Chapter 2: Driven and Ensnared Into Marriage
It doesn't happen again until a few weeks after Prim's last reaping.
Her name had not been chosen from the slips of thousands, and as I'd hugged my little sister in the square, after the two unlucky tributes had been swept inside the Justice Hall and the crowd had dispersed, I could finally breathe; I could finally breathe for the first time in 18 years. My sister was safe. We could be happy now. What else is there to worry about?
As it turns out, there is plenty.
At 22, I haven't done a lot of the things expected of me. I refused a job in the mines, and my particular skills set aren't conducive to any sort of work in town—not that the Merchants, even if they hadn't delegated all their jobs to family members, would ever consider me for a position within their shops. Instead, I do what I do best: I buck the Capitol's rules. I still hunt, trading the game I catch around town. In addition, I make contraband prophylactics from animal intestines and sell them in the Hob. A bit ironic, considering my attitudes on procreation, but just because I would never use my own products doesn't mean there isn't a market for it.
The idea had come to me when I was hunting in the woods alone one day and spotted two squirrels rutting furiously in a tree. Birth control isn't entirely legal in the districts—the Capitol needs its sacrificial lambs for the Games, after all—but healers like my mother know of herbs to prevent conception—or to terminate pregnancy. At some point, condoms had been sold in the Hob; a man from the Seam, Micah, had a connection in the Capitol and used to sneak shipments of condoms on the trains until someone higher up in the Capitol got wind of it, effectively putting a stop to the shipments. We never saw Micah again after that.
Gale has been particularly amused by my new craft and told me that if he didn't have to work in the mines, he would gladly help me with fashioning the animal-skin condoms. But he needs the pay from the mines, the steady source of income, because he still has his siblings to care for.
Gale is another problem unto himself. After my last reaping, he had asked me to marry him. I had been utterly dumbfounded, to say the least—though, in retrospect, I now understood the cryptic things he'd said to me over the years, the lingering looks, the more-than-friendly touches. Flustered, I had told him what I have always told myself: I don't want to get married, and I don't want to have kids. I had Prim to worry about, and I couldn't think about anything else. Gale had been crushed, and a little angry, but he was persistent; he insisted we didn't have to get married until Prim was out of the reaping. He insisted he could wait.
I didn't have the heart to tell him he might be waiting forever.
Regardless, the two of us have lapsed into a strange limbo—we are something more than friends, but I don't know how to define it. I never refer to him as my boyfriend, but I know he is mine, and that I am his; anything else is unthinkable, so what else matters? Before him, I have never given much (any) thought to sex. It is a purely biological impulse, I think, needed for the purpose of recreating—and I have no intentions of ever doing that. But when my relationship with Gale turned physical, tentative kisses blossoming into heavy touching, I knew; finally, I understand the pull of sex. When he bends me over at the Slag Heap or takes me up against a tree in the woods, I think, at least we can have this; I can always give him this.
And true to his word, Gale doesn't pressure me about marriage during those years. He seems content with just exploring our physical relationship, and a large part of me hopes it can always stay like this. But the day after Prim's last Reaping, Gale returned to dropping hints about a larger commitment. I feigned ignorance, which had always worked so well for me in the past, but Gale's patience ran out. When he asked me again, point-blank, if I wanted to marry him, I didn't know what to tell him. "I need more time, Gale," I'd told him weakly, not sure if all the time in the world can ever be enough to change my mind. But I can't bear to disappoint him, not after everything, and Gale is stubborn; he seems convinced he can wait me out. Just as I am equally sure that I will never relent.
Coins in hand, I now cross through town, heading for the bakery. It's a bittersweet day for me; Prim, my little sister who isn't so little anymore, is newly engaged to a boy from Town. The news had been a little scandalous, as she is from the Seam, but most people seem to forget that fact; seeing her blonde hair and blue eyes, they are willing to overlook her birth class and welcome her into theirs. Prim is easy to like. And I'm happy for her sister; I really am. Yet I am also heartbroken. I have devoted 18 years of my life to helping raise her, protecting her; now that Prim is ready to start a family of her own with a man who will be responsible for looking after her, I don't know what to do with myself anymore. It's like I have lost my purpose in life. I cried when Prim announced her engagement, ruining the occasion for my sweet sister. And, now, ashamed of my dramatics, I've decided to buy Prim a cake, something I could never have done before, on account of us being too poor. To congratulate her, and to apologize.
Circling to the back loading dock of the bakery, I knock curtly on the door and wait. I can hear a commotion inside and, finally, the back door opens. Barm, the eldest Mellark son, answers, a wide grin plastered on his face. When he sees me, his eyes light up in recognition. "Oh, hey, Katniss. Here for the cake?" he asks pleasantly, and I nod.
I commissioned the cake a couple days ago. Barm, who has taken over the bakery from his father, had helped me with the details.
Joyous laughter echoes from somewhere in the bakery behind him, and Barm glances back over his shoulder. "Sorry, things are a little hectic right now," he explains apologetically, but his face still glows with happiness. "I almost forgot you were coming by today. Hold tight, and I'll get the cake for you."
He disappears inside, leaving the door open, and I stare after him curiously. It is only then that I realize he isn't wearing his usual apron. Barm looks like he's dressed for the Reaping, actually, with a nice pair of slacks and a white dress shirt. Confused, I lean through the doorway slightly, trying to peer around the corner, where snippets of indecipherable conversations drift toward me. Just then, Barm emerges from another room, holding a box. I jerk back, a slight blush coloring my cheeks, but it appears he didn't notice my snooping. "Here you go," he says, handing the box to me, and I drop the coins in his open palm.
