For the next two weeks I'm with Katniss every day. Every day I try to put up walls around my heart, but every day she tears them down with one look, one gesture, one touch. I'm hopelessly devoted to her. I take joy in carrying her from one room to another. Every day I'm unprepared for the effect our physical proximity has on me. Like a fire fanning inside of me, how is it possible that she doesn't feel it. I enjoy watching her smile as I carry her in my arms. Katniss is the least helpless person I know. She's completely capable of saving herself, it's why I admire her so. As much as I love this, a bigger part of me hates that she has to be vulnerable or injured for me to be close to her, because that's really not her nature. Regardless, I relish these moments. I'm happy to sit around talking to her, baking for her, moving her from one room to another. She even asked me to help her with a very personal project she has been working on. Her family has kept a medicinal book, where they add details about herbs. She asks me to draw the plants onto the pages. I'm touched, I'm honored because I feel that somehow my hand will leave a permanent mark in her life through this book. A book that is so dear to her.
She also tells me about the women she ran into in the woods, that they were going to District 13. I'm shocked because it can't be. We agree to keep quiet about it. I don't know what to make of the situation. A part of me is terrified for the people of Panem, another part of me is thrilled that a nationwide uprising is in the works, and a part of me nervous and hopeful that there may be an elusive District 13 in the outskirts, waiting to swoop in and save us. I think about me and Katniss getting married and I hope that we have Snow's full attention so that the Districts can keep organizing themselves. It's funny, we're suppose to distract the districts but we're also distracting him. Even though he's attacking the districts he's not fully paying attention. But a part of me knows there is so much more to all of this.
With each passing day I catch her looking at me. Studying me. I see her staring at me out of the corner of my eye or sometimes she looks down, pretending to work on something else but I can see that she's hiding her gaze underneath her thick eyelashes. It takes all my will power to suppress the warm smile spreading across my heart. I wonder what she's thinking but I don't ask. One day she asks that I move her to a den in the house. I carry her and as we enter this room, we are startled by the large boxes spread throughout the room. The boxes have been uncovered and inside stand six bridal gowns. The dresses that the Capitol sent her. We stand frozen. I'm honestly horrified at the site of them. I feel her gaze on me.
"Peeta." She calls to me.
I turn to look at her, I had actually forgotten that she was in my arms "Yeah?'
"What are we going to do?" She asks.
I think of my friends of the brewing rebellions and if our wedding distracts Snow then so be it. "I guess we get married." I reply simply.
She looks away and looks at each one. "My mom must have opened the boxes to air them out. I didn't know they were in here, I had actually forgotten about them." She says.
"Let's get out of here." I say. I take us back to the living room.
Once in the living room I sit down on the sofa and I position Katniss so that she's resting her back on the arm rest allowing her to stretch her legs out over mine. We start to talk about the book and we list the plants she wants to work on. I show her my sketch book and start making note of her descriptions. We work for about an hour and I start to feel tired. I look at her and see the dark circles under her eyes.
"Have you been sleeping at all?" I ask her.
"You know how it goes." She replies. "You look tired" she says as she reaches to touch my face and she runs her fingers under my eyes.
"yeah. I've been struggling." I say, thinking of everything I've been through this past month from my friends to her.
"I heard about what happened to your friend." She says. I look at her and realize she's talking about Ivy. "I'm sorry. I hear in town that she's doing better. I also heard what happened to her father." She continues.
"Yeah, I haven't had a chance to see her." I say nervously and regretfully. "Her father is paying now, in the Capitol no less." I don't add anything more because I don't want to talk about any of it with her. I don't want to give myself away. "Would you like me to let you sleep?" I offer changing the subject.
She looks at me sheepishly. "I am tired but you don't have to leave, I'd hate for you to leave only to return in an hour cause I doubt I'll sleep much." She says.
I lean into her and brush her hair behind her ear "It's no bother. I'll let you sleep." I insist. I'm about to leave but she grabs my hand.
Without looking at me she pleads "will you stay with me… hold me." Then she gathers the nerve to look at me. I can't deny her anything. So I move behind her and wrap my arms around her. She leans her body into me and we both exhale simultaneously.
"Thank you" she says. "I've been so tired."
"Me too." I respond.
In a matter of minutes we fall asleep. We are woken up by a bitter voice. I open my eyes and see Gale standing by the door.
"You have to be fucking kidding me!" he says. I look at Katniss and she's glaring at him. I look at the wall and then at the clock. We ended up sleeping soundly for hours. "You want to explain baker boy?" He asks me for some reason.
