woman's pale eyes go wide and she looks to her husband, who shrugs. "We... it's complicated."

The woman smiles and reaches out, taking one of my hands in hers. "I've got a lot of time. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

I sigh hard, tucking my hair behind my ear. "Katniss is married. To someone else. I met her at their wedding, actually." I glance at her husband. "I'm a florist, as you know, and I did the arrangement for her wedding." I clear my throat, allowing some time for the information to sink in. "We went out as friends a few times but... there was always something. I knew. There was something there that was more than friends."

"We could tell," Michelle interjects with a knowing nod. "You looked so in love."

"We were. I mean, that day you met us, her husband had gone away for a few days. So we just kind of dated. And when you asked us if we were married, I was going to say no, but she just went with it. I have a hard time disagreeing with her."

Hank chuckles from across the room, sitting on the edge of his wife's bed. "Well we should have known right then you weren't married. Disagreeing is half of what we do."

Michelle shoots him a glare. "Continue, please, Johanna."

"Well, I mean, that's it. He came back home and found out about us. And ...yesterday she told me she was pregnant. And I told her we were over." Tears start filling my eyes and I immediately feel ashamed of myself. For both my actions and my stupid tears. I don't deserve to cry over this. Just telling the story makes me feel like a bad person. In no light am I not completely wrong.

"Does she love you?" Michelle asks after a long period of silence. I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt and shrug.

"I don't know. No." I purse my lips and look back up at her. The way Katniss looks in my eyes, the way she kisses me, the way she holds on to me like she never wants to let me go. She does love me. "Yes. But it doesn't matter."

"Oh, sweetheart, that's all that matters."

I sniffle, gratefully taking the proffered tissue from Hank. I'm sure these tissues are supposed to be used by grieving families, not stupid homewreckers crying with essential strangers about her lesbian love life. "She can't. She's with someone else."

Michelle pats my hand, soothingly rubbing it with her own. "When I met Hank I was engaged to another man. A nice man. Stable, good family, loved me to pieces. And I did love him." She pauses and looks at her husband. "But the second I saw Hank, I knew. I knew immediately that I was in love with another man. Or at the very least in lust with another man. And if you're with someone and you fall in love with the second person, you must choose that second person. Because I have never met anyone after Hank that I felt even a tiny sliver of what I feel for him."

"That's touching," I reply, smiling sadly. "But it's not me who has to change. It's her." I stand from my chair, nodding my head toward Hank. "Thank you for letting me see you. Please stay in touch. Maybe we can get dinner or something." I open the door and turn to them with a smile. "Feel better soon." They each bid me goodbye as I leave the room and make my way back toward the exit.

I give a short wave to the cute girl behind the counter, who in turn knocks over a corral of pencils on her desk in a frenzied attempt to wave back. Shaking my head I go through the revolving doors into the winter sun, breathing in a deep sigh. I want to believe what Michelle said was right. If Katniss is in love with me, maybe she will come around.

But how long am I supposed to wait? Until their kid is eighteen and Katniss feels comfortable enough to break up their family?

I turn around and go back into the hospital. Maybe this red-haired girl is my chance to start getting over Katniss. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I take it out, reading Katniss's name across the screen. "Yes?"

"Johanna, please. Can we talk? I really need to talk to you. I went to your apartment but Cressida was there. She said you'd left for the day." I hear her suck in a breath. "Did she stay over your apartment last night?"

"Yes."

Her voice breaks. "Did you guys sleep together?" I can hear the pain in her voice. It's crippling me.

I let out a chuckle. I can lie. But a small, evil part of me wants her to suffer. "Not that it's any of your business, but yeah we did. Does that upset you? Am I not allowed to fuck anyone while you go and get pregnant?"

There is a long silence on the line. "I just thought you guys were only friends. It doesn't matter."

"You're right, it doesn't matter. It's not really any of your concern. You made it crystal clear that we were over, Katniss."

"Everything's changed and a-and I miss you. I need to talk to you." Her strained voice tugs on my heartstrings.

"There's nothing to say. You can't do it." I grit my teeth. "Bye." I end the call and hold down the power button to turn my phone completely off. I walk back into the hospital and wait impatiently as a middle-aged woman asks the girl a bunch of needless questions.

Once she is gone I stand in her place and Verbena looks up at me, surprised. "Johanna. Did you find the room? I assume you did since I saw you leave a second ago."

"Do you want to go out sometime?" I interrupt, leaning over the counter.

Her cheeks turn as fire engine red as her hair and she looks around at the other women sitting behind the counter, who all wear different expressions of gossipy interest and anticipation. "Um...yes. I mean, if you'd want to, I would. That would be - I could do that. Yes. Please."

I smile. I grab a piece of paper near me and reach over the counter to steal one of her pens. I quickly scribble down my phone number and hand the slip of paper to her. "Whenever you want, call me." She grins down at the piece of paper and bobs her head excitedly. I flatten my palms against the counter and launch myself up, sliding over the counter until my stomach is flat against the top. As she looks up I grin and use my hand to pull her face toward mine in a short kiss.

I shimmy back down off the counter, whipping around and marching toward the exit. This is how I am going to get over Katniss. Slowly, one girl at a time. Surely at least two or three girls can fill the void one left in my heart. Right?