The next two weeks pass in a warm spring haze. The weather is beautiful; it gets warm but never too hot. Haymitch becomes weirdly and thoroughly invested in his geese. I truly do not understand it, but he hasn't passed out from drinking since he got them, so I'm not complaining. His increased alertness does come at a cost, though, as he notices the marks that Peeta's mouth left on my neck almost immediately and absolutely guffaws. He gives us shit about it for days.
The first few homes are finished by the rebuilding team, and the school is well underway. They're hoping it can be up and running by the start of the new academic year in the fall.
Things between Peeta and I stay pretty much the same, and I like it. One day he kisses me on the cheek in the market, and I don't recoil at the public nature of it all. We hold hands once when chatting with Delly, and her high pitched squeals of enthusiasm don't bother me nearly as much as I would have expected. Things are pretty good.
One morning, I wake up to an absolutely delicious smell wafting up from the kitchen. The level of sun in the room implies that it's late in the morning, maybe 10 or 11. I look to my right and don't see Peeta, so figure he must be making something amazing. I walk downstairs and see him standing at the stove in front of a pile of french toast and a platter of beautiful fresh fruit.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi," I responded. "What's all this for?"
"It's to wish you a happy birthday," he says, coming over and kissing me on the cheek.
"Oh," is all that comes out of my mouth. I truly, genuinely forgot that it was my birthday. I haven't really been keeping track of the dates. Ever since Effie's visit I have been taking my medications daily, but something about checking calendar dates makes me anxious. Every time I look, I seem unable to stop myself from counting the exact number of days since I last saw the people I've lost. But of course Peeta remembered. A thought occurs to me at that.
"Wait..." I say. "I forgot your birthday!" He looks at me, confused.
"My birthday was months ago," he says.
"Yeah, February, right?"
"Yeah," he confirms. He looks supremely amused.
"I shouldn't have forgotten," I say.
"I had just gotten back, we were barely speaking to each other. I'm not offended, especially considering that you seem to have forgotten your own birthday too." He's laughing at me a little, so I shut him up by kissing him.
"This looks amazing," I say. He brings the plates to the table and we start eating. It's delicious and Peeta makes wonderful conversation, and yet for some reason I feel sad. I can't figure out why. I've been feeling good these past few weeks. Much better than I had been before. There were bad moments, but they always had a cause. There's nothing to make me upset right now. It's a day of celebration, I'm eating good food, and I'm with one of my favorite people in the world. Why do I feel bad?
"So, is there anything you want to deal today, Miss 19-Year-Old Katniss Everdeen?" Peeta asks, bringing me out of myself.
"Huh? Oh, uh...I guess I'll probably hunt. It looks nice out." He smiles at me.
"I thought that might be your choice," he says, starting to clear the dishes. "Will you come to my place for dinner around six? I may or may not have something special in mind."
"Ok," I say, but I feel a weird pang in my chest. I don't want him to go to any trouble for me, especially since for whatever reason I seem to be in no mood to appreciate it. I know that he wants to do this, though, so I don't argue. Hopefully after I get outside and clear my head whatever this fog is will go away.
I go and get dressed while Peeta cleans the kitchen. When I'm dressed and ready to head out the door, he stops me.
"Hang on," he says, walking towards me. I stop and turn to him. He wraps his arms around my waist and places his lips on mine.
"Happy birthday," he says when we part. I smile at him and cup his cheek in my hand briefly before heading out the door without another word.
I head to the woods and just walk around. I can't seem to get out of my head. I can't focus, and when I try to shoot a squirrel my aim is way off, so I give up and just sit down on a rock. I don't know what's up with me today. I woke up fine, I think. No, I'm pretty sure about that. On some of my worst days, the minute I woke up I would be in a fog, staring at that sad, blank canvas that became all too familiar to me. That didn't happen this morning. Something about it being my birthday is making me act weird and I really don't know why.
I'm 19. This is just about the only birthday in the old Panem that anyone actually celebrated, because it meant you weren't eligible for the Reaping anymore, and that you had escaped from the Games. Even in our new country, I should be happy that I'll be able to vote in the election that is coming up in a couple weeks.
In some corner of my mind, there's a reason. There's something nagging at me, something that is bringing me down on the first day in my life that I should be happy to find myself a year older. Frankly, given all the times in the past few years where I could have died, where for all intents and purposes I should have died, the fact that I'm alive and here on this birthday should fill me with some sort of miraculous joy. But it doesn't. There's a reason. I don't know whether or not I want to remember why.
I sit on the rock for while, just thinking, before checking my snare lines and taking the haul for Sae. I smile weakly when she thanks me for the trade, and walk back to Victor's Village at a slow pace. I feel really, really wrong.
