I sit in the car. I think about why any of are still alive. Haymitch? What is he a drunkard and yet I respect him? Peeta, he's vulnerable slightly pathetic. Johanna, a whore, a savage. Then I lash out at the easy target.
"You think he actually wants to marry you Effie?"
"Katniss" Peeta hisses at me.
"No! Don't pretend you don't think it's stupid."
"Katniss just because that girl went off on you doesn't excuse you going off on me. You can be a rude, immature, brat sometimes! I've put up with it for almost three years now! So I'll just say it, it may not be very polite but, get over yourself! Like you're that great. Look at what you did to Peeta."
The car fell silent. My heart hurt after Annie's outburst. I'm not sure what to think about Haymitch and Effie. It seems like it's just easy for him. Effie thinks that pearls come from coal what does he see in her? She's right. I abandoned Peeta. More than once. I hurt other people when it's me who hurts myself. Effie stares straight at me. Eyes fierce, unrelenting.
"I'm sorry Effie. That was uncalled for. You're right." I say this monotone. Apologies are hard.
"Thank you"
We sit silently watching the streetlamps buzz by. We're all broken. All of us.
"Tomorrow is the film and hospital opening. Katniss expect to see your mother."
I feel a bit of happiness. My mother. It was too painful for her to return to Twelve. But she's doing what she was born to do. The heavy shadow of tragedy is behind her. I smile openly. The car stops and we pull up to the resort. Johanna throws the door opened and sprints out toward the backyard area of her cabin.
"Wanna know how Finnick and Annie fell in love?" Johanna asked once we had caught up with her.
"Yes" I reply.
"He was her sponsor. She volunteered as a career but I don't think anyone had their money on her. He liked her and supported her, but Finnick was good at keeping himself distant from the tributes. Winning the Games was hard for her. She was worse off than she is now. Mags is the one who helped her along. After the Victory Tour she would swim to get away from it all. Mags couldn't go along so Finnick would to make sure she was okay. I guess they opened up and started talking about things. Things only Victors know. He eventually lived to talk to her, or so he told me. They comforted each other. I know it looked one sided but she made him the boy from Four before the reaping. The one who fished and swam and had fun. He made her… happy, stable, he brought stability to her and made her laugh. She kept away his nightmares. He eventually couldn't sleep without her."
That sounded strangely familiar to me. Peeta. I can't sleep without Peeta. We stirred up controversy on the train when he would slip into my room at night. I loved Peeta then. I just thought I owed Gale.
"What about you Johanna?"
"No. I didn't have anything like that. Too scared about what the Capitol would do. I'm too damaged to love. I talked to Blight a lot. He understood. I hacked at trees. That was what I did. I think Blight did too. His hands shook after the games. He was my friend. I didn't give him enough credit. He was probably my closest friend. He was too burly to be sold around the Capitol so he got to keep his loved ones. He had more to lose than me."
"Look at the stars" Peeta interrupted.
We looked up and did. They sky was filled to the brim and it reflected off the water it was like we were swimming in them.
"Why are we alive?" I blurt out loud.
"Dunno." Says Haymitch. "Unlucky I guess."
"I'm serious. We killed people. We're nothing to be celebrated. At one time everyone wanted to kill us. I didn't hate any of those people in the arena. None of them did nothing to me. The careers were made into what they were." I say. "We're just cunning. We're not even humans anymore. We're freaks, myths. Hollow. If they could see who we really are." Everyone laughs out loud when I said this.
"Victors who sleep with nightlights." Haymitch says out loud.
"Peeta's my living teddy bear." I say out loud.
"Wanna hear something weird.. I sleep under my bed sometimes." Johanna says "I feel safer. What do you do weird now Peeta? Paint yourself like a rock before bed?"
He laughs to himself.
"No. I protect Katniss. That was my purpose right?"
I nod.
"Sometimes I think it's worse awake. Having a monster living inside me."
"It would be nice to sleep in trees." I say
We laugh.
"I bet Enobaria sleeps like a baby at night." Johanna says and we fall silent. "She was living the dream in the arena. That bitch got to live when people like Finnick died. I should've planted an axe in her face and pled insanity."
"She voted yes. She wanted revenge." Haymitch piped up.
We fall silent again.
"They let her go. She didn't get tortured like we did."
The urge for revenge runs deep in Johanna. It must tear her apart. She gets up and heads to her cabin.
"Night-night." She calls
Peeta is sitting there eyes dialated to the point where barely any of their blue is visible. I roll my eyes.
"What are we doing? None of us should be here." I stomp away. He's not even Peeta anymore. I was supposed to die. Then he pulled me out he wanted to see me. He's responsible for my pain. He made me live. I lived for him. What does he get out of it? He gets to fight the mutt dreams? He gets to hold me while I scream? I go to the mini bar and open all the little liquor bottles I can find and down them all. Drowning the pain. If it works for Haymitch it works for me. The world starts to spin and I lay down on the tile floor. Peeta walks in after a while and sees me laying there in my drunken stupor. His face flushes and he marches over to me. He rummages through the mini bar clanking around the little bottles.
"All of them Katniss? Really? Does it help you? You want to be like Haymitch?" He toes me laying there.
"Oh because it's so much better being like you. Get off your high horse Peeta. What's the point? It's better just to suffer? You're so full of shit."
"Do whatever you want."
"You still want to marry me? Huh? Is this the image of the perfect bride."