I give him a confused look "Yeah, we were sleeping." I say plainly. I start to move as gently and as slowly as possible. I proceed to ignore him completely. "Katniss, I'm going to get up so be careful, I don't want to hurt you." I shift her body gently and I'm up on my feet. Then I look at her "do you want to sit up?"
"yes please. You can sit me on the rocking chair." She says.
I'm about to lift her in my arms and Gale actually pushes me away from her.
"I can do that!" he shouts at me.
"Gale!" Katniss protests. "What the hell is wrong with you, he's only helping me!"
I can't help but laugh and Katniss has to hold Gale back by clutching on to his arm.
"No, no, it's alright. He's right he's here now, he wants to help out. I'm going to leave you two alone." I say. I start to walk away and turn my back towards them
"Yeah, you do that." He says to me, but he doesn't end things there he continues "Hey I see that your frozen pond is clear of snow, why don't you get your good friend Madge to come skate with you." The moment I hear Madge's name I freeze. He continues "Maybe you'll get lucky again and she'll get snowed in so that you two can entertain each other again on end and to your heart's content." He says at me.
I turn back around "Why don't you shut your mouth Gale." I am furious, how dare he talk about her like that. Especially after how he treated her.
"Gale! You have no right to talk about her like that! She's my friend and Peeta's my friend!" Katniss protests.
"Oh yeah, she a great friend." He says cynically and crassly.
"I'm warning you Gale." I threaten him.
"Peeta, just go, please." She starts to look concerned at me. I ignore her and walk up to Gale. "You don't talk to me about Madge, you don't get to talk to anyone about Madge." I glare at him. "I mean it." I say and he stays quiet and he looks at me sickly. "I'll see you tomorrow Katniss." I add and I turn around without looking at her. I can't believe him. He's clearly suspicious about what happened between me and Madge but he actually wants to use it against me. He won't though, because he knows that if he does, Madge will tell Katniss about her affair with Gale. I don't care if Katniss finds out about us, I'm not trying to protect myself, I'm trying to protect Madge. For one, I know Madge loves Katniss and that her affair with Gale left her feeling very guilty but then Gale should feel just as guilty if not more. But instead, he's trying to bring me and Madge under. What he did is worse, because Katniss loves him, he betrayed that, I didn't. I'm furious.
The next morning I show up at Katniss's house a little later than usual. When I enter her bedroom I see her looking out her window staring at my house.
"Hey." I call out to her.
She's startled. "Hey." Then she smiles. "I was starting to think you weren't going to come by… because of yesterday." She says
I laugh. "I'll stop coming by when you ask me to stop coming, not when Gale wants." I assure her. I walk towards her and she throws her arms around me with her eyes fixed on mine. I feel butterflies in my stomach and I smile at her. I lift her in my arms. "Ready?" I ask.
"Ready." She replies with a smile.
Once we're downstairs I set her down on the sofa and we begin to work. We don't move for hours. I continue to sense her eyes on me, studying me. I become aware that I go into a trance as I draw and during this time she sits silently, studying me. After some time she begins to look uncomfortable.
"You in pain?" I ask her.
"Peeta will you hand me a pillow" she requests giggling. I guess her tail bone is still sore. I reach for a pillow and she tries to lean back but can't quite manage it.
"Let me help." I say. She bends her knees so that I can stand up again and without really thinking I grab her waist and easily lift her off the sofa so that her torso is off the sofa. I look at her eyes and realize that I startled her. "Sorry. I should have told you what I was going to do. Did I hurt you?"
She stares at me trying to find words. "It's fine." She says nervously and I swear I see her blush. She quickly grabs the pillow sets it underneath her and I gently set her back down. I sit back down on the sofa, and she comfortably throws her legs over my own. She hands me her family book and we begin to work again.
I like how lost she gets in her explanations of these life saving plants. I can tell that it means everything to her. I also enjoy learning something new every day. I use my sketch book and draw her descriptions and I work on them until they meet her approval.
"Don't be afraid to be a hard critic. We don't want to poison anyone." I say jokingly. we laugh at the idea but I stop immediately because I think of Foxface. I continue to draw and let myself get consumed by the drawing. I realize that I have been working non-stop for I don't know how long and Katniss hasn't made a sound. I turn to her and I'm taken aback when I see the expression on her face. Total concentration as she looks at me. Has she been staring at me the whole time?
I finally ask her. "What are you looking at?"
She blushes and looks away. "Hum, nothing… I was just lost in thought." She replies nervously.
"What were you thinking?" And I gently nudge her chin towards me so that she looks at me again. The moment my finger graces her chin I feel a spark and this makes her look right at me nervously.
"Your eyelashes are really long." She says nervously. I start to study her face closely and I can't stop staring at her lips. I force myself to look at her eyes.
