Every District is a challenge but they all manage to get easier after 11. Looking into the eyes of the families who lost their children, especially the lives we've personally taken, it destroys me. Whenever I enjoy a District, the smell of the trees or the animals, I begin to feel guilty. Someone else could've been here to experience this. Travel through the Districts.
It isn't until we reach District 4 that I stop building up the guilt. I won't look at the family of the girl I killed, I can't. I won't. I rub my temples to ease away my headache. I tell myself that guilt is an excuse to pity yourself, and considering I'm alive I have no excuse for pity.
Instead of wallowing around in my room, I follow Madge out to the shoreline with my camera and take pictures of her with her feet in the water. She tells me stories of how the ocean came to be, and though they're just stories I chose to believe them. She laughs as I splash her. Her dress billows in the sea breeze. We watch a fishing ship return home for the celebration tonight. Only once do we catch the cameras watching us, and even then we pretend that they aren't.
Because this isn't for them.
Madge digs her hands into the sand and spreads it over her toes, grain by grain. "I could fall in love with the ocean if they'd let me," she tells me. "It's beautiful here."
I gaze across the waves that lap at the shore, the sparkle of the sun that reflects over the ocean. "Which part?"
"All of it. The smell, the breeze," she lays backwards in the sand. "The air."
"Better than coal dust," I mutter instantly.
I can't help but compare every District to our own. The way that some of the people in District 10 are able to ride horses around, galloping through the trails and receiving their small burst of freedom. Or the way District 7 smells, like pine and heaven. It reminded me of the woods. Yes, all District's have their troubles, but compared to 12 they don't seem as bad.
She smiles lightly and shrugs, propping herself back up on her elbows. "Maybe. District 12 lacks physical beauty but has other hidden wonders."
My eyebrows lift and I lean to face her. "That so?"
"Yes," she nods. "We get a quiet life. No one expects much from us. Families have more time together, I think, than if we lived in a place like this. Men go out on fishing trips for days at a time, at least ours get to come home every night." Her smile dims a bit. "We have the meadow. I think that's beautiful."
"You've been to the meadow?"
Again she shrugs, "Once or twice with Peeta. A few times with Katniss."
At the mention of the brunette Madge frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together. I wonder if Katniss has spoken to her yet. She told me she would, and she better. It's not even the fact that it's Madge, it's just the fact that they're friends. She should've been there for her, because I know Madge would've been there for Katniss.
"Maybe you should move here," I change the subject. "District 4. Fall in love with it."
Her smile returns just a bit. "Only if you come with me."
The Capitol is the worst celebration of them all. I feel like I'm constantly suffocating in a cloud of coal dust, forcing smiles and shaking hands with people who make me sick. I can feel President Snow's gaze on us all night and I'm sure Madge feels it too.
Not once do I let go of her hand.
Not even when other people ask to dance. With her. With me. We politely reject their offers and sway to music that fails to impress me. I guess nothing can beat the fiddle and whistle from the Seam. When I share this with Madge she almost demands I take her to a Seam dance. I promise her I will.
Madge and I spend most of our time talking to Cinna and Portia about clothing. She tells me the food to eat considering she's had most of it at sometime in her life, that way we skip the ones that don't meet her standards. We try the new things together.
And when Madge's prep team offers us a little vial to make more room in our stomach, Madge refuses immediately. "We'd never want a thing like that," she nearly snaps.
I shrug as her team walks away unaffected by the bitter tone Madge had when they offered. They must be too high on the fact that they've finally been invited to a big wig Capitol party. The music starts up again and I pull her onto the dance floor. Cameras follow us, as do eyes, but it's only me and her.
"What was that about?" I inquire. She seemed offended, almost angry that they would give us something like that. "I'd like a bit more space in my stomach." The food here is incredible, probably the best thing of the night. I'd love to wrap some up and take it home to my family.
