Chapter 1: We'd Kill Each Other
"Cassie Lannai!" And just like that, the female tribute for District 12 has been called, and I am free of the Hunger Games forever.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am 18 years old and have just watched the Reaping for the 76th Annual Hunger Games. My 14-year-old sister, Primrose, is safe for another year as well. It is a miracle she has gone three whole Reaping without getting picked. The Hunger Games are a sadistic practice to keep the twelve districts of Panem in line. Last year's contest was particularly brutal, as every 25 years, a special Quarter Quell edition with a twist is introduced into the Games. Previous iterations have included a special Election in place of the Reaping, double the number of tributes (ironically, District 12 had our only Victory that year) and last summer's 75th Hunger Games had children below Reaping age, from 5 to 11 enter the arena.
I quickly smooth down my royal blue Reaping dress and slip out of place with the other 18-year-olds. I quickly find Mother and Primrose in the crowd. Beside them is my best friend and hunting partner, Gale Hawthorne, who has been free of the Reaping for two years now. He hugs me.
"Congratulations, Catnip. Now you can get going with life."
I smile - a rare thing for me. Catnip is a nickname that Gale gave to me when we first met in the woods - a mispronunciation of my name. "The only thing in life that I want to do is hunt in the woods and have the Capitol just leave me alone. It won't be any different, Gale."
Gale gives a jerk of his head. "Come with me. I want to tell you something."
Curious, I follow him out of the crowd, beyond the square beneath the Justice Building, and into an alleyway between some Merchant shops. It would be a trek to get back to my family's house in the Seam, and whatever Gale wants to tell me, it obviously can't wait, from the excited state he seems to be in. He turns back to me and - unexpectedly - takes my hand.
"When I think about what I want out of life, I can only think of one thing." He is staring at me with an unusual intensity. I now find myself regarding him warily, as my eyes suddenly widen in understanding. He isn't... surely not!...
"No... Gale..."
Gale raises a finger to silence me as he moves closer.
"Gale... don't..."
Too late. Gale's arm slides about my neck as he bends down and kisses me passionately on the lips. I feel his other arm slip about my waist, pulling me flush against his body. My palm rests flat against his chest as I confusedly whimper into his mouth. I don't reciprocate the kiss, but I can't find the strength to push him away either. Finally, with a POP!, our lips are wrenched apart. I gasp to intake air.
"Gale... we have to talk about this reasonably..." I placate. All of my principles should be encouraging me to give an emphatic NO, but I don't know what that one word would do to this man who is now looking at me with such adoration, such... hopefulness. Indeed, his eyes - once as hazel as the fresh greenery we would explore together - have now blackened with undeniable lust.
"I have loved you from the moment I clamped eyes on you," he whispers in a lovesick hiss. "What could be more reasonable than to marry you?"
I gape at him, my eyes searching his, the answer obvious to me. "We'd kill each other!" I conclude flatly, without irony.
"Nonsense!" Gale laughs.
"Neither of us can keep our temper -"
"I can... unless provoked." If the conversation were not of such serious things like marriage, I would laugh at that. Even then, there is not much humor there. A provoked temper in this district would give you a one-way ticket to the stocks: maybe not under Head Peacekeeper Cray, but definitely under his successor, Thread.
"We're both stupidly stubborn - especially you - we'd only quarrel!"
"I wouldn't!" And Gale's tone sounds almost childish. Here I can't help but smile, even chuckle a little.
"You can't even propose without quarreling," I admonish him gently. Gale laughs at that. He then presses a sweet kiss into my forehead.
"Katniss... I swear I'll be a saint. I'll let you win every argument. I'll take care of you... and both our families. You wouldn't have to want for anything; you wouldn't even have to hunt unless you wanted to!"
I gaze at him, eyes sad, my mind in torment. I see more difficulties than advantages to us getting married. For one thing, it would mean our friendship would never be the same again. Even if we would marry for friendship, dependency, kinship - a marriage I suppose I could get behind, if I am reticent to marry for economic advantage or even marry for love. But it is an impossible and unrealistic expectation. Unfortunately, it is all too common. Many Seam marriages are based on deep friendship and understanding in lieu of romantic love. Gale would provide for me just as much as I provide for myself and both our families. The problem is that Gale would have to continue working in the mines even more than he already does to care for a wife waiting at home. For that is where I would be. I could not risk losing him to a collapse the way my mother lost my father. In fact, I would refuse to. And Gale's expectation for our marriage would be very different from mine. He knows well my vow to never have children. But I know Gale wants to become a parent. And I'll be hanged before I see any children of ours sent to the Games, even if we have escaped the Reaping ourselves.
