I'M SO SORRY THAT IT'S TAKEN ME SO LONG TO WRITE. LAST YEAR WAS A VERY HARD YEAR ON MANY LEVELS. NOT ONLY DID MY MOM DIE, BUT MY HUBBY, DAUGHTER AND I HAD TO MOVE IN WITH MY DAD AFTER WE LOST OUR PLACE. AND THEN AFTER THAT I FOUND OUT I WAS PREGNANT AGAIN, WHICH MEANT I HAD TO RETURN TO WORK FROM MATERNITY LEAVE EARLY TO ENSURE THAT I HAD MONEY TO GO ON LEAVE WITH A NEW ONE. I CAN SAY NO WE'RE LUCKY TO HAVE FOUND A NEW PLACE, AND LAST MONTH OUR NEWEST DAUGHTER WAS BORN. NOW THAT THINGS AREN'T CRAZY, I FINALLY FOUND THE URGE TO WRITE AGAIN. NOW THIS IS AN OLD CHAPTER THAT I HAD MADE SOME CHANGES TO AS I DIDN'T LIKE THE END TO IT. AND A NEW CHAPTER WILL BE UP VERY SOON.
~PEETA~
For the first time since they arrived home from the Victory Tour, Peeta didn't feel the urge to cut himself. His time with Katniss this past week had given him hope. She had been trying to help him through all the hurt he had been feeling. And not just what she had put him through, but the physical and emotional hurt that his mother had put him through. Until him and Katniss talking, he had never realized that he held some recentment towards his father, for him never stopping his mother's abuse. He also held resentment towards his family for not reaching out to him after the fight he had with his mother, the last time he had been to the bakery.
"Hey Peeta," Katniss said as she walked through his back door, into his kitchen.
"Hey Kat," he said looking up from drawing he had been working on. Since going to the meadows, he been drawing each day again, and not just his nightmares. He was drawing things that made him happy, scenery that he thought was beautiful. He was finally feeling like himself again. "I was thinking that I could help you finish your family plant book. You could do the descriptions, and I could do the drawings." What better way to get closer then to spend more time, getting to know her personally.
"Really, you'd help me with that?" she smiled over at him, as she sat on the stool beside him.
"Oh course," he smiled. He knew how much this book meant to her, and he thought it would mean a lot to her to finish it. "When would you like to start?"
"How about right now?"
"Sounds perfect, I'll go upstairs and grab some more paper and paints," he said, before getting up from his stool.
He was in his kitchen cooking Katniss's new favourite, cheese buns, when he heard his doorbell ring. He stopped kneading the dough, took the tea towel, and wiped his hands, before answering the door.
He wasn't sure who it could be. It couldn't be Katniss, cause she would just walk in after the initial knock, and Prim was busy at the Seam today, trying to help the people out. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see who was at the other side. "Dad…"
"Hi Peeta." Just by looking at him, you could tell that he was nervous to be standing there.
Peeta stared at his father, he couldn't believe that he was standing in front of him, on his porch. This was definitely the first time he had step foot in Victory Village. He couldn't believe after all this time he was actually standing at his door, "What you doing here?" he said with a little bit of hostility. It was the first time he had ever talked to his father like that. He had always been the model son, doing everything he could to please his parents, trying not to set off his mother. But Katniss told him that he needed to stand up for himself, that he should tell them how he really felt, not keep it all bottled up.
"I came to see you. We haven't seen you in months, and I was beginning to worry about you."
"It's been 6 months dad, what took you so long!" he scuffed. If he was so worried why had it taken him so long. He hadn't stepped back into town since that fateful day that he walked out of the Bakery, except for when he had to leave on the Victory Tour.
"I'm sorry I let your mom control me, and neglected you when you needed me the most." He could see the regret written all over his face.
"Of course you are. She's been controlling you my whole life. I'm sick of it, and your excuses. A mother & father are supposed to protect their children. But no mother verbally, and physically abused us. Leaving us with physically & emotional scares. And you just sat back and watched it happen, not protecting us like you should have."
"I—" he tried to begin, but his son cut him off. "No child should be afraid of doing something wrong that may set your mother off, that she may hurt you again, that next time may be your last moment. My whole life I had to lie to make sure that no one knew what was happening, why I had a new bruise, or scar. But I guess I should thank you & mother; if it wasn't for all the lying I had to do growing up, I wouldn't be the speaker I am today, and I wouldn't have been able to have saved Katniss & I like I did. I use to idolize you, and wanted to be just like you." Tears began to fall from his eyes, "Then I came back from the Hunger Games, and you guys left me to move into this big house alone. To relive the horrors of the games, over and over again. And then when I disappeared for months before the Victory Tour, you didn't even come to see if I was okay. No, it was the Everdeen family that began to worry about me, that seeked me out."