"Not like that," Madge murmurs. I tighten my grip around her waist and she rests her head against my chest. "It makes you throw up so you can eat more." Her words stun me to silence, and I'd freeze up if I didn't know we were being watched. "I can tolerate some things. The way they paraded around my father's house like they owned the place," she shudders a bit and again I make firm my hold. "The giant plates of food and dirty dishes they leave. But I can't… I can't comprehend the fact that they'll eat until they're full and puke it all up just to do it again. I can't. Not while District's are starving to death."
"I get it," I whisper back.
"I've tried it," says Madge as she swallows thickly. "The vial. They made me back when I was younger." I knit my eyebrows and she shrugs. "We had to do whatever they wanted. We still do, to a degree."
I think of Cinna and Portia, trying to force myself to see the humanity in them. Capitol citizens are bubble headed freaks but they're still people. There's got to be more to them than being cruel and oblivious. I grit my teeth, "They're not all awful."
"You would've have said that a few months ago."
"I didn't know any of them a few months ago," I say. Portia isn't like them. She's smart. She's real.
Madge loosens her hands from behind my neck. "I've always known them," she tells me. "They've always made me sick."
I frown. "Even Cinna?"
And thankfully, she almost laughs. "Especially Cinna. Nearly burning me to death on our first encounter." And I laugh too.
Halfway through the night I make my way to the stage, the only time I don't have my hand in Madge's. I can see the confusion on her face in the crowd and I wonder if she really doesn't know what I'm doing. She should, it was half her idea. Haymitch told me so. The microphone is handed over to me and I meet her gaze.
Though I'm told I have charisma and am apparently good at speaking in front of crowds, my hands sweat. Maybe it's just what I'm about to do.
"Madge," I start slowly. Her lips tug upward and she rocks on her feet. "I need you to know that I love you." That I love her and I'd be doing this even if it weren't being forced upon us. I tell her the tale of how I fell for her in the arena, how it all came slowly and built up after awhile. The crowd oohs and ahhs and coos and awws just on time for each. I tell her of how I can't imagine my life without her, of how there's no one I'd rather be with.
And by the end of my speech I'm down on my knee and Madge's on the stage too. I hold out the ring and she accepts it. The golden ring with a ruby attached to it. Not my choosing. I hate the ring. I hate doing this. This forced marriage, this forced tale.
If I didn't know Madge was such a good actress I'd imagine she's tearing up because she wants this too. Because she loves me. But I know better than that.
The crowd applauds and cheers for their latest Victors. They scream and I slip the ring onto her finger. She presses her lips against mine. The crowd doesn't quit their noise but it all goes mute to me. I savor the feel of her lips, the gentle balance she brings to everything. When she falls to her knees to deepen the kiss and we nearly stumble over I laugh and feel her smile against my lips.
But I know it means nothing to her.
Once we're given clearance to leave, the Capitol still in an uproar over our engagement, Madge slips into her room on the train before I can stop her. I suppose I should allow her the silence, the time to think, but I don't really want to give it to her.
Portia reads me like a book, however, and rests her hand on my back, shaking her head once and signaling for me to wait. Give her some air. And still, I don't want to.
I resolve for showering off the grime of the Capitol and switching into nighttime clothes before knocking on her door. The water is hot as it pounds my back and eases my never ending headache. It's been a constant throb for days now. Portia says it's stress. Haymitch says it can be solved with a drink.
I think watching makeup and glitter wash down the drain is a much better stress reliever. For now.
Once I've changed and start crossing the hall to Madge's room I hear a shattering of some sort of glass. The sound sends me into a panic and I quicken my pace, bursting into her room without even knocking.
Madge sits on the floor near the fireplace sobbing into her hands. Across the room is a shattered plate that must've come with room service of sorts. Her bed is askew. Feathers float around the room having been stolen from their pillows; the sheets are all over the floor. Clothes are ripped from every drawer; some are yanked out and on the floor as well. From where I stand I can see that the bathroom is a wreck, too.
"Madge," I stride across the room and lower myself next to her. "Madge, look at me." I reach for her chin but she yanks herself from my grip instantly.
