This is, admittedly, another one of the more far-fetched chapters, again because we know almost nothing about this character from the books. I started writing this at about Christmas, got halfway done, and then went back to school and quite honestly forgot all about it. Then, when I rediscovered it last night, I had totally forgotten what direction I had originally intended it to go in, so I hope it doesn't seem incongruous, because I basically invented a new ending for it.

This chapter was strangely cathartic to write, and I hope you all enjoy it.

I'm still willing to write more pieces for this collection, especially since I have much more time to write in the summer, but I'm running out of characters, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

As always, anything you already recognize belongs to Suzanne Collins, and I own no part of it. There is a tiny fraction of an Appalachian folk song in it, too, but I don't think that's copyrighted. Just in case... that's not mine, either.

Shoot me a review, I'd love to hear what you think!


All through the Seam, people hear her songs.

"Just like your mother," Dad says fondly when she passes by. Then he gives me a significant look, and I busy myself with another task.

It's a stupid Mellark weakness, to fall hopelessly in love with a girl, a girl you could never hope to have. Although, my father had her, of course. Eventually.

Falling stupidly in love is as much a part of being a Mellark as being a baker is, and I am both, for better or for worse. Most days, it feels like for worse.

I don't know when I stopped baking and started being a baker. For a couple of years now, I've been a baker, but I don't know when, or how, it happened. Gradually, I suppose. I used to talk to Ivy about these things, but that was before she went to live in 4, to help Grandma at the hospital there.

"Don't be stupid, Rhye," she would say, "Mellarks are always bakers."

I usually didn't point out that she was a Mellark every bit as much as I was, and she was a healer, thank you very much. But even when I did, she just pointed out that "Everdeen women are healers."

It has always been very clearly understood that, while I am a Mellark to the bone, my elder sister is thought of by almost everybody in 12, even my parents, as an Everdeen.

Maybe it's the simple fact that she is a girl, like my mother (the Everdeen) while I am a boy, like my father (the Mellark). Maybe, with her long dark hair and aloof (or annoyed) expression, she looks almost precisely as my mother did at her age, while I quite clearly resemble my father. Maybe it's just that I inherited all of the stupid Mellark proclivities, like falling hopelessly in love with precisely the wrong person, and she escaped all of them, instead inheriting all of the superior Everdeen traits, like making people fall hopelessly in love with you.

She's only been gone 3 months, but as my father joked, 'hearts broke all over 12 when she left.' And I have no doubt that, wherever she is, she has some poor boy tied up in knots for her already.

I'm so consumed in my thoughts that I almost let the bread burn. And of course, my parents wouldn't believe that that was her fault, either, even though I take a moment to be petty and pretend that it is Ivy's fault, since I was thinking about her.

The bell on the door jingles, and my friend Ainsley comes in.

"Hey, Mellark. My mom wants a loaf of sourdough."

"Sure," I say, turning to get it, "How're things?"

"Eh," he says, "Can't complain. I talked to Serena in history and math today."

"And?"

"And nothing, we just talked. Do you think I should ask her out?"

I want to tell him that I have no experience with girls, only one girl, and that experience consists of nervously tying her wheat bread up when she comes in, but I know since I have an older sister (who is Ivy Mellark) that he thinks I know everything about girls. Besides, I see the little glances Serena always throws him—I sit right behind her in Earth Sciences.

"Sure," I say instead, handing him the bread, "I think she'd like that."

"Cool," Ainsley says, handing over the payment and grinning, "Thanks, Rhye. I owe you."

And then a voice, lovely and soaring, rises outside the barely open door, and I think I might just drop the money.

"You okay?" Ainsley asks, worried.

My crush on (or obsession with, as Ivy says) Petra Dunn is a well kept secret, and so I just say, "Sure, sorry. Forgot I was supposed to fix the door, it doesn't close all of the way," and though Ainsley gives me a strange look, he lets it slide.