"You were staring at my eyelashes this whole time?" I reach out and brush her lose strands of hair behind her ear. Once again I feel a spark when my finger touches her. She takes a deep breath and looks me in the eyes again. I start to feel a pull towards her.
"They're just so long." She starts to sound like she's out of breath. She laughs nervously and tries to compose herself. "So impossibly long." She says again.
"I never noticed" I whisper to her, I don't know why I'm whispering.
She smiles "Yeah, they are." She whispers back. "I wonder how they don't get all tangled up." She laughs nervously.
"No one had ever pointed that out. Maybe no one had ever noticed." I say honestly, still in a whisper.
"I did. I noticed." She says in a breathy whisper.
"When did you first notice?" I ask her, and I suddenly realize that we are inching closer and closer with every word we say.
"I don't know, a long time ago." She says and she actually reaches out to touch my face. I press my cheek to her hand and I kiss her palm. "I have been looking for a long time, a very long time… since the bread." She says breathlessly. I don't know how we ended up here but her face is right in front of mine. I can breathe her breath. I nudge my nose to hers and outline it with mine. This makes her close her eyes and press her forehead to mine. I just let that magnetic pull take me and right as our lips are about to touch we hear a door slam shut. We jump startled and now find ourselves pulled apart. In walks Gale, completely disappearing this moment from existence. He walks into the room without looking at me.
"Hey Catnip." He says sweetly, flashing her a smile then he walks to her and kisses her on the lips. Katniss looks startled by him and is left speechless she can't even look at me. I look away from the two of them.
"Well I'm going to leave the two of you alone." I stand up and I can't get away soon enough. I feel my heart break all over again as I exit her house and walk down the street. What the hell was just about to happen? Did I imagine it? I stop for a second and take a deep breath. I'm about to enter my house but I hear him.
"Mellark." Gale calls out to me. I turn around and see him standing at the bottom of my steps.
"What?" I say coolly.
"You're not playing nice. I saw what almost happened in there." He says truthfully. I get it now, he must have walked in saw us but went back to slam the door to stop it, thus allowing him to avoid the reality of it with her. Clever move. I take a moment to think about how I feel about this before I say anything to him. So I'm completely honest.
"I'm sorry. I didn't see it coming. Her and I, we have a connection, and we got pulled into it. And you're right I need to respect your relationship. I apologize." I say sincerely.
He stares at me. "You fucked it all up for me, for her, for us. Do you know how unfair that was?" he protests.
"Yeah, I do. And I'm sorry." I say sincerely. "Gale my intentions were to die out there, to help her win the Game. I had no intention of coming back. I knew she'd come back to you. She did. Only I was left standing too. And I'm sorry that it worked out like that. I'm sorry that we're now bound together. But you have nothing to worry about. At the end of it all, her connection to me is bound to horrors you can't even imagine." I say sincerely. He just stares at me and nods.
"If you're lonely seek one of your town girlfriends out; Delly, Ivy, Madge or who ever. I don't give a fuck but leave Katniss alone." He tells me.
"there it is again." I say in disbelief and I'm angry again. "There it is again, just say it. What's on your mind, what's bothering you more? My near kiss with Katniss or the fact that I had sex with Madge?"
He stares angrily at me. "so you admit it, you had sex with her." he says.
"Yeah, I admit it. But it's not for the sick reasons you're thinking about. We are friends, we were heartbroken, me over Katniss and she over you. It just happened. We didn't plan it, yes it was out of consolation but we care about each other. We are friends through and through and I am not going to let you put her down. Especially not because she was foolish enough to fall for you." I tell him.
"What would Katniss think about that?" he asks.
I laugh feeling frustrated. "I don't know only one way to find out." When he doesn't respond, I continue, "At the end of it all, Katniss would understand Madge because she would understand that she acted out of love and because she wanted something serious with you. And that's all that matters. I don't know what she would think of your reasons for using Madge as jus a sex object."
"You don't know anything." He shoots back when I say this about Madge.
"Look at that, I hit a nerve." I smile. "You're right I don't know anything because if it were just sex you wouldn't be acting like a jealous fool over Madge. But then you'd have to explain to Katniss why you turned to Madge on two separate occasions and sure as hell treated her and made her feel like nothing more than a piece of meat." I say to him.
"What about you, how do you fair in this whole triangle?" He asks me. "You think you're going to come out looking shiny and clean like Katniss's pedestal boy." He adds.
"I don't know. I honestly don't. But it can't be as bad as you, because she loves you. She doesn't love me." I tell him truthfully. It hurts like hell to say it but it's the truth. I finally turn around and go into my house. He didn't have anything else to say to me.