"Are you closed? I'm sorry to have intruded..." I trail off uneasily, but he waves my apology off.
"Ah, it's fine. We didn't plan to be closed today, but, well, it's a momentous occasion," he says proudly, and at my clueless expression, he beams. "Peeta, my baby brother, is finally getting married."
The box holding the cake nearly slips from my hands, and I am sure my heart has stopped beating in this moment.
Peeta.
Peeta Mellark is getting married. Peeta, the boy with the bread. He is getting married.
Barm must take my stricken expression for surprise because he laughs, nodding his head as if he shares my thoughts. "I know. We didn't think it was ever going to happen. He never could stick with one girl for too long, and I was sure he was never going to settle down. But I guess he finally found the one. We're getting ready to head to the Justice Building right now, so it's lucky you stopped by when you did."
I am lost, somewhere in time, somewhere 11 years ago. No, not lost—I am still at the bakery, but out front, crawling through the mud for a couple loaves of bread, the icy sheets of rain beating me relentlessly, beating me the way his mother had beaten him for burning the bread.
And I never said thank you. Have never even spoken to him. Never even...never even...what? What did I not do that I can never do now?
I don't know. I don't understand the pit that has ripped open in my stomach. I feel lightheaded all of a sudden, and I shake my head, trying to shake the dread squeezing at my heart.
"You okay?" Barm asks, eyeing me strangely, and I snap back to attention.
"Yes—yes, I'm fine, I'm fine," I babble, shifting the cake to one hand so I can wipe the sweat from my forehead. "It's just—hot out here." He nods in understanding. "Well, thank you—thank you for the cake. And...and..."
"Hey, Barm, you coming? We're about to head out," a voice calls out behind him, a voice I know well, and then he is here. Our eyes lock over Barm's shoulder, as they have done many times before when I've traded down this way, but this time neither gray nor blue flit away.
Peeta stares at me, his jaw going slack as something indecipherable skitters across his face, and I am frozen to the spot, my heart in my throat. But Barm is oblivious to the exchange, throwing a confirmation to his brother over his shoulder. His words snap me from my daze, and I blink rapidly.
"Congratulations," I squeak, and then I am gone before either can respond, walking as fast as I can without drawing attention to myself. But when I reach the Seam, I break into a run, not sure where my feet are taking me.
It isn't until I stumble through the berry bushes at the rocky ledge where Gale and I always meet for our hunting trips that I even realize I am in the woods. I collapse on the ledge, my heart still beating wildly. Only then do I remember the cake in my hands.
What is wrong with me? I feel like I have lost something I never even had. It is just guilt, I reason, this horrible feeling in my gut. Guilt that I still have never thanked him for the bread, for the beating he took to save me. I don't know how to deal with the weight of a debt unpaid. Few Seamers do – we abhor owing anyone.
This is silly. I am being absolutely stupid.
I stare at the box in my hand, opening it gingerly. The cake inside is small, covered in beautiful, hand-crafted primroses made of fondant. Or something like that. Barm had waxed poetic about how the cake was going to be prepared, but I didn't understand most of the terms he had used. The icing is white, and inside the cake is yellow—at least, it should be; that's what Barm had promised. I admire the delicate flowers, wondering whose hands had crafted them. Barm had said his brother would decorate the cake, as he was much better at it than him, but he didn't specify which one, and I didn't ask.
Somehow, looking at the primroses, I know they have been done by Peeta's hand.
I slam the box closed, but I don't leave yet. Instead I sit huddled on that ledge for hours, lost in thought. When the sun is low in the sky, I know what I have to do.
Back at home, Prim weeps when she sees the cake. We invite the Hawthornes over to share the decadent dessert—after all, rarely does anyone in the Seam get to indulge in such treats. Before Gale leaves, his family already trudging back to their house, I stop him on the porch and pull him aside. He watches me so intently, I nearly lost my nerve.
"Let's do it," I finally manage to choke out, but he looks confused. "Let's get married."
Gale's eyes widen in disbelief. "Really? You mean it?" I nod, and his face splits into a grin so wide, my own cheeks hurt. Then he starts laughing, and he lifts me into a hug, spinning me around. The sound of his joy is contagious, and soon I am laughing, too. When he places me back on the porch, I sway in his arms, slightly dizzy, but he holds me tight. "I can't believe it," he says, then he cups his hands around his mouth, shouting into the night, "Katniss Everdeen just agreed to marry me!"
I shush him, mortified, but he kisses me anyway, a kiss both heated and slow. I fist his shirt in my hands, and when he pulls away, he leans his forehead against mine. "I love you," he whispers, his voice shaking with happiness.
The words stick in my throat. We have never said them to each other, but I think it has always been understood. It hasn't been an easy realization for me to swallow, but I knew years ago that I love him. At the time, it hadn't been more than a platonic rendering, born of a mutual hardship and an understanding we have of each other that no one else can ever touch. And now, I know – at least I think I know - it was something more. He deserves to be loved by me—by someone better, really—but he deserves to hear it, at least.
"I—I love you, too," I murmur tremulously, and he seals the declaration with a kiss.
And in that moment, I am happy.
By the end of the summer, Peeta Mellark has married the shoemaker's daughter, and the two of them move into a house not far from the bakery.
By the end of the summer, Prim has married and moved with her husband to a new house in town.
And by the end of the summer, Gale and I are wed in a small Toasting ceremony in our new (old) house in the Seam. I won't let him use any bread from the bakery, however, insisting on the bland drop biscuits I manage to whip up myself.