We both stop to listen to her song for a moment. It's hard not to. She's got a beautiful, haunting voice, and she sings often. I know others think it's weird, or even annoying, but I love listening when she passes by the bakery on her way to town, usually holding her brother, Orem, by the wrist. I never know if she's singing to him, or to the town, or just for the sake of making music, but I also don't care. A lot of the songs she sings are ones I've heard my mother sing, folk songs from 12 and some other Districts, but I've never hear the one she's singing today, about a miner's daughter.

Daddy, don't go to the mines today

For dreams so often come true

There's something a-going to happen today

Please, daddy, don't go to the mines

"That's morbid," Ainsley says, "Singing about mines exploding in 12. Well, I'd better get home. Talk to you later."

He leaves, bell jangling, and Petra's song swells with the opening of the door and then falls again as the door swings almost shut. I really was supposed to fix that door last week.

For a moment, I consider going to the window to watch her walk by, but just a second later the door opens and she actually comes in, Orem in her wake, and I'm glad I'm behind the counter instead of at the window, which would be strange.

The last bars of her song die on her lips, and she gives me a blinding smile. "Hello, Rhye," she says.

"Hey," I say, proud of myself for getting the single syllable out without incident. And then, feeling brave, I add, "How's it going, Petra?"

My father always says that people like to hear their own names, and she smiles again, so maybe it's true.

"Oh, fine," she says, "Mother's sick, and all she wants is toast. I've come to get another loaf of wheat bread."

Our wheat bread is the cheapest, and it's good, but our soft, white bread makes better toast, or at least I think so. I almost offer to give her a loaf at the same price, but she probably wouldn't take it. People in 12 aren't impoverished anymore, at least not most of them, but they're still poor.

"Petra," I say instead, "I'm so sorry, but Greasy Sae asked me this morning to set aside a loaf of wheat for Haymitch, and I promised her she could pick it up later."

Petra's smile fades as she looks at the only remaining loaf of wheat bread left on the shelves.

"Oh," she says, "Well—"

"But I hate to disappoint you," I say, trying not to put too fine a point on the word you, "So how about if I give you a loaf of white, instead?"

She looks a little uncomfortable, unwilling to admit she only has enough money to buy the wheat.

"And since it's my fault that you can't have the one you want, you can have it at the same price as usual."

"Well…" She hesitates, "That would be wonderful, Rhye. Are you sure? I don't want to impose…"

"Of course!" I say, wrapping the bread up. Dad may not be happy, but he'll understand.

"Petra," Orem suddenly whines from behind her, "Can we go home now?"

"In a minute, Ore," she says, throwing me an apologetic look, "I have to pay Rhye."

"How's school, Orem?" I ask, as I make change. "Learn anything?" I let my hand drift promisingly towards the cookie tray.

"We did triangles today!" He says hurriedly, and gives me a hopeful look. Petra and Orem have the same chestnut, curling hair and the same sea green eyes—at a distance they look almost like other Seam children, but the coloring's just not quite right. I think their mother's from 4.

"And?" I say.

"And… and… the long side is the hypo-hypa-hypotenuse!"

"Cool!" I say, and hand him a pink-frosted cookie.

"Rhye…" Petra sighs, but she can't help herself and she grins. "You really shouldn't. I owe you. If you need a favor sometime…"

Go out with me? I want to ask, but I smile instead. "Sure. I'll collect." I hope my smile looks dashing, but it probably just looks 'cute.'

She starts to say something else, but then the door flies open and we both turn to see Heath Stone stalk into the bakery.

"Wheat, please," He says with no prelude. Heath, like most seam boys, is dark and surly, but we have the same grey eyes. I try not to let him intimidate me. He's taller than I am, but leaner, and I'm strong, though I don't know that it matters much, since I doubt we'll be fist fighting in the bakery.

I go to get it for him, but Petra says, "They're all out. But they're selling the white at the same price!"

I grimace. Selling two loaves on a discount? Great. But I grab the white bread anyways.

"Really?" Heath says suspiciously.

"Sure," I say, "Saving it for Haymitch. Sorry."