"Don't touch me," she whimpers as she scoots in the other direction. "Don't touch me! This is all lies! All of this!"
"Madge," I whisper harshly in attempt to get her to lower her voice. "Keep your voice down."
"Take your stupid ring back," she pleads as she pulls it from her finger. "I don't want it, not like this. Please. Please." Her hand shakes as she holds it out to me. Her mascara is running down her cheeks, her makeup smeared desperately across her face. "Gale, please take it," she says.
"No." I crawl after it and force it back onto her finger despite her attempts to shove me away. "Let me talk, Madge. Let me," I grunt in frustration as she claws across my face. My hands go for her wrists and I hold them above her head, un-amused at her outburst. "Stop it," I growl.
Her chin quivers but she stops resisting. "I just want you to r-really love me," she chokes. I lower her wrists and she wipes under her eyes.
"I do," I tell her. "Maybe not to the point of marriage, not yet, but that doesn't mean I don't love you." Madge's eyebrows knit together confusedly as she tries to hold my gaze. "I love you, Madge. Not because they want me to but because I do. Sure, it didn't build up like I said it did, it just hit me. Right before we got on stage together after the Games," I grab her face in my hands, desperate to make her understand. "It knocked the wind out of me when I realized it," I tell her.
"Don't l-lie to me," she pleads.
I shake my head and drop my hands, fumbling around for my pocket. Once I realized I've changed out of my dress clothes from the night I hold up a finger. "Wait here." Confusion sweeps her face and before she can respond I rush back to my room. Thankfully my clothes are still on the floor and I scramble for the treasure I've kept hidden in my pocket. It's still there, and I rush back to Madge's room with it cradled in my hands.
She's lifted her knees and rests against them, and she's wiped away some of her makeup.
"Here," I lower myself to one knee and hold out a ring. My mother's ring. The real ring I wanted to give her. "Madge, I love you." Again the confusion returns to her face. "This is the ring my dad proposed with," I say. "He led my mother out to the meadow and got down on one knee and I wanted to the same for you, but we don't have that luxury." She sniffles once and wipes at her eyes again. "I want to marry you. I wanted to do it on my own terms, sure, but it isn't changing the fact that I wanted to do it."
"Gale—"
"And I wanted to fall in love with all of you, not just the general. I wanted to fall in love with, with your smiles that you use with Effie when you're annoyed and every different laugh you have but I don't have time to do that. But I still love you. I still can fall in love with all of you, I'm still going to." Madge crawls across the floor to me and searches my eyes, trying to find even the smallest lie in them. "And if you love me like you say you do, like everyone says you do, then you'll believe me. Then you'll marry me."
She swallows tightly and her eyes lower to the ring. It doesn't meet Capitol standards by any measure; I'm surprised there's even still a jewel in it. A silver band, a simple blue gem. It feels like the only thing I've got left to my name.
"Will you marry me, Madge?"
"Where… where would I wear the ring?" I can't help but chuckle as she takes the ring into her own hand, hovering it over each finger as to find one that would make sense.
"We could get you a necklace," I say. "If you want it. The ring."
She nods frantically and sniffles again. "Of course I want it, you idiot." I laugh again as she lunges toward me, her hands tight behind my neck. "I'll marry you," she murmurs, "as long as we do it like we would in District 12."
Lowering my forehead to hers I crack another smile. "Fair enough."
Her hand without the ring reaches up for my face, her fingers dap at my cheek. "I scratched you," she frowns. It stings at her touch and she uses her sleeve to wipe the small bit of blood that's been building up. "I'm sorry." I shake my head until she stops focusing on the cut. Her eyes search mine as I close the distance between us. My nose trails against Madge's and her fingers knot in my hair. "I love you," she whispers.
And when I dip down to press my lips against hers, it feels like the first time I've ever kissed her.
A/N: Shorterish chapter, but at least it's a chapter. There's probably oodles of grammar mistakes but I wanted to post this before Hurricane Sandy stole my power. If you find any errors lemme know! Thanks for reading! c: