Weekends like to lie.
The very term weekend holds so many promises. It whispers of a winding down, a break, a temporary reprieve.
Usually, they're anything but. Weekends, for me, are a windup, when the locomotive that is the shiny new community initiative of the month powers up with me the driver, frantic, frenetic, hoping to some divine being that I don't drive it off the rails.
On one hand, I don't mind it; I'd rather be busy than idle, and, when I consider the alternative - crunching numbers and logistics as Gale does in his role as infrastructure lead - I suppose I'm rather lucky. I get paid to organise programs that bring people together, events that bring laughter to the streets again. There was the spring parade, the plant-a-tree-a-day contest, the children's carnival.
But when the initiative draws to an inevitable close, when the party's over, my mind always drifts to the laugh and smile that would've - should've - echoed loudest, but didn't. Prim would've loved my new weekends. She would've shone in the role I have. So when the weekends roll around, they don't signal a respite to me - just another two days of life trundling on, when by all means it shouldn't.
Ergo, I can't say I get too excited about them. When I leave Peeta's though, winding my way back to the Seam in a fading dusk, I can't help, for the first time, but want for the final hours of Friday to ebb into Saturday. Because the weekend, this time, means two days of no trial work. Two days of not having to talk to Peeta. No awkwardness, no stumbling over words, no hot-and-cold moods that set me on edge.
When I arrive home, Gale is sitting at the table, having let himself in. While usually this presumptuous would irk me, tonight I can't help but sigh in relief when I see his hulking frame perched awkwardly on one of my rickety chairs. Because it is so expected. So normal. With Gale, I'm not expected to know some secret, foreign choreography of etiquette, nor required to perform to it. I can simply be.
I smile. He does too.
"Heya, Catnip."
"Heya, yourself," I say, plopping my bag at the door and kicking off my shoes. "Have you had dinner?"
He takes a beat too long to answer, "Uh, well, not exactly -"
"That's a yes," I say with a quiet laugh, moving into the kitchen. "You've raided your poor mother's kitchen, and now you're at mine for seconds."
He grins, sheepishly, as I transfer a dish of leftovers into the oven to warm. Afterwards I flick the radio on, tuning it slightly, and the house fills with a deep crooning harmony.
"You're in a good mood," Gale says as I join him at the table. He takes out a pack of cards from his trouser pockets, shuffling them deftly before quickly splitting the deck between the two of us.
I hum in agreement, moving one hand up to massage the nape of my neck, using the other to sweep up my cards.
"I sure as hell wasn't earlier," I say, flicking through the cards, discarding two and picking up another. Gale does the same. I catch his eye. "I don't know, I guess I'm just glad to be home."
His face splits at that - a grin to rival the shining of the sun - and I can't help but reciprocate. He flicks a card onto the table. I pick it up, replacing it with one of my own.
He wins the first game. We eat dinner. I win the second. We go to sleep afterwards, and though the nightmares still come, they're not as bad, because they're punctuated by ghostly dreams of the remnant sounds of shuffling cards, the warmth of Gale's sun-smile, and, in the peripheries, an ocean-blue pair of eyes.
The next day, we rise early to duck under the fence as dawn breaks. We're unpracticed in the routine of hunting together - our schedule's don't often sync to give us the time of day - but we slip back into the pattern effortlessly, our bodies running and pausing and tensing at just the right moments. When we come back into Town, game bags full, I feel light - lighter than I have in a long time. When we pass the Hob, a neat stack of newspapers catches Gale's eye.
"Jo and Beetee are here!" He bubbles, pointing to a picture from yesterday at the station; Jo and Beetee stepping off the train; Madge smiling demurely to the left; me - thankfully - out of shot.
I watch as his excitement ebbs, as his brows furrows in consternation, as he reads the first few lines that accompany the image.
"They're on Peeta's legal team," he says, softly. His brows, somehow, contort again, like two fat caterpillars kissing, and he squints to read the following text. Abruptly, he looks up.
"You're on the team too?"
I swallow. I nod. Gale looks back at the newspaper, as if staring at it will somehow rearrange the words to tell him a different story.
"When were you asked?"
"Only a day or two ago," I mumble, shifting the strap of my game bag on my shoulder, feeling the lightness in my body swirl in the pit of my stomach, as if it's deciding whether to stick around or flee.
Gale nods slowly, still looking at the paper, before readjusting his own bag and setting off again. I jog for a few steps to catch up.
"Were you going to tell me?" Gale asks.
His tone catches me off-guard; no hint of accusation, as I expected, but rather plain curiosity and oddly, an element of sadness.
"Of course," I reply. Gale's features remain taut though in poorly concealed concern.
"It's good money," I say, as if to try and justify my involvement. Gale nods, again, and seems to relax slightly. He forces out a grin.
"Can't say no to good money," he says. I smile and elbow his ribcage softly in jest. The lightness stays.
On Sunday afternoon, I go to the Justice Building to see Madge to check in for the week ahead. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'm pencilled in to talk to Peeta again.
I shudder as I make my way up the stairs, as the word bounces around in my head.
Talk. Talk. Talk.
My mind keeps replaying Friday afternoon on a loop; Peeta's face, stormy in a sneer, his tone, flat and dull and lifeless. The moment at the end - ever so brief - when his eyes cleared and his fingers deftly plucked the twig from the tangles of my hair. The way my stomach had swooped, then curdled, because I wasn't sure what I was most confused or agitated by - his coldness or his momentary warmth.
I strain to push mental images of the lake into the onslaught - mirages of a little hut, smoke wafting out and a fishing line nearby; the possibilities of where talking could get me. But when I think about about the blue of the lake, my mind drifts to a set of blue eyes, and my thoughts continue running amok.
I weave my way through the halls towards Madge's office, sighing internally in exasperation. We've barely begun, but the end to this trial can't come fast enough.
"Katniss."
I pause and turn to the sound of my name. It's soft, and muffled. Although there's no one else in the hallway I hear it again, Katniss, and realise that it's coming from a room up ahead, the door slightly open. Slowly, I make my way forward, perching myself to the side to see through the crack. Haymitch and Johanna are sitting beside a conference table.
"I know what her salary is. I mean, we're not earning mega bucks as Leaders, but we earn enough to get by comfortably." Jo leans back against the table, arms stretched taut to brace herself. "And this extra money from the trial? She shouldn't be poor anymore Haymitch, at least not like we were before."
Haymitch, propped against the window sill opposite Jo, merely sighs and looks down at the carpet. After a moments silence he again lets out a heavy breath, wiping his hands across his face and meeting her gaze.
"District Twelve is going well, Jo, but it's not smooth sailing. We're rebuilding, and every day it gets a little bit better, but our people are still hurting. We had the highest per capita death toll of the Districts after the war. And when we came back, it wasn't just a few bombed-out buildings. This place was flattened. Razed. All we had was this shit-for-bricks Building," - he slaps the window sill with a flat hand, voice dripping with sarcasm - "and mine and Peeta's houses."
Jo continues leaning back into the table. It's a casual position, but I can see the hard set of her shoulders, the stiff tension in her neck. Haymitch palms at his face again, as if the simple retelling of where we were, of the horrors we started with, has poisoned his lips, coated them with thick sludge.
"We've got a lot of fragmented families here," he continues. "If parents weren't lost to the mines, they were to the bombing, or in the Capital siege. We've got single parents raising hordes of kids, we've got grandmas raising grandchildren from five families. We've got grandpas with hands so arthritic they look like gnarled wood, and they're asking us for jobs to help feed these kids.
Don't get me wrong, the pharmaceutical industry Gale's been growing is good. Safe working conditions, good pay that will be scaled up as we increase production. It's not another mine. But still …" Haymitch trails off, shifting his attention to the splintered grain of the sill, scratching at the peeling paint.
Jo's voice is soft when she prompts him. "Get to the point, Haymitch."
He keeps picking at the paint, and he talks to the sill. "She's propping up a few families, that girl. I see her in the new Hob. She'll drag half of the woods in with her, and leave with only a rabbit for herself. She practically gives her hunts away for free, though she robbed me blind the other day on some squirrels. And even then, just you wait, next week you'll walk through the Square, and there'll be a bunch Seam kids walking to school with new backpacks, kicking round a shiny ball."