All these reasons and more now compel me to look my best friend in the eye and break his heart. "Gale, please don't ask me… I'm sorry, but I can't marry you. I just…. I have so much to think about with Prim right now; she still has four Reapings to go."
I probably should not have added that last part, for Gale seems to take it as a Not Yet instead of a Never. He looks dejected, but he nods, taking it like a Seam man. "I understand." And he walks away, leaving me with tears in my eyes.
The weeks pass, ferrying us deeper and deeper into summer, so that I almost forget about the stolen moment after my last Reaping entirely.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I finally attained freedom. Or, at least, as much freedom as you can get in a place like District 12, the poorest district in Panem. Older kids that I know have said you feel a certain weight lift off your shoulders once you are free of the Reaping.
For me, freedom from the Reaping and the Hunger Games has been mine for all of three days. And yet, I don't feel any different. And yet, I still feel nothing.
Gale would probably laugh at me, if I told him any of this. He's been beyond the Reaping for two years now, and is looking very much a man at the prime age of 20. He is the oldest of five children in the prominent Hawthorne brood. Works in the mines every day except for Sundays. It's a fine profession - well, almost one of the only professions available to a man in this district - but I know his widowed mother, Hazelle, won't be satisfied. She will be looking for her eldest son to further secure his future. And having seen the looks girls send his way, I know there are plenty of takers.
I won't be among them in line though. Now with my future guaranteed ahead of me, I have only become more resolved in my vow to die unmarried and childless. I don't know what trade I will learn to support myself once I move out from the home I share with Mother and Prim in the Seam. Probably hunting, as I have always done. I can make that into a life, right? Mother might disagree, but I don't care.
This bright summer's day is slightly cooler than the scorchers we saw in the days before the Reaping. It is as if the earth itself has deflated in relief along with me. The nice air brings out more animals from the longer, summer shadows, and Gale and I make a great haul and in even better time.
We are on final approach to the district fence now, chatting about preparations for next week's hunt. "I'll set the snares for next Sunday, Gale, and then we can -"
It comes out of nowhere, as Gale suddenly stops me and cuts off my ramblings, as he takes my face in his hands and kisses me.
I am completely unprepared. You would think that after all the hours I have spent with Gale - watching him talk and laugh and frown - that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I haven't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which can set the most intricate of snares - can as easily entrap me.
"Ermmmm..." I think I make some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I am vaguely aware of my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest. Then, after pushing his lips more insistently against mine, Gale just as suddenly lets me go and says:
"Catnip, will you marry me?"
Even though this is the second time he's asked me for my hand in marriage, my flushed, ravished and very kissed lips drop open in an astonished 'O.' A proposal of marriage still sounds so foreign, coming from my best friend Gale. Not to mention the way he says it just sounds all wrong. If I have ever given thought to how some boy might ask me to marry him, I suppose I have imagined him getting down on one knee. Presenting a ring, or some other promise token. And definitely asking me for my hand with my full name - Katniss Magenta Everdeen - and not some childish nickname with an even more childish origin story (Catnip came about from Gale interpreting my introduction incorrectly, the day we first met).
All that aside, he just kissed me out of the blue. My second kiss, drawn from my mouth with no warning. I unconsciously lick my lips, and try to decide how I feel about the kiss, whether I liked it or resented it. One thing's for certain - kissing Gale makes me feel as though I'm kissing my brother. The conclusion is not far off. Everybody in the Seam is distantly related, in one way or another; I have been mistaken as a cousin of the Hawthornes often before. That soon is cleared up whenever my gorgeous mother and sister come into view, with their Merchant blue eyes and blonde hair and all around Aryan looks. Contrasted against them, I am very clearly Seam, favoring my late father.
And where does Gale get off persisting in his asking me to marry him, anyhow? I am scarcely free of the chains that have bound me since the time I was a preteen, and now he wants to imprison me in the bonds of holy matrimony - a sentence that I feel is worse than a gruesome death in the Games? I thought Gale understood that tying my identity into being someone else's wife was something that I didn't want.
I should slap him. For kissing a girl without her express permission. Mother taught her girls the importance of consent in all acts of love. But instead, I merely fix him with a hard stare. "No." I say it simply, and his entire face falls, struck dumb, as I turn and flounce away, wriggling under the fence.
I don't need to say more, don't need to explain. I shouldn't have to.