"I'm so sorry," he cried. "I know I can't change what happened then, but I want to change it now," he tried pleading with his son.
"Well, guess what…it's too late for that. You lost every right when you ignored me for 6 months."
"But—-" Peeta couldn't take it anymore, he cut him off, "I want you to LEAVE!" Deep down he didn't mean it, but he was still so hurt from what he had been through. Hurt that his father wasn't by his side when he needed him the most. Someone there for him like he always prayed for.
He doesn't give him time to say anything before he slams the door in his face. He feels a sigh of relief to finally get all of that off his chest. It was the first time in his life that he had been perfectly honest with his dad, on how he was doing, instead of putting on a facade. He felt so free, he wanted to share it with Katniss. If it hadn't been for her, and her talks with him this past week, he would never have had the courage to tell his father how he really felt after all this time.
He walked out the front door, and down his deck stairs, towards the Everdeen household. He decided to go to the back door, knowing that Katniss was probably out back skinning the animals she hauled in today.
He stops in place when he overhears someone talking loudly, "Katniss, this can't be real. What happened to what you told me before the Victory Tour?" It didn't take a genius to know that was Gale's voice. He knew that she went hunting with him on Sunday's, but didn't expect him to be here with her.
"Things have changed Gale, I don't have a choice—-" His heart dropped, she was playing him a fool again. He wasn't going to listen to this anymore. He ran back towards his house. Once again he was caught in her web. What a fool he was.
~KATNISS~
"Even if I wasn't engaged to Peeta it wouldn't matter."
"You only have to pretend for the Capital, not for District 12."
She turned away from him, looking into the forest that was behind her home, "I wouldn't feel right about it." She couldn't be with Gale, like he wanted her to be. Something about hurting Peeta that way made her uneasy.
"He's the reason you have to pretend," he said with anger.
Spinning around, pointing towards Peeta's home, "No, he's the reason I'm alive." She hated how he blamed it on Peeta. He was just doing everything he could to save her. Even if she hadn't like what he had done. She couldn't hate him for it, he was part of the reason she got to come home to Prim. Things were different now. She genuinely cared about him, and wouldn't want to hurt him anymore then she already had. Of all the people, he was the last person that deserved that treatment. He had been willing to give his life for her, if it meant she was alive, and able to return to her sister. She had never meant someone so selfless, and she had been so willing to push him to the side. She had been so selfish on how she feeling after the games, she never once thought of his feelings. Well she was not about to continue that. She was going to continue to be there for Peeta, and make sure he no longer felt alone.
Calming herself down, before speaking again, "Despite any of this, I don't love you like that."
Pulling her into him, forcing her to look at him, he pleaded to her, "Katniss don't do this, don't push me away."
She was irritated by him, and the fact he just wasn't listening, but she chose to be nice, and let him down gently, "I'm not pushing you away. I will always love you as a friend, and for what you have done for my family. But I can't love you like want me to."
Dropping her hands, "So you want to be with Peeta?"
Taking a deep breath, "I don't know," she says before walking away.
Since he almost kissed her in the Capital she had been conflicted, so she ended up pushing him away again. And now that they were talking again, she was starting to get confused. She was never good with her emotions. She was afraid at what it meant.
Katniss looked at the clock again. Peeta was suppose to be by tonight, he said that they would be by to work on the plant book, but had yet to come. She wondered if something happened. She knew he hadn't cut in a week, but she wasn't stupid, she knew it wouldn't be that easy for him. She got up off of the couch, and walked out the door.
As she drew closer to his home, she noticed that all the curtains were closed again. She suddenly got a bad feeling in her gut. She went to open his front door, but it was locked. It was like déjà vu. This time she wasn't going to bother checking the back, she knew it would be locked, and he wasn't likely to leave a window open again if he didn't want to be bothered. She wasn't about to allow him to close himself off again. This time she was determined to be his friend, be there when he needed her like she had promised. It started now.
She took off her sweater, and covered her hand with it before punching through the glass window on his door. She carefully put her hand through the window, and unlocked the door from the inside.
She saw no sign of him being on the first floor, so she darted upstairs towards his room. When she opened his room, where she found him on the floor, in a ball, with a pool of blood around him. Her heart sunk.