A length of paint peels away and Haymitch brings it towards his face, pinching it between thumb and forefinger, examining it. "Ain't no way parents have the disposable income to buy backpacks and balls. Not yet. Doesn't take a genius to work out where the money's coming from."
Haymitch flicks the paint away, sighs yet again, and looks at Johanna. "The girl knows how to live on little. She doesn't need more, so she give it away."
Jo sits up at that, leaning forward, eyes hard.
"She looked healthier in Thirteen, for fuck's sake Haymitch."
I bite the inside of my lip. I knew this conversation - either with me or someone else - was coming. Jo's sweep of my body and that brief, pinched looks that swept across her face at the train station on Friday told me it was only a matter of time.
"She's thin, there's not an ounce of spare skin or fat on her," Jo says. I grimace. Her tone is leaking earnestness; it's a plea of worry and bona fide concern. It's a side of Jo I haven't seen all too often, and my skin crawls to think I'm the cause of it.
"And her eyes? Haymitch, her eyes. As soon as she stops talking to you they're empty. Dead. I mean, I know she's been hard hit. Prim's …"
As soon as I hear the pop in the beginning of Prim's name, I know I've heard enough. I straighten quickly and stride away, down the hall, my feet slapping against the carpet soundlessly. At the turn to Madge's office I take a right, winding my way away from her and to the small courtyard she showed me earlier. I stumble in my haste when I reach the door, barging it open and taking gulps of air. Slowly, trembling, I lower myself onto the floor, leaning my back against the bench, drawing my knees to my chest and closing my eyes.
I focus on my breathing. I listen to its tempo, how fast it goes in and out, inoutinout, in … and out, until gradually it begins to slow, and instead my head is filled with thoughts about the way Jo's voice had carried her name, and how beautiful it sounded, when uttered aloud, the roll of the r, the gentle end of the m.
Prim.
I think too, about how there is no one to answer to that anymore. No one to pipe their head up and ask, 'Did somebody say my name?'. For an hour I sit against the sandstone, eyes closed, as my insides fill and empty continuously. And, like a broken record, I keep returning to the realisation that flared - a jagged spark in my thoughts - before I darted away from the room: that was the first time someone had said Prim's name, aloud, since she died.
In the end, I don't go to see Madge. I leave the courtyard, muscles creaking as I get up, just as dusk begins to fall. Mosquitoes flit around my skin as I walk home, nipping ruthlessly. I go to bed with itchy skin and itchy thoughts, and my dreams are full of Prim. When I wake early, in the darkest hours of the night, my cheeks are wet and sticky with tears. Robotically I rise, shuffling around, and shrug on my hunting jacket and boots. The woods are cold when I slip under the fence; a soothing balm on my skin and thoughts. As dawn breaks, this morbid sadness that carves everything out, that was slashing relentlessly yesterday, stills. My chest is still empty and hollow - a raw, gaping wound - but as the breeze blows and the leaves rustle, the emptiness stops expanding.
Without thought, running on pure reflex and adrenaline, my arm bend and pulls, the sharp thwack of my bow string sounds, and an arrow flies through the air towards a branch where I'd seen movement in my peripheries. A squirrel falls to the ground.
I smile, softly.
The temporary lightness of my morning forest jaunt fades quickly when I return home. I fish a crumpled piece of paper from under the door mat before unlocking the door, toeing off my boots and flinging my game bag in the kitchen. Gale's child-like scrawl reads for two lines.
Sorry I missed you! Have a good day xo.
I crinkle my nose instinctively, scrunching the note in my hand and lobbing it at the bin. With practiced ease, on autopilot, I cut and skin and salt one of the squirrels, all the while those two letters swirling in my mind.
xo. xo. xo.
I'm reckoning with the odd feeling pinching at my chest - do those letters make me want to laugh or gag? - when a loud trill sounds.
I snap my head up to the corner of the kitchen where a sleek white rectangle is vibrating. The phone doesn't ring often - it's obnoxious buzz still makes me jump - but when it does, it's usually not got news. I fish it off the stand.
"Uh, hello?"
"Morning Katniss!" Madge chirps, voice is bright. "How're you going?"
I cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder, returning to prepping the meat.
"Um, yeah, good I guess. Is everything okay?
"Everything's fine!" Madge replies, and I'm unsure if it's the distance of the phone line, or the odd way it's squished on my collarbone, but the cheeriness in her tone seems to double. "Peeta's brother has come down with a bug over the weekend, so the Bakery is short on staff. Peeta will be taking on more shifts this week."
A slither of joy creeps up my spine. Peeta at the bakery means no morning chats.
"Oh," I say, trying to infuse pity into my words and failing miserably, "That's unfortunate."
Madge barks a laugh. "You need to work on your acting Katniss, that faux disappointment isn't fooling anyone."
The left of my lip quirks, slightly, for a second.
"Alas," Madge continues, "You're not getting out of it that easy."
My smirk falls. "What do you mean?"
"Well, luckily Peeta will be free each afternoon and is happy to reschedule your daily sessions to 3pm."
I frown, stifle a sigh, and bring the knife down on the chopping board with more force than needed.
"Three it is," I grumble.
"Fantastic! One more thing. Turns out Peeta's sister-in-law also caught the bug so the Bakery is short two staff. So I asked if he needs another pair of hands -"
This time I don't stifle the sigh; it balloons from my belly, heaves up my throat, pours from my mouth down the line, heavy with exasperation.
"Madge …" I groan.
"I said you'd be there to help each day from 6.30, starting tomorrow!"
"Surely not!" But my protest is lost to a monotone beeping, Madge already having hung up.
Bringing along one of the squirrels I'd bagged this morning to my session with Peeta seemed like a good idea after I'd gotten off the phone with Madge. If we were going to be working together for the rest of the week, I figured a peace offering of sorts wouldn't hurt.
What better gesture of goodwill was there? The perfect ice-breaker, I'd thought.
Now it sits on the gleaming grain of Peeta's table, sprawled prostate, reeking of stale blood, pale yellow claws clenched and limbs stiff in rigor mortis.
There's a gentle hum of some kind of cooling system, and the rhythmic ticking of an out-of-sight clock. Peeta and I are both staring at the carcass.
All I can think about is Buttercup, and how, each evening like clockwork, he'll perch himself to the right of my front door, emit a strangled meow, nudge a bloodied mouse carcass forward and stare at me, smugly, while I curse him out.
A shudder ripples through my spine. I'm not better than fucking Buttercup.
What the fuck is Peeta thinking about this?
I look up to him just as he raises his gaze to me.
Suddenly, he bursts, one lone laugh ripping from his throat. I bristle, getting ready to defend myself, even though I know I won't have a leg to stand on. But Peeta surprises me.
"Are you okay?"
His question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Are you okay?" He repeats. "Your facial expression just now. You look pained-" he swipes his hand over his jaw, attempting to rub his grin away, unsuccessfully "- … Or constipated."
"Oh." I quickly try and rearrange my expression. "I was just thinking, ah, you're probably thinking that the squirrel's a bit weird."
He shakes his head. "Not at all, thank you. I just wasn't expecting it."
He swipes the squirrel's tail and takes it to the kitchen, returning a moment later. His moodiness from the other day has apparently dissipated, but the bags under his eyes are still dark, and his hair is slightly matted at the back of his head, like he only got out of bed just now, for me.
"So, what are we talking about today?" He asks.
"I though we could do the 'twenty questions' thing."
'Twenty questions' was Madge's idea; the solution she'd proposed after I'd seen her on Saturday to drop off some berries, and delivered a melodramatic monologue on how 'this talking shit just isn't going to work'.
"Start small," she'd said. "Twenty questions, simple stuff. He's got to trust you, and you have to trust him."
Peeta nods once, slowly, as if apprehensive. "Okay."
There's a brief silence. When he realises I'm in no hurry to start, Peeta releases a heavy, exasperated sigh. "Come on, Katniss. Go."
I shake my hands once under the table, steeling myself. I clear my throat.
"What's your favourite colour?"
Peeta's eyes widen in surprise. I suppose he was expecting something a bit heavier … 'Why did you shoot Coin?' … 'Tell me about your games." … "How do you fancy killing others?". But I want to hear those answers as much as he wants to give them.
"Orange," he says.
I wrinkle my nose instinctively. Peeta scoffs at my expression before continuing.
"A soft orange," he says, his eyes glazing over slightly. "Like when the sun's setting, and it dips below the horizon, and you think the sky's show is over, but this orange hangs around for five extra minutes - still bright, not pale or dull, but … soft."
