Hello! I'll try to have another update soon...hopefully I can write some more tonight when I'm home from my second job.
Who's excited for the Catching Fire trailer this upcoming Sunday? November is super far away.
EDIT: Wooops thanks for the correction, the masked-and-mysterious "Guest"! That really would make more sense now, wouldn't it? Haha. I'm such a ding-dong.
CHAPTER 44
"Attention patients, 'Fostering Good Relationships' will be starting in five minutes," a voice announces over the loudspeaker.
I groan and roll out of bed. It's a group in which Flora has registered me. I quickly look myself over in the mirror and hastily braid my hair and brush my teeth and head off to the group room.
There are a handful of patients there and, much to my chagrin, I find myself the last one to make it to group and I take a seat directly across from Peeta and Johanna. Johanna has a vacant look about her—not at all the acerbic, eye-rolling Johanna that I would have expected to see sitting in a group. I feel a twinge of pity for her. Peeta clearly avoids my gaze.
I begin to wonder if the surgery is worth it. I'd give just about anything to rid myself of the nightmares and the crippling anxiety but to remove synapses and to make me a completely new person…I'm not sure I could just do that. What I did—what we all did—had made a difference in many peoples' lives. There were a lot of bad things that happened but I still want to remember that, I realize. I want to ultimately remember that I had a purpose, that I was important. On days when it gets too hard…well, that's what having the occasional drink with Haymitch could fix. Or hiding from the world in Peeta's arms.
No, not that. I think I've closed that chapter for forever. I can't be too upset with him, though. Who could blame him? I haven't been especially warm over the years and he knows it. He'd give up anything for me, no questions asked. He'd hand me his entire world on a silver platter without a thought and has—time and time again. I've been distant and chilly at best, probably. I couldn't blame him for thinking what he thought or even for jumping to conclusions. It's much easier for me to keep him at arms' length, giving only what extras I have to spare. Peeta's been in harm's way so many times; how could I give him all of myself? So that if Peeta were gone from me forever, I'd have absolutely nothing left?
I'm pulled away from my thoughts when I realize that the room is absolutely silent and everyone is staring at me. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. Have I been talking aloud? Please tell me I haven't.
To my relief, I haven't. I have just been asked a question by the social worker, Aemilius, a 30-something man who, seemingly as required by the hospital, wore little make up but allowed himself pitch black nail lacquer to match his jet black hair. He has plucked his eyebrows to non-existence; otherwise, I'm sure they'd be smooshed up into two bushy, inquisitive caterpillars right now.
"Um, what?" I ask, after a while of attempting to cover for myself. I came up with nothing.
"What examples did your parents give you, Katniss?" he asks me.
"For what?" I ask. How long had I been in my head?
Aemilius sighs, clearly annoyed with my poor attention. "For relationships? What example was set forth for you as a child?"
"Oh," is all I say, considering the question. It had been so long since I'd thought of my pre-Games days and even longer since I had thought of my true childhood, prior to the death of my father. "Um…" I begin, clearly stuck.
"For example," Aemilius begins, attempting to either assist me or hurry me along, "Did your parents argue frequently? Was there infidelity or abuse of any sort?"
"No, no," I say, shaking my head. "Nothing like that…they were…um, they really loved each other. Really, truly," I say, surprising myself. I look down at a hangnail on my right middle finger and no hangnail has ever been as interesting as this one.
"How do you know?" probes Aemilius. "What nonverbal or verbal language did they use in their relationship?"
"Ohh…" I begin and trail off. I see my father's handsome, mirthful face with his light gray eyes and black hair without a stitch of gray. I hadn't truly pictured his face in so long. So, so long.
"He would…he loved to sing. He had a beautiful voice. But he worked in the mines for long stretches of time. He had to have been tired when he came home after working two or three days straight but he would always walk straight across the room to my mother and pick her up in his arms and give her a great big kiss. And she would brush the coal dust away from her face, pretending to be upset about the mess but had a huge smile on her face. Sometimes, he would sing 'Black Is The Color of My True Love's Hair' except he'd change the lyrics to 'blonde' instead of 'black.'" I stop, remembering the velvety smoothness of my father's voice and how it echoed throughout the house when a voice interrupts my thoughts.
"Your mom wasn't Seam, was she?" I expect Aemilius to ask this question but Aemilius could have never known it. I look up to see Peeta's soft blue eyes, still full of kindness despite his bitterness.
