Feb 19, 2020
Author's notes: see bottom
Chapter 4: mem·o·ry
noun
(something remembered from the past; a recollection.)
—
He asked her about him, without malice, but with lots of caution. "Do you like Peeta Mellark?" Her eyes widened, and her brow faltered. Leaves were orange, and it was a bad question to ask.
Opening a snare, he busied his fingers, hid his gaze.
"No." She tried to look him in the eye, wiping an arrow clean distractedly. "why?" Silence stilled as leaves fell. Autumn was always static, unmoving. In these months the world began to freeze over, and it was your last chance to mark your footprints into the mud before a frost suffocated the ground.
He shrugged. "Why are you at the bakery so much, then?" He was aware that his line of questioning was presumptuous, unwarranted, but he just needed to know.
"I was trying to figure out what would make you..." She froze stoically. The she put the arrow in the sleeve and trudged away.
"What?" He urged, needing an answer, any answer.
She stopped, "forgive me?" She crossed her arms like she always did when she was uncomfortable. He had nothing to forgive her for. It wasn't her job to make him happy. His mind was having a hard time focusing on how thoughtful the gesture was. All he could grasp was Peeta Mellark. Mellark.
"So you ask him?" Mellark. Bread. (Better than him.)
His hands squeezed and his throat thickened in steadying effort.
"He was very helpful. You liked the bread didn't you?"
Bread. Mellark.
His boots were heavy in the mud. He chose to ignore her question, and they continued hunting. He still couldn't stop thinking about it.
An hour or so later, he asked, "What exactly did you want me to forgive you for?" Frustration leaked into his tone. Then, there was silence, all he could hear was the birds as they migrated. She was still.
"...For not showing up on Sunday."
"For missing a Sunday?" She flinched and looked away. She was lying: he could tell, because he could aways tell.
He took a wild guess, but at the same time, he knew he was right.
"You're sorry for saying no to me?" Her widening eyes meant that he was right. The fact that she'd think that he'd do that made his heart clench. "That is ridiculous, Catnip." She glanced over her shoulder but didn't meet his gaze: her back is taut like a bow string. She shouldn't think she owed him anything: he knew she didn't.
"No." Was all she supplied, all she volunteered. She never gave herself up for anything. "I just wanted, wished, to make this all go away." To forget about you. His eyes widened. He stepped back and there was a mark in the mud. Tracing the outline of the print with his eyes painfully, he failed to notice that she'd returned to her spot in front of him.
She stepped in the marred mud, recoating it. His eyes traced up to hers, seven inches down, and they glistened with water. He spoke. "I don't want any of this to ever go away."
"But it can." She was solemn, reciting her lines like she has before. "Eventually, it will, when there're too many chances. For all we know, the mines could explode tomorrow, and you'd be gone! We could get arrested for poaching! All it takes is a name in the bowl, Gale!"
He has thought the same thoughts, and weeks ago, he'd wished the same wish. Press delete, to make it all disappear. It'd be so much easier if he wasn't stuck on one person, but it'd be so much worse.
"I don't want any of it to go away, no matter what." Her eyes withered and closed, and her braid hugged her soul, unbreached and protected.
"I will never give back the memories I had with my father, even if his death caused me more pain and struggle than I could have imagined."
His entire life had spun out of control in an instant. He was like yarn on a spindle, and the spindle had been falling. You couldn't stop it when it was spinning: you had to wait until it was pulled taut, reached it's end, before you could return the yarn to its home.
The canary collapsed, dead, and the mines did the same.
"Would you?"
She froze, and he could tell he'd caught her completely off guard. Guilt flooded his seams: why would he ask that, something so vulnerable? She took a couple steps backward, and her eyes were flaring. Her cheeks were white and her shoulders quivered.
The simple question completely crushed her mindset, emptied her arguments. Would she give away Primrose, all of her love and devotion, to avoid the possible pain of her being reaped? Would she do so with her father?
"I-I don't know."
(If not, why had she done so with Gale?)
She turned and she ran. He watched her back as she flew, once again feeling inadequate. She took her game bag with her so she'd be fine. She didn't need him, he knew that, but he wished, just for once, that she'd want him.
(Her footprints fit perfectly in his. The notion will be frosted over and remembered until the spring,
when things change.)
—
She didn't walk him to work that week. His mornings were sufficiently dreary. The mud froze.
—
The next Sunday, she arrived late, with bags under her eyes and a fear in her walk, but she showed up. It was more than he'd expected.
They hunted in silence, and when it was over, they went their separate ways. It's just like before: nothing had changed, and everything was different.
Sundays were days he worshipped, even when they were like this. Awkward and sad, but he loved her, and on Sundays, he got to see her. He realized something that Sunday.
(He loves her. Panic erupts)
When he came home, his mother was waiting and Posy was asking about Katniss. The child had recently been idolizing the archer.
(He loves her, with scowls and all. He just figured that out.)
"You look just like your father." Hazelle said, taking his game bag to organize through. "And you're making him proud."
His father was dead, she couldn't know that to be a fact, but said it like it was one.
(When a boy's father is dead, and you tell him how proud his father would be, he feels a echoing sense of despair.
And he wouldn't give that up for anything.)
—
She walked him to work Friday. Showing up at his door, arms crossed and nervous, she smiled at him tentatively.
His stare was wary, and he didn't say a word. He watched her through the doorway. They were awkward and still until she reached across, took his hand and tugged.
She dragged all the way to work, and on the way she said, "You don't want to be late, right?" He watched her back as she dragged him, and he knew they'd be alright. He squeezed her hand.
(He shouldn't love her this much—love her enough to let her come and go as she pleases—but he does anyway.)
—
She was there the next Sunday too, and this time, things were different. She had an air in her, and she shot straight, but that's always been constant.
They hunted in silence, but they circled each other. She initiated contact, helped him with the snare line. She confused him.
She blew in with the wind, just like she used to. She was here, and then she was gone, and then she came back.
(She always comes back to him. Or maybe it was the other way around.)
"I wouldn't give it up." She whispered, resetting a snare distractedly
(Or maybe it went both ways.)
He wouldn't either, even if this never goes anywhere. Even if he was stuck like this for the rest of his life, with someone right beside him, but just out of reach.
As they walked to the Hob, she grabbed his hand. She was slow and unsure while she did it, and she held it roughly. This was different then when she walked him to work, and he refused to acknowledge why.
They made trades and chatted with Sae. Their hands held each other's at random intervals in the night and with every grasp came more ease; it became natural.
In that moment, everything changed, but at the same time, nothing was different.
(Maybe she loves him back. He thinks that night.
Maybe.)
—
The next Sunday went similarly, but at the end, she kissed him. She did it slowly, unsurely, just like her handholding, and she was clearly inexperienced, but endearing all the same. On her cement block to represent a deck, her mouth opened to him.
They had been walking home from the Hob and the moon was rising. The first bits of snow were falling to the ground. They were attracted to her hair, and flakes caught in the strands.
When they came to her door, she turned to him. Her breathing was distracting; his eyes followed the fog. She stepped into his space, into the fog, went onto her toes, to the tips, and kissed him.
The pressure was warm. The sparks were boiling. Katniss thought of a mine explosion, but she just saw him, smiling cocky, loving silently, and she wanted all of him.
(You want all of someone after they're dead, but you can only get it when they're alive.
She's tired of waiting until people die to finally love them.)
He leant down to compensate, because her stretched stance was shaky. She was still on her toes and he was crunched over, but it was his favourite kiss he'd ever had, even if she didn't know how to kiss. She was too tense, too structured. He didn't care.
(He didn't want to think about it too much, but he'd had worse kisses.)
When he went home that day, his mother smiled at him—like she knew. He was embarrassed, and his cheeks were red. Hiding in the room he shared with Rory, he stared up at the ceiling and definitively decided: he never wanted to get over her.
He had a sneaking feeling, that he'd never have to.
—
She was there the next morning, of course she was. She kissed him before he went underground. Her hand held his incredibly tightly, like he'd die if she let go.
She had to let go.
—
They did this everyday for the next week, and it never got easier. She showed up everyday after that, anyway.
—
He comes back every day. He loves her, and she loves him.
She wouldn't give this up for anything.
—
(He expected nothing from her, but she gave him everything he ever asked for anyway.
That's what love is, isn't it? Giving without expecting, its very rare: where it goes both ways.)
—-
Author's notes: so that's it. The main story is completed, but I have an epilogue, which ironically, is the first thing I wrote for this story.
Anyway, I got about 6 reviews for this story, and about 4 of them were from Ellenka. I have to say, they mean so much, you don't even know. Thank you.
