A/N: Thanks again for the reviews and alerts and reads, everyone! I love the most recent review from Anonymous. Haha. It's funny; after I finished HG I pressured my boyfriend into reading it ("It's good...yeah it's in the teen genre...sure there's a love triangle...but there's blood!...and death!...and dystopian societies!"). It took him a while to warm up to it particularly because he found Katniss's narration to be so whiny. I can neither blame her, though, because I suspect I'd be super whiny about it, too. But I'm hoping that this is just a passing phase and I can work Katniss back to her former selfless, brave, BA self! ...But a more adult, slightly less depressed one?

CHAPTER 13

Haymitch spends the following week in a drunken stupor at work while I waitress high and constantly scratching myself to the point of bleeding. It's disgusting and I'm sure incredibly unsanitary but oh well. Nobody's died.

This is our usual way of going about things except Haymitch is particularly hosed this week. He especially avoids eye contact with me, knowing that I would once again bring up our last conversation.

Haymitch is always a closed book when it comes to talking about his own life so I know he'll give me no more details. As the week draws to a close, though, I become more and more obsessed with finding out. My curiosity gets the best of me and I broach the topic with a red-eyed, puffy Haymitch.

"It is none of your goddamn business," he slurs at me.

"I just want to know. I'm so confused and if this could help me sort things out—"

"NO," he says firmly. "No. I don't need the whole filthy nation to know about my personal business more than they already do."

"I won't tell anybody, Haymitch. Not even Peeta. It'll stay between us."

Haymitch guffaws and condescendingly pats my cheek.

"Sure it will, sweetheart. Sure it will."

Really, it was a waste of time. I knew I'd get nowhere. Still, though, if Peeta and I are getting this much media coverage, surely there is at least some article in some publication that could point me in the right direction.

I decide to go to the library where I know public documents are kept. If I go back to the time of the 50th Hunger Games, surely there would be some information.

I pore over any news article that matches the target words "Haymitch" and "Abernathy". As I knew there would be, there is an obituary for Haymitch's parents shortly after his return from the Games. My heart sinks for the young Haymitch who was completely blindsided by President Snow's brutality. I had at least been given advanced warning by Haymitch. Of course, the article had blamed the deaths on a faulty line that caused the family to be exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning; all save Haymitch, of course, who was off doing press junkets at the time.

I continue through my search and find an obituary for a 16-year-old girl named Josephine Sweeney.

Josephine "Jo" Sweeney was found deceased October 20th at the age of 16 outside of the eastern fenced boundary of District 12. Cause of death unknown but autopsy revealed possible bear attack. Jo is survived by her mother, Eithal, three younger brothers: George, Ezekiel, and Threll, and her long-time sweetheart, Haymitch Abernathy, Victor of the 50th Hunger Games. Memorial will be held at the home of the family on November 1st at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Haymitch's girlfriend. I thought she had been killed alongside Haymitch's family. What could account for the gap in time between the deaths of Haymitch's parents and her own? This was not the account I had heard from Haymitch who had only stated simply and concisely, "My parents and my girl were all killed off by Snow following the Games."

Who was Josephine Sweeney? What kind of person was it that could love someone like Haymitch—or had Haymitch always been that way?

I print off the article and gently tuck it away in the safe folds of my pant pocket.

I find Peeta with whom I share the article. He's also curious but feels it would be better if we just let sleeping dogs lie.

"Why do you want to know so much anyway?" he asks me.
"Hm?"
"I mean, I love knowing what makes Haymitch tick as much as you do but…she died. The Capitol killed her just like they killed our families and friends. Who cares about the specifics? It's deliberate assassination. It's a painful memory."
"I just…he isn't giving us the whole story. That's what makes me want to know."

"Oh. It's that thing you do," Peeta comments, shrugging his broad shoulders.
"What thing? What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know what people want and you do exactly the opposite out of spite."
We look at each other and I feel like a kid caught with my hand in the cookie jar. He's got me. I say nothing.