When I get back to my house, Peeta is nowhere to be found, so I decide to take a shower. I stand under the stream of water, letting the warmth envelope me. I stand there for far too long. It feels nice and distracts me from the weird, empty feeling in my head. I don't know what's causing this, but I think I should probably tell someone. Haymitch would be the right person, I guess, being my guardian and all, but it just feels weird to talk to him about this sort of thing. We aren't really the type to share our feelings, and while I know he wants to be here for me, it would just be awkward. The person I want to talk to is Peeta, but I know he'll be so worried about me. I don't know what exactly he's planning for tonight, but I know he's working hard and I don't want to ruin it for him.
When I eventually get out of the shower, my skin is pruney from the amount of time in the water. I pull on a pair of jeans and a rust colored t-shirt. When I braid my hair, I notice my hands are shaking a bit. I sit down on the edge of my bed, trying to steady myself. I haven't felt like this in a while. I've had nightmares that make me scream and cry, weird memories that make me lose where I am, days where everything I do reminds me of someone I've lost, but it's been a while since I've just felt this all around bad. I don't have a better way to describe it.
I close my eyes for a minute and lean back against my pillow, but all too quickly the blank canvas emerges and I force them back open again. I don't want to fall into this, not today. It's about an hour until I'm supposed to meet Peeta, so I just have to kill a little time before I'm distracted. I do all the chores I normally put off out of boredom. I run a load of laundry, properly make the bed, vacuum the rug in the living room.
I usually don't care about these sorts of things. I'm nowhere near Haymitch in terms of slovenliness, but I'm not particularly neat either. The little things don't bother me much. Peeta is the only reason my house is typically as clean as it is. He likes to have things be tidy and doesn't mind doing it. It's sad, but I think it stems from his mother. The cleaner he kept things, the less reason there was for her to lash out. I'd gotten used to living in neatness even before spending my nights with Peeta, though, because Prim kept things neat too.
Prim.
The realization hits me like a ton of bricks. The only good thing about my birthdays, even when they meant another slip of paper with my name going into the Reaping Bowl, was Prim.
Every year, she'd do something special, even when we had nothing. If she could, she'd sell some milk or cheese from Lady and buy me some small token I could use to help with hunting, even though the intensity and chaos of the Hob intimidated her. Even when she couldn't get money together, though, she'd always do something. I remember one year she scoured the district, collecting the perfect sized rocks to file down into arrowheads. I remember her singing to me. Usually I'd sing to her. It was the best way I had to comfort her when she was sad or sick or hungry. She always told me that it made her happy, so she wanted to sing to me on my birthday to make me happy. She'd make me dance around our house with her, she'd braid my hair in special ways, she'd gather herbs that smelled nice and put them in boiled water for my bath. She did everything she could despite our horrible circumstances.
I miss her everyday, but I feel her absence profoundly today. That's why I've been feeling so awful. This is the first time I should be happy on my birthday, but she's the one who's always been able to make me happy, and now she's gone. She should be here today. I can't imagine how excited she'd be. I feel myself starting to get teary and try my best to snap out of it, walking over to the sink and splashing water in my face. I'm trying everyday to remember what I said to my mom on the phone. Prim was joy. She would want me to be happy today, or as close to it as I can be.
I dry my face and take a couple deep breaths before heading over to Peeta's. I'm strangely nervous. I'm preoccupied with missing Prim but I don't want to upset Peeta by revealing how lost I'm feeling. I know that's stupid, that Peeta would want me to tell him and to let him help me heal. But I just don't want to disappoint him.
Even before I reach his house, I can smell something absolutely amazing. When I walk inside it's overwhelmingly good. I see Peeta standing by his kitchen table, which is laden with my favorite foods. He's recreated the lamb and dried plum stew from the Capitol, prepared green beans with a crispy onion topping, and made an ungodly amount of cheese buns. He's wearing a little triangular party hat, and what's even more ridiculous is that Haymitch, who is standing next to him, is wearing one too. He looks thoroughly unhappy about it, and I can't imagine how much arguing and bribery it must have taken Peeta to get him into it.
"Happy birthday," Peeta says to me, smiling. I smile back at him, though I feel weirdly pained by the amount of time he must have put into all of this.
"Thanks," I say. He walks up and hugs me from behind. I like it. I feel safe in his arms, and so much of me just wants to curl up within them and hide from everything. I owe it to him to enjoy this, though.
"That's a good look on you, Haymitch," I joke, hoping to make myself laugh as much as I am them.
"You don't even want to know how many insults the boy had to endure to get me into this stupid thing," he responds. Peeta chuckles and I smile a little, and he puts one of the little hats on my head before the three of us sit down to eat. The food is absolutely unbelievable. I think Peeta's version of the stew is as good or better as the original dish from the Capitol, and I've never been able to resist the cheese buns. At the end of the meal I'm stuffed, but knowing Peeta some sort of elaborate dessert is coming.
"I want you to close your eyes," Peeta says to me.
"What?"
"I want you to close your eyes for a minute while I get something together. Is that ok?" I nod at him, and once he gets up from his seat I close my eyes. The blank canvas emerges almost immediately. I'm trying to fill it with thoughts of the amazing food I just ate and the boy who cooked it all for me, but all I see is emptiness and the outline of Prim. I'm about to open them again because I just can't handle it when I hear the clink of a dish in front of me.
"You can open your eyes now," Peeta says. When I do, I see what is probably the most remarkable cake I've seen in my life, including all the fancy ones in the Capitol and even the one Peeta made for Finnick and Annie's wedding. It's just one layer, but he's covered it entirely with piping of different plants. They all look almost exactly like different flowers and roots and leaves from around the district. I think I've been talking a lot about plant growth since spring hit, and especially since I started thinking about the medicine factory. I didn't think he'd noticed that much, but everything I've mentioned admiring, whether for its purposes or its beauty, is featured. I see purple echinacea flowers along the side, which I plucked once to give to Delly when she had a cold. Along the perimeter where the sides meet the top are yellow primroses exactly like the ones he planted for me, which are blooming beautifully right now. On the top are dandelions.
"It's beautiful," I say. I'm crying a little and I wipe my face. I don't know if it's because of the sadness of the day or because I'm touched by the cake or both, but I'm crying. Peeta puts a hand on my shoulder and sets three cards in front of me.
"I wanted to include our friends from other districts, even if they couldn't be here," he says. "I called them a while back and asked them to send cards."
I take one in my hands and see my name scrawled on the outside in a shaky but still lovely handwriting. I open the card and find a note from Annie. She talks about how much she misses us, how much she appreciated that I was there for Finnick in 13, how she wishes we could have spent more time together as a group of four. She says when she talks to me about Finnick like we did once on the phone she feels like he's still here in our stories. She tells me about her pregnancy; she's due in a couple of months and while she hasn't actually confirmed it with any doctors she is certain it's a boy. She says my mom is one of her nurses at the hospital in 4. She says she hopes we'll visit.
I turn to the next card on which my name is written in a beautiful cursive, and I know it's Effie before I even start reading. She gives me all of the traditional Capitol birthday wishes and tells me she's sending some makeup and bath products on the next train for me as a gift. She says she admires my strength and beauty, which I roll my eyes at a little, but I know she means well.
On the final card I see my name printed in an unruly scribble. Johanna's writing. She calls me brainless and stupid, teases Peeta for caring enough to organize something like this, says her birthday wish for me is that I'll "finally loosen up and just let the kid rail me already." But she also says that she thinks of me when she sits on the branch of a tree, how she doesn't think she would have got off the morphling in 13 if I didn't room with her, and how she appreciates that I didn't kick her out because of the smell when she couldn't shower after her torture.
By the time I finish Johanna's card my tears are falling freely.
"Do you like it? I hope it wasn't too much," Peeta says. I nod.
"Thank you, Peeta," is all I say. He kisses my forehead and then cuts the cake. I stop crying as I eat it, it's a delicious chocolate. Peeta and Haymitch joke with each other, and eventually it culminates with Haymitch throwing his party hat at Peeta. They laugh with each other as we finish up our slices of cake. Once we're done I am so full I wouldn't have thought it possible.
"I'm gonna go to the couch, I need to stretch out," I say. Peeta nods and comes over to join me, while Haymitch says his goodbyes and heads home. Peeta sits up on one end of the couch and I lean my back up against the side of his torso with my legs stretched out in the other direction. He kisses my hair on the top of my head. It's not until he weaves one of his hands in mine that I realize that they're shaking again. He notices too.
"Hey, are you ok?" he asks softly, rubbing circles on my hand with his thumb.
"Mhmm," I say, nodding, but my voice is too high. He sees right through me.
"Katniss, what's wrong?" It's such a simple question, but for some reason just him asking is enough. I start sobbing immediately.
"Katniss," he says, sitting up straighter and wrapping me in his arms. Concern is deeply etched in his voice. "Katniss, what is it?"
"I don't know," I say through tears. "It's been like this all day. I think it's...birthdays were big for Prim and me. She could celebrate even in the horrible reality we lived in, it isn't fair she doesn't get to celebrate now. I miss her always, but I don't know why it's so bad right now. I guess it's just...she should be here."
"I'm so sorry you've been feeling this way all day," he says gently. "You don't deserve this pain. I wish I could take it away from you." I just start sobbing even more.
"No, I'm sorry. You did so much for me today, you always do so much for me. I should have been happy today, you did everything for me. I should have enjoyed it. I-" he cuts me off, shushing me and rubbing my back.
"You don't owe me anything," he says. "I did this today because I wanted to make you happy, and I'm sorry I missed the mark. I don't regret any of it, I just wish I could have been there for you." He's too good. I don't deserve to have him here with me. He seems to sense my thoughts because he starts to speak again.
"Katniss I'm here for you for the good and the bad. Anything you need. Always." I don't say anything, I just hold him tighter. He holds me just the same, and we sit there. Together.