"No. She was a Merchant kid." I look down at that hangnail again, unable to bear the intensity of Peeta's gaze. I don't think he meant it. He can't help that his eyes are some weird window into his perfectly good heart that still give me goosebumps. "Her parents had owned an apothecary. They weren't rich by any means—there was only one rich person in Twelve—but they were never hungry. She had lovely dresses and time to play. Both of her parents were home with her at night. I saw a video of her once when she was sixteen. She was beautiful and had a well-known talent for healing. She could have chosen anyone in the District, probably."
"Even the richest person in the district?" Aemilius asks, maybe a little too absorbed in my story.
"Maybe," I consider, even though the likelihood that Haymitch would take a greater interest in anyone but himself is pretty unlikely. "But she chose my father. He was from one of the poorest families but, well, as she used to say, he was the richest in kindness and had a gentle heart. He always brought injured miners to her or risked his own safety to bring badly whipped or tortured people. He hated to see innocent people suffer for only being hungry."
"If someone was beyond saving, he used to sing to them to ease them into death," Peeta said quietly. I meet his gaze. "My father told me once," he added.
"It sounds like your parents had an ideal relationship," Aemilius says with a smile.
"Sure. Until after my father was killed in a mine explosion. My mother was no longer my mother and just sat in bed all day while her kids went hungry. We were already hungry and when my father died, it got worse. She couldn't take care of us and she couldn't take care of herself. I had to scrape together what I could to get by and take care of my sister myself."
Aemilius's smile fades and he nods his head. "And that's why you had to volunteer for your sister, a wonderful expression of love for your sister in the selfless example of your father."
I blink a few times and finally scrounge up a half-hearted, "Sure."
Not one to particularly enjoy silence, Aemilius turns his attention to Peeta.
"So, Peeta. You mention your father. What examples did your parents set for you?"
"My parents weren't like that. They were stand-offish. I think maybe they loved each other. I asked my father once and he said, 'Of course, we have three boys,' which, you know, that's not necessarily indicative of anything. When I got older, when I started liking girls, I couldn't talk to my older brothers without being teased. I asked my father again about getting a girl to like you and he told me that I shouldn't ask him…that he couldn't convince Mrs. Everdeen and he didn't seem to be able to convince my mother, either. I think my mother knew that my father still loved your mother," Peeta says, looking at me. "Maybe that's why she was so unhappy."
It's a weird conversation to be having in front of other people in a group.
"In District 12, there's the Seam and then there's Merchant's Row where all the middle class have their businesses," Peeta explains to Aemilius who looks a little lost at this point. "Seam marries Seam. Merchants marry Merchants. It's the way it is. You know so many of the Merchant girls like Delly were absolutely in love with Gale," He's talking to me now. "And the Merchant boys, we'd always tease them. There was a rhyme we'd say any time a Merchant girl liked a Seam boy. We'd tell them, 'Don't play in coal and be a tart 'cause dirty Seam boys break girls' hearts.'" The room titters with laughter.
I roll my eyes. "Well that's nice." I'd heard a Merchant boy say that to Madge once when she and I were talking to Gale before school. It made me mad. Gale wasn't dirty and neither was I.
"It's true," I hear Johanna Mason's small voice pipe up. I almost didn't know it was hers. "Seam boys do break girls' hearts." She doesn't look up from the scrolled engravings in the table. Peeta pats her hand. "It's okay. I didn't know that the stereotype isn't necessarily gender-specific." I thought maybe he would have meant it as a passive-aggressive jab, but his voice just sounds a little sad. His shoulders sag a bit, too and I begin to feel homesick with all this talk. Oddly, I feel homesick for Peeta and I want to talk to him so badly. I want to reminisce.
But then Johanna's words echo in my ears. Seam boys do break girls' hearts. Had Johanna once loved Gale but he turned her down so she, in turn, found herself in Peeta's arms to keep herself competitive with me? To keep herself relevant in the tabloids and in society?
After the session, we're dismissed to eat and Peeta walks Johanna back to her room. As they disappear into the room, I look down at my point card and find I've reached 1,000 points—enough to gain privileges to go out of the facility to meet Haymitch for lunch. I fold the paper back into its fuzzy creases and head to Flora's office.
"My dear Kat," Flora greats me with a big smile. I didn't tell her she could actually call me Kat but Tansy regularly calls me Katrina or Kristina. I figure I know who they're all talking to so who cares?
"Can you call Haymitch? Tell him I want to see him and go out on a pass? I've got my thousand points."
Flora claps her hands in delight, not unlike Effie used to do.
"When should I ask him to visit?" she asks.
"Is tomorrow too soon?"