He shrugs. We both know that white bread is a treat, but he doesn't thank me, or even say anything.

I think he resents me, many people do. The son of two well-known and cherished celebrities, heroes of the revolution and darlings of Panem. How could I not have a dream life?

But they've never lived with my parents, they've never seen their reality. My parents deserve pity, but they don't want it. The outsiders don't know what it's like growing up in my house—the night terrors that grip my mother, my father's rare but frightening bouts of rage. They don't know that, while my mother surely loves us, she's strangely disconnected from everybody but my father, that my father, who finds solace here in the bakery, cannot understand that I want something else, cannot help me find something else, because I, myself, don't know what it is that I want.

Families are never as they seem, on the surface.

Sometimes, I think that my sister was the only one who understood me. She's certainly the only other one who knows what it is to be in our household, on the bad days and the good, excluded by our youth from our parent's problems but feeing the repercussions of the past nonetheless.

But Ivy, who retains our father's warm strength with our mother's steel and could and did empathize with me, still thought I was silly for throwing away what I have. She's happy healing, in 4, which is what an Everdeen woman does.

Most days, I think that I just got our father's insecurities and our mother's shyness, though my mother once told me that I have his talent for words.

If it were Ivy standing here, Heath wouldn't resent her, and not just because he would want her. Maybe it's her dark hair, though she has town-blue eyes, maybe it's her classification as an 'Everdeen woman,' but she's considered Seam by many, someone who can understand the plight of the poor, who doesn't pity them or stuff charity down their throats, who can relate to them.

I am a town boy, through and through. Maybe it's the blond hair, or that fact that I work in the bakery while she was out helping people all over 12, I don't know.

I do know that Heath is glaring at me, even though I'm feeding him the good bread for practically free, even though I never did a thing to him besides try to be his friend in lower school. And see how that turned out.

I shove the parcel at him, and he doesn't even thank me, he just nods, gruffly, and hands over his coins.

"Say, Petra, I have some extra venison. Do you think your mother would want it?" He asks, as I'm ringing up the sale.

"Probably. I can come and pick it up on my way home? We have to stop by the cobblers, first."

I can't help but notice that, though Heath seems to be flirting with her (although what he classifies as flirting is deigning to talk to a girl), Petra is business like. She doesn't even smile, and she did at me, at least twice. The thought gives me a ray of hope, at least until I remember that I'm totally wrong for Petra in every way, while Heath seems to be her dream match: they're both Seam, he's a ruggedly handsome provider while I'm only a 'cute' (on a good day) baker's boy. Even his name sounds like a hearth, like a sound house and a warm fire, somewhere to be safe and protected, somewhere to curl up on a winter's day. I got named after a stupid loaf of bread.

My sister got, along with everything else, the good name, like my mother. Though ivy isn't useful, not in the same way katniss is, a plant name is as much of an Everdeen trait as healing or a strange sort of magnetism. Primrose, Katniss. Ivy. I, like my father, am named after a baked good. They didn't even do me the common courtesy of spelling it correctly.

I'm so busy glowering at an innocent tray of freshly frosted cookies that I don't hear Petra and Heath stop talking, though they must, because he storms out of the bakery in a swirl of fresh air, as though he is being accepted back into his element.

"Rhye?" Petra says in a soft voice. I immediately try to arrange my face to into a less hostile expression. Unlike Ivy, I don't wear a glare well. When she's angry, her stare can liquefy the very bones of the unfortunate soul who has enraged her. I would know, I've been on the receiving end of her 'looks' often enough. When I try to glare back, she just laughs.

"Yeah?" I say guiltily, for I'm kicking myself for fixating on my sister when Petra is actually holding a conversation with me for once. I briefly fantasize about what might follow this opening. You look very nice today. Do you want to go out sometime? I wish I saw more of you. I stop myself, before I start hyperventilating or doing something equally embarrassing.

"How's your sister?" She says, instead.

I wonder if she can hear my teeth grinding together.

For a brief moment, I imagine screaming at her like I've wanted to scream at so many people who have asked the same question of me, always how's your sister? Or how's your mother? Or how's our father?

But never how are you?

Why do you only care about her? I scream in my head. Why does everyone only ever ask about Ivy? Why does Ivy matter more? When people talk about our family, do they say "Oh, yes, the Mellarks. Katniss and Peeta, of course, and their daughter, Ivy. Wait, don't they have a son, too? Ron, or something like that?" That's the way I imagine that conversation going in my head, Petra. And it's awful. It's awful to know that no matter how well I do at whatever I do, I'll always be the 'other' Mellark. It's awful that I'm dying a little, being here every day, doing nothing with my life at a job I don't even like, while Ivy's off earning acclaim and the hearts of every man in 4 just by breathing, as if that's some kind of miracle, while I'll be stuck here forever, until I can find some poor girl that will tolerate me enough to bear me a few more poor children to work in this bakery until we all die.

But self-pity has never been a family trait, on either side, and angry outbursts are strictly Everdeen territory (for which, of course, I do not apply). Mellark men are polite.

So I paste on a smile, and say, "She's great. You know Ivy, winning people over wherever she goes!" Which is weird, I almost say, because she's always so damned sullen. I hope I don't sound too bitter, but Petra cocks her head as if examining me more carefully.

"Are you alright?" She says finally, after a long, awkward pause.

And there it is. The question I always dream of someone asking me, me, and I have no reply.

"I'm f-fine," I stutter, "Why do you ask?"

She tilts her head just a fraction more. "You seem… restless. Or unhappy."

"I'm fine!" I force again, throwing her another dazzling (yeah, right) smile for effect.

"Rhye," she says, "Nobody said you always have to be perfect."

I almost laugh out loud. Perfect? Me? The family failure?

"Believe me, I'm far from perfect," I say instead.

"You seem sort of perfect," Petra says, still looking as if I'm a very interesting specimen she's seeing for the first time. It's a little exhilarating, because it's the first time she's ever really paid attention to me, but also a little alarming, because I get the feeling she doesn't like what she sees. "You have perfect grades, you're popular, you're always happy, and when you're not in school, you're here, being the Mellark in 'Mellark Family Bakery.'"

Her praise, if it can even be called that, should thrill me. Instead, it seems to pile up on me, slumping my shoulders and making my eyes prickle hotly.

"Petra," I say, a little thickly, much to my embarrassment, "You have no idea."

"About what?" She asks. She sounds genuinely interested in what I have to say, and having someone listen for the first time in a long time is just enough that before I can realize what I'm doing and stop myself, my mouth is open and I'm talking, saying things I've never said out loud before.

"Perfect? Perfect? Of all the people in my family, I'm not the perfect one. I'm not the prettiest one, or the smartest one, or the nicest one. In my family, I'm practically the black sheep. You want perfect, you have Ivy, who doesn't even try to get along with anybody and is still the most popular girl in the district, even after she's gone. I pass half a dozen boys each day who I know are still in love with my sister. Or my father, the revolutionary hero, and he doesn't even like it. All he wants to do is bake and paint. And even after everything, after all he's gone through, he's still the most genuine, caring person that I've ever known. And I'm expected to be just like him, only I don't know how, because even if I try all of my life, I will never be as genuinely nice as my father. There's nothing to say about my mother. She's the Mockingjay. That's quite the family legacy. Only sometimes, it's like she's not even my family, not even my mother. Sometimes, it's like she doesn't even see me, and it's worse since Ivy left."

I take a deep breath, intending to stop, embarrassed for myself, but Petra is staring at me with wide, concerned eyes, and I just can't.

"And there's me. The grades? The popularity? Ivy did it first. The politeness? It's all my father. Sometimes I wonder if my mother even is my mother, because I certainly didn't inherit any of her good traits. I have nothing that isn't my family's. I work in my father's bakery, doing his job. There is nowhere in this district where I fit in. The people in the Seam don't trust me, because I look like a townie. The people in town don't think I'm fully one of theirs. And—"

I'm about to come to some jaw dropping conclusion. I don't know what, because I'm pretty much just making this all up as I go, but I know it's going to be big.

And then the door opens again. And of all the people in this barren, Godless district who could walk through the door, my father does.

"Hello, Rhye," he says, with all his usual genuine nicety. "Petra," he says, nodding at her, "Orem."

Petra quietly greets him, never taking her wide eyes off of me, and Orem, who had been listening to my tirade open mouthed with half a cookie in his hand quickly shoves the rest in his mouth and squeaks out his own hello.

"Thank you for the bread, Mr. Mellark," Petra says, after a tense moment. "It's so nice of you to sell us the white bread at a discount price. My mother will be so pleased."

Dad, to his credit, doesn't show any more surprise than quickly cutting his eyes at me. "Sure," he says easily, coming behind the counter to stand with me, "I hope she feels better soon."

Because even without asking, my father knew that she wasn't feeling well. The most popular man in the district.

I feel another stab of senseless rage, feel my cheeks flush. I look at the counter, down at all the pastries my father so lovingly prepares each morning, rising with the sun, as if nothing could make him happier than helping to feed people, like there is nothing more important to him than the blinding smile on a dirty, malnourished child's face when he hands them a cookie for telling him what happened at school that day.

And knowing that I only have one job to perform, one single, solitary job, and I will never do even that half as well as my father does only makes me angrier.

"Rhye?" My father says, clapping a warm hand gently on my shoulder and looking at me with genuine concern.

All my rage instantly turns to shame. Who am I to begrudge my parents anything, when they worked so hard, went through so much, risked life and limb (literally, in the case of my father's oft-mourned missing leg) to overthrow the Capitol and allow us to lead this sort of life? Who did it all so that I would never fear the reaping? So that Ivy could move to 4 and have the life she wanted? And who am I to hate my sister, who is admittedly, even with all this distance, my closest friend? When I know that she doesn't try for attention, doesn't invite it, has never reveled in her accidental popularity?

"Yeah, dad," I say, a little huskily.

I feel so ashamed, so lost and confused. I can't look Petra in the eye. I can't look my father in the eye. I want to bury my face in the front of the crisp, white apron he's tied on, to wrap my arms around his sturdy, unwavering body and feel his own arms around me, warm and strong. I want to inhale the scent of bread that clings to him, warm and comforting and smelling like home. I want to feel like a child again, sheltered in his arms, knowing that nothing and no one can hurt me when my strong father is there to protect me.

I don't, even when he squeezes my shoulder and lingers a moment, unaware of how much I want to return to the comfort and safety he's always provided for me, just by existing, never taking anything for himself.

He doesn't finish his question. He lifts his hand and turns to busy himself with something else, and I lift my eyes to Petra, feeling as though I would rather die.

She blinks once at me, cuts her eyes over to my father's back, and then slowly turns.

"Well…" She says hesitantly, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow in school, Rhye."

She collects her brother and throws a final look over her shoulder at me.

The door closes behind her.

"Dad," I say suddernly, "I'll be right back."

And I rush out of the bakery, leaving him openmouthed behind me.

"Petra!" I call, though between balancing a loaf of bread and her squirming brother, she's only made it a few feet.

"Look," I say, "I'm so sorry. For what I said. It was childish and silly, and I hope you don't think badly of me."

"I don't think it was childish." She says, quite straightforwardly.

"And please, don't tell—you don't?"

"No." She says, and she even smiles a bit. "Rhye, it was refreshing. You were always so intimidating before, like no one could ever live up to you. I like you much better now." She smiles at me, and she's standing so close that I can see a small dimple at the left corner of her mouth. "Besides," she says, "With a family like yours, who could blame you?"

She turns to go again, and I watch her go. At the end of the street, before they turn, she looks back. "I'll see you in school, Rhye."

I hear her song float back to me on the breeze.