A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in...well, forever. I've slowly been easing out of writer's block on this. Chapter by chapter things should be getting better. Thanks to whoever is still reading this! Sorry for such a short chapter!
I don't know how long Halem talked. Frankly, I don't even try to remember now. I just know that I sat facing him while I quietly listened and wondered how I could let all this slip past without any consideration. I was selfish. I was being selfish and I couldn't stop blaming myself for causing him so much stress when he had these feelings for me the whole time. I didn't think I was the bad guy, but now it was looking more and more like that. I knew I had to stop thinking about myself and help those around me because even though I knew I only had a few more days left to live, that didn't allow me to forget that I wouldn't be the only one affected by such a travesty. I had forgotten how much death could hurt other people, too.
Halem had first met me when we bumped into each other at school. Even though his situation was rough for a boy from District 10, school was still compulsory for him. Most of the students would have ignored him and moved on because of his position, but I had stayed behind to help him collect his books from the floor. Classic, right? Anyway, that lit a spark in him that kept him paying attention to me. He wasn't like a stalker or anything like that, he just managed to pay attention whenever my name came up or I happened to pass by. Little by little he began to learn who I was by catching snippets of information through the years. I slowly grew on him without even knowing it, building a reputation in his heart unmatched by any other soul. It wasn't his family's faces that he wanted to see again when he fought his way through the Hunger Games two years ago, it was mine. He promised himself that he would find me after he got back and tell me exactly how he felt, that that was why he had to live.
He never said anything to me when he returned. He couldn't. The life of a celebrity was a busy one. He had tours to do, parties to attend, and by that time I was already hired to work in the fields. He was never able to find me, and waiting by the school would have looked peculiar. Why would a winner want to hang out with a bunch of loser schoolchildren?
Everything had changed just a few days ago. My name had been called for Reaping. It was the one time that he had never wanted to hear it, yet the cruel irony of it all had to land on him. His care and consideration for me hadn't been that of a mentor, it had been of a boy who was terrified that his love might slip away a second time. He used the subterfuge of crude remarks and a snarky attitude in order to hide his feelings, but he had done a poor job. Still I had been blind enough to completely ignore it.
I felt so stupid.