"Real or not real?" he asks. I can't decide if he says this in irony or if he truly can't determine whether this is my true character or if his perception has been warped by the trackerjacker venom.

"I don't know," I mumble, gazing at the printed news article. "I dunno." I could feel my high begin to wane and I was getting impatient and cranky.

"Just leave it, Katniss," Peeta warns. "Haymitch doesn't ask us about the arena or about our dead family members. He doesn't want to remember. It's why he's drunken himself to near anoxia."

"Haymitch doesn't have to ask us about what happened. Nobody does! Our lives are an open book. I'm sick of everything just being out there for everyone to see. Don't you remember what it used to be like? When nobody gave a shit about us and I was free to starve and be neglected while you were free to be beaten by your mother without anyone asking any questions?"

Peeta looks at me in…well, I'm not quite sure what that look is. I've never seen it before. The best way I could describe it is by saying he had a look of disgust and hurt: his lips and jaw tight, his eyes ablaze. We'd never actually used the word "beat" or "abuse" when we talked about Peeta's childhood but in fact, we didn't need to; everyone at school knew it was true. The way his mother grabbed his arm with such force, the way she spoke to him…when we Seam kids would trod past the bakery on our way to school we could hear her abrasive words and the sickening sound of skin smacking against skin with force. You could never see Peeta's bruises, though. His mother was much too clever to hit him anywhere that would show.

"Right, because that was better."

I glance over at Peeta and I feel hot shame rising up in me. He's right. How dare I bring up past hurts and pour salt on our newly healing wounds? It doesn't matter.

"You know, I'm so sick of you walking around like we've got it so bad," Peeta says and shuts me up. "No, it's not great but we have food and shelter. We aren't fighting to the death in an arena and we're not evading the government's numerous plots to have us killed or tortured. Anything we want, all we have to do is say the word. We've got Haymitch and Greasy Sae and Delly and…and we've got each other. Katniss, doesn't that count for something?"

It does count for something but my pride gets the best of me and I stare through Peeta.

"Life isn't easy now but you know what? It never was. I don't know what you were expecting."

I don't know, either. I hadn't really gotten that far. Really, I guess I'd always assumed I'd be dead before I had to put much thought into it at all.

"Well, what did you expect?" I ask him. He gazes at me thoughtfully for a moment or two before entwining his fingers in the tangled strands of my hair and kisses me lightly on the lips.

"I thought I'd—well, I hoped we'd come back and things would be bad but we'd help each other get through it. We'd make each other happy."

I look down at my feet and hate my very existence. I don't want to be like this forever.

"I'm going to check on some dough I have rising in the kitchen. It's kind of late, Katniss."

Even after I've insulted and hurt him, Peeta is still too decent to outright ask me to leave.

I grapple with the door handle as I feel a sob rising up in my throat. I glance back at Peeta who is wholly consumed with his baking.

And then I do realize I feel like nothing without Peeta. I swore I'd never be like that. I swore I would never allow myself to become so entwined with another man's life so that if his thread was cut, my entire tapestry, my very being would come unraveled. I thought I had always prided myself on being independent, self-sufficient, feminist. I never wanted to be that sappy girl who crumbled at the slightest provocation.

I'm not really sure if it's just human nature, a necessity of survival, or if it's just the circumstances in which he and I found ourselves, but I sadly admit to myself that I do need Peeta for my own survival. Somewhere along the way, maybe half by choice and half by force, we had become entangled in each other's stories and psyches and desires. It was too much to pry ourselves from each other without ultimately compromising our own lives like some weird, metaphorical conjoined twins.

I had been insulted by the insinuation at the time, but it turns out Gale knew me better than I had thought: I did choose the one I needed for my own survival while still keeping him at a distance. I thought about what Haymitch said and gripped the news article in my palm. I needed to stop hurting the people I love but sometimes wounds just have to sting a little before you can move on to the healing part.

I couldn't bandage things just yet.