His eyes get blurry with tears.
"Yes." He turns leaves and I hear the bedroom door slam.
I lay back down on the cool tile and hope to die. I don't want to face any of those people. Eventually I fall into a tormented sleep. Clove with her head smashed in. Cato crawling on his hands eaten by mutts. Finnick screaming for Annie headless. Apologizing that he left. He left her all alone. I wake up on the floor screaming alone. Peeta is sitting in on the sofa staring at me. I wretch and vomit on the floor.
"Peeta help me." I reach my arms out for him like a child reaches for their mother. He gets up and scoops me up carrying me to the bathroom where he strips off my clothes. He runs a cool bath washing my hair. He slips in the tub behind me and holds me while I soak his face buried in my neck. I can feel a warm tear escape his eye. His kisses are warm and chaste upon my shoulder.
"I hate to see you this way."
"I hate to be this way." I keep my eyes closed. I feel humiliated. All he wants is to love me. I don't let him. "I'll marry you. I'll marry you now if you want."
He tenses.
"Katniss you know I want that. I want it when you're well. Sleep on it okay?"
The silence grabs hold of the room again.
"Do you still love me?"
"I do"
He helps me from the tub and dries me off. We go to bed naked and hold each other. I drift back to sleep. No dreams.
We wake with Effie calling chastising us for being late to breakfast. We dress and go down. I wear a sundress she bought me. Green and flowing, the wind breathes through it.
"Another big, big day."
"So for the opening of the Hospital and film you ladies will be made over by your prep teams. You won't be required to give any speeches but there is a red carpet of sorts. Oh, and Katniss word came from the Capitol that your petition to repeal the Hunger Games vote passed, so congratulations on that."
That brightens my day. Knowing the Games will never take place.
"For now the day is ours and we can spend it as we please."
Johanna looks at me.
"Wanna just chill at the beach?"
I nod in the affirmative.
We lay out there for a while. And I think. I think about Peeta and his kind heart, who always comes to me even when I'm a brat. Who's devotion is to the point of death. I loved him in the cave, on the train, in my bed when I broke my heel, I love him now, and I never want to love again. I never wanted to live without him. I planned on dying without him. For him. He made my world spin.
Eventually we retired back to our cottages. Peeta creeping silently behind me. As though still afraid I will lash out.
"Peeta I slept on it."
"Oh." He replied
"I want to get married. I can't live without you. Privately, in twelve no one gets to know but who we choose."
He smiles and rushes to me wrapping those strong arms around me.
"You'll marry me?" He whispers
"Yes" I reply
He kisses me grabbing my face as he does so. I am thrown into a world of vivid color. My heart flutters and my body shivers without my consent. Peeta loses his balance and we fall on the floor still kissing. Tongues rolling, breath heavy.
"Oh Katniss" He says and pulls my dress off. My chest is bare. He kisses my neck and grabs one of my breasts in his hand and licks it gently then sucks it. He moves his hands down to my cunt rubbing the dampness over my panties. He stops and picks himself up off the ground. Standing over me he says.
"Katniss Everdeen you can have all of me. And I get all of you." He picks me up off the floor and throws me over his shoulder. I laugh. He throws me down on the bed.
"Where do I start?" He runs his hands down my breast stopping to stroke each nipple. He then traces around my ribs to my waist then he stops and rips off my panties. "Hmmmm…"
He slips his fingers inside me and slowly begins to stroke in and out. He kisses me on the mouth and I let out a moan. He strokes faster, harder not stopping kissing me. He slows down to place my hand on his erection. I reach underneath his shorts and stroke him, he moans.
"Oh God. I love you."
I look at him impishly.
"Show me."
He laughs then looks me over. He strokes my face then wraps his hand around my neck leaning forward as if to whisper in my ear and penetrates me fully.
"Do you want me?" He asks
"I need you."
"Show me." He says.
I wrap my legs around him and push my hips into his, then I grab each buttock and press him deeper into me. He shutters. I roll to my left and mount him. I look down at him as I undulate back and forth his nails digging into my back. I love the pain.
"Draw blood." I say and he presses harder.
He then rolls on top of me and thrusts in me with all his power then withdraws. He takes me from my position to standing with my back to him. He presses his arms around me as though bear hugging me, then slides one arm down my side and raises my leg onto the bed. Once again he enters me. He thrusts deeply not pulling out too much with each stroke. With one strong arm he presses me against him leaning down to kiss me, with the other he massages my clit. I feel my body quiver and I raise an arm around his neck and begin to writhe. He massages more firmly and changes his strokes to more girations. I feel myself falling into his whim.
"Do you want to scream?" He asks but I already am. I let out a long cry, then I scream his name. When I have finished he bends me over and pumps until he comes inside me. He crumples on top of me in a heap.
"God what you bring out of me." He says. I giggle a bit rolling over to look him face to face and we kiss deeply. There's a knock at the doors separating us from the outside world.
"You guys okay?" It's Johanna. "You could wake the dead! Effie said your prep team is here Katniss."
"Kay" I respond waving her off. She gives me a thumbs up and strides away.
Peeta puts on clothes. Theres no point for me to. I'm about to get made up anyway.
"I'm going to go hang out with Haymitch" Peeta says
I nod and he leaves. My prep team files in.
"You're ready for us." They say regarding my naked form.
I laugh. Yes I think that's why I'm naked I think to myself.