There's a moments pause before Peeta parries. "What's your favourite colour?"
"Green."
Peeta doesn't say anything in reply but looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. When I don't, he cocks his head to the left and gestures to the table. There's a thin streak of gunk where the squirrel was - a filmy colour like rotten peas. Exactly what it is, I don't know.
Peeta smiles teasingly. It's a tired smile - somewhat stiff at the edges, as though it hasn't been used in a while.
"That green?" He asks. I like his tone, the playful inflection that coats his intonations. It too sounds dusty - as though he also hasn't used it in a long time. I shake my head, smiling softly.
"Not one type." I pause, searching for a way to describe what I so like about the colour. I settle my gaze on my knees.
"In winter, the greens turn in on themselves. The leaves, they hug each other, shrink in on themselves. They're deep and dark, near black." I toy with a loose nail on my thumb, twirling the serrated left edge slowly. I roll my toes around in my boot. I fidget, my veins buzzing, discomfort coating each jerky movement. I feel like I should stop - however nonsensical, talking about the colour I like feels personal - but I find more words piling up on the edge of my tongue.
"I like late winter greens, too. The fat and heavy emerald greens that make leaves shiny. Or when the rains ease, and the first dregs of heat start to creep into the air, and any bare soil and rock becomes swathed in this vibrant lime green of hairy moss or sprouting grasses. And in the spring, when pepperings of yellow and white and purple wildflowers peep through the floor, and everything is laid on a background of a new grass, this brilliantly vivid green. And just when you think you could get drunk on that green, the summer olives emerge - a kind of undecided green, as if everything is toying with the idea of dying in the heat in a crumble of brown."
My nail breaks off, and I catch it in my palm.
"I like greens that breathe, I guess." I look back up to Peeta, and am caught off-guard by the intense way he's watching me. "Living greens … " I trail off, my voice a soft whisper, like I've forgotten how to talk.
Silence falls over the table again. Usually I crave such lulls in conversation, but for some reason here, when I'm with Peeta, I feel the inscrutable need to fill them. Peeta's eyes - a startling shade of blue - are still focused on me, like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve. Abruptly he shakes his head, pushing his chair back and strolling into the kitchen.
"My turn," he calls, his voice floating through the doorframe. It has a slight echo - his kitchen must be mammoth. He quickly returns, brandishing a roll of paper towel, which he swipes over the smudge on the table before exiting again.
"How do you take your tea?"
Metallic sounds float from the kitchen - a soft whoosh of what must be a bin closing, the short click of a kettle turning on. Peeta's flat footfalls set an arrhythmic beat as cupboards open and shut.
"Uh," - I fumble for an answer - "hot?"
Peeta chuckles. There's a soft rattling, like crockery, and the kettle whines in earnest before calming. He emerges a moment later, balancing cups and a teapot on a tray. He sets two cups on saucers and pours the tea before picking up a small jug. He lifts it, raising his eyebrows at me, as if asking me a question.
I stare back, blankly. "What?"
"How do you take your tea?" He repeats.
"Hot," I reiterate, matter-of-factly. I feel my face twist, and my eyebrows scrunch. How bloody else do you take tea?
"Well, duh," he says, grinning softly. "But what about milk? Sugar? Do you take any? How much?"
He begins pouring some milk in his own cup. My eyes widen in understanding.
I shake my head, quickly, and try to rearrange my expression before he looks up.
"I'm okay," I say, pulling the saucer closer to me, taking a small sip from the cup. It's fragrant, a delicate flavour - nothing like the earthy tang of my usual tea. I glance at the bottom of my cup. It's clean and clear. At home, my the base of my cup is always littered with chunky leaf fragments - no matter how fine I chop the leaves foraged from the forest, or how long I strain them for, tea at home is always accompanied by floating pieces of grit that get stuck in your teeth.
As for milk and sugar? It had never occurred to me that you would put such luxuries in water. If we ever got milk from Lady, Prim's goat, we'd make cheese - it lasted longer, and sold for more. As for sugar - Gale and I used to mock the Towns people who'd buy it raw, in neat packages. The grocer had the packs behind the counter, and we'd watch, both in amusement and in awe of the seeming stupidity, at the merchants who'd point delicately behind the cashier and hand over the equivalent of a week of a miner's wage. Of course, we understood why the Bakery may buy sugar, but it made no sense to us why others would - what's the point of spending money to make something taste better, when you could use that money to buy something to eat, period?
"You ok?"
I snap my head up and look towards Peeta. His cup is hovering just below his mouth, as though the concern etched upon his face made him physically unable to take a sip. I swallow roughly and shake my head.
"Yeah, fine", I say, but even I hear how my voice scratches and croaks. Peeta frowns, but doesn't push. He takes a sip of his tea before placing it down on his saucer. The liquid's a muted brown, or a dirty cream. It twists and swirls gently.
"Um …"
I look up again. Peeta's no longer frowning, but he seems uncomfortable.
"Have a sip of mine," he says, pushing the saucer towards me.
I eye him warily. Usually I'd bristle at such a command and throw back a defiant 'no', but the way the colours twirl against the delicate ceramic intrigues me. Gently, I lift the cup and take a sip.
The same delicate flavour floods my tastebuds, but now it's dulled, slightly, mixed with the creaminess of the milk. I open and shut my mouth slightly, rolling the taste around tongue, as you do out of habit when you try something new. I catch myself, quickly, and push the saucer back to Peeta.
"Nice," I say.
"Mmmm," he says - in agreement, or in deep thought, I don't know. He takes a teaspoon from the tray and dumps some sugar in his cup, mixing it before pushing it to me again. I take a sip and strike of sweetness hits my tongue. I nudge the saucer back again.
When I catch his eyes, I can tell that he knows. That I said 'hot' because I didn't know you could take tea as anything else. That I haven't had milk, or sugar, in tea before. That this is the most decadent tea I've had before - the first cup I haven't brewed myself from whatever I've foraged from the forest.
I don't like the emotions I see in those eyes. There's some embarrassment at his blunder, some shock and amazement, and, so small he probably hasn't even realised, this glimmer of pity swimming languidly through his irises.
"So, you take both?" I ask in an attempt to break the tense silence. He moves his head to each side, as if to say he's not fussed.
"Uh, usually just milk," he says. Peeta sips his tea, and his mouth twists, ever-so-slightly. It's a twist that says, even if Peeta himself doesn't utter the words, that he always takes just milk. That the teaspoon of sugar was just for me, so I could see how it tastes.
I clear my throat awkwardly and launch into a new question, eager to steer the conversation away from anything beverage-related.
"So, are you a single-knot shoelace kind of guy, or double-knot man?"
He chuckles, and pity in his eyes sinks, starting to drown. "A double-knot man."
Peeta doesn't wax lyrical in any of his other answers. Neither do I. But I still learn that he likes to sleep with the window open. I learn that he rises everyday before dawn - a baker's habit - and will usually do the early-bird shift at the Bakery, if only because he finds the kneading of dough cathartic. I learn he likes the smell of fresh cut grass. I learn that he doesn't like to stick round the Bakery much longer nowadays, he likes to leave before the crowds come, but he doesn't mind being near people when they bring along their kids that press up against the glass and marvel at the cookies and cakes he decorates. I learn that spring is favourite season - but actually, it's sometimes winter, unless its a beautiful autumn day, or if the summer sun is shining especially bright, then it could be summer, but no, spring is his favourite. I learn that he makes pies for Haymitch, and Delly will come over, now and then, but otherwise he doesn't speak to many people. I learn that mockingjays enchant him. I learn that he hates Haymitch's geese, but he loves how they, strangely, give Haymitch some odd kind of purpose. I learn he's not a fan of alcohol - soul-crushing shit, as he calls it. I learn that there are people from the Capitol - people from his team, dead - that he misses.
I learn too, a little, from the things he doesn't say. I learn he has different types of smiles, that to say his eyes are 'blue' doesn't given them justice, that he has some faint freckles dusting the bridge of his noise, that he must have been in a rush earlier because there's a thin streak of stubble arching across his jaw that he missed shaving.
When I leave after an hour, I feel light. Like I did after hunting with Gale yesterday; like a balloon of helium is perched under my ribcage, lifting me up, expanding me, like - if only for a moment - everything is easy. Like everything is fine.