A/N: hey all - i've been having some weird technological glitches w trying to post this chapter for several days now, so i hope you can see this and im sorry for the delay! it keeps posting and then getting deleted, and I'm getting lots of funky error messages that i dont fully understand, having trouble accessing reviews, and not being able to see the chapter. ~hopefully~ y'all can see this when i post it, and hopefully it hasn't somehow been posted multiple times lol. i'm going to try my best to get a handle on whatever problem is going and on and get back to my normal posting schedule asap! love y'all and please review/lmk if you've noticed the problem or have any advice :)
I am silent. I don't know why on earth he's calling. I don't know what to say to him.
"Catnip? Are you there?" he repeats when I have failed to respond.
"Yeah. I'm here," I say, my voice void of emotion,
"Oh, good," he says. His voice sounds relieved, like somehow just getting me on the phone means that everything is fine. He has no right to feel that way. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," I say. I'm clamming up as I always do when I'm scared or sad or overwhelmed. "Why are you calling?"
"Oh," he says, sounding a little disappointed now. "Well, I guess I just...wanted to check in, catch up, whatever. I was just talking to Thom, congratulating him on getting mayor, and we were catching up and he mentioned his ideas about the medicine factory. It's a great idea, Katniss, and you'll be great at it."
I don't know if he thinks complimenting me will help me get past the expansive crevice between us, but it won't.
"Are you happy with Thom as mayor?" he asks, just continuing the conversation since I'm not offering anything.
"Yes," I say. That's it.
"Yeah, he's great. We were close while working in the mines. Funny, hardworking, likeable. He'll do really well by you all."
I really, really don't like the way he says "you all". He's completely separated himself from identifying with 12, as if he didn't live here for over 18 years, as if we don't matter anymore now that he's found his life in 2.
"2 is great, if you're wondering. I really like it here, and I actually think you would too. There's a lot of similarities, being another mining district and all. The woods are great out here. The winter was really cold but now it's beautiful. Maybe you can come out and visit some time, and I can show you the best places to hunt."
No. I haven't traveled anywhere since getting back to 12. The idea makes me nervous. I don't like anything outside of my comfort zone, and travel reminds me too much of the Games, the Victory Tour, the War. If I was going to go anywhere, though, it would not be to 2. It would not be to Gale.
"Gale, I-" I don't think he even hears me, because he keeps talking about the landscape and about life in 2.
I lock eyes with Peeta, who has stood up from the couch at the sound of Gale's name. He's been watching me the whole time I was on the phone, trying to make sure I was ok, but now he's coming over. He knows this isn't good for me. He stands next to me and takes the hand that isn't holding the phone, and I accept it gratefully. I need the support.
"...and the rest of the family loves it here too. Mom has found a community where she's never had one before. A lot of people here have lost people, I mean that's true all over Panem now. Between the Games and the war, it's pretty unescapable. A lot of the men here were lost, either in mining accidents like in 12, or in the attack on the Nut, or the fighting both in 2 and in the Capitol. Mom is sort of the center of a community now, for women who lost their husbands, and they've all been really supportive and close. I'm happy for her. And the kids are good too. Posy doesn't really know what's happening but she's much happier here than in 13 because she can run around and play outside. Rory and Vick are excited to start school in the fall. Rory keeps going on and on about the different jobs he might train for, because he never imagined he could do anything other than mine coal..."
I think he keeps talking but I don't hear any of the words. A ringing of absolute fury fills my ears and blocks out all the sound. Why is he doing this? Why is he telling me about how happy his younger siblings are, how Rory gets to pursue the career path of his dreams, when all of Prim's future was taken away because of Gale?
I know somewhere within me that he probably doesn't mean any of this, that he just wants to update me on his life, because for so long we cared so much about each other's families. I don't care, though. The pain and anger is overwhelming.
"I have to go, Gale," I interject, probably in the middle of one of his sentences.
"Oh, uh, ok. No problem, Catnip. Maybe we can keep talking another time?"
"Maybe," I say.
"Alright. Have a good-" I hang up the phone before he finishes his goodbye. I am fuming, and yet also so deeply sad. I can't decide if I want to scream or sob or break something. Instead I just stomp over to the couch and fling myself down, all of the peace and comfort from just 10 or so minutes ago gone completely.
"That was Gale?" Peeta asks gently, watching me with a cautious yet concerned look on his face. I nod. Haymitch doesn't say anything, but he's watching me very closely too. I can tell he's working on something in his head.
Neither of them really know what I know about the bombing in the Capitol. They know, or at least have sort of understood based on my reaction, that there is more to the story than what the public knows, but they haven't pushed me on it. It's so easy for me to break when I think about Prim's death, neither of them have wanted to put me in that mindset when I don't have to be.
I think Haymitch has picked up a little more than he lets on. When he voted with me for the new set of Games, I know he knew that I was planning something. I don't think he knew I intended to kill Coin, and most likely get myself killed in the process, because he wouldn't have let me do that. But I think he understood that I knew something he didn't, and he trusted me.
Peeta knows less, I think, because of how separate we were in that whole period of time. After the end of the war, he was in the hospital a lot longer than I was, and then even when he got out I wasn't talking. He spent far less time in 13 than I did because of his imprisonment in the Capitol, and the majority of the time he was there he was hospitalized. Even once he got out, he wasn't himself. He didn't know the depths of what Coin was capable of in the way Haymitch and I did.
I know he figured out some things; he was so devastated when I voted in favor of the Games, and I know he's figured out that the decision was just a moment of strategy to allow me the opportunity to kill her. But I think he sees that choice as something I made just in the moment she announced the idea of the Games, and not as having to do with anything else.
He knows I haven't had contact with Gale, and that I get anxious at the mention of him, but he doesn't know why. He doesn't push it; he doesn't want to upset me, and he and Gale were never exactly friends anyway.
"What did he...uh, what did he want?" Peeta asks, bringing me back to the conversation.
"I don't know. I guess to catch up, that's what he said anyway." I lie on my back on the couch and throw one arm over my eyes. I want to block this out. As the emotional toll of it all sets in, my anger is ebbing and transitioning into exhausted despair. I see the blank canvas start to creep in. I don't want to answer questions. I just want to sleep.
"Katniss," Haymitch says.
"What?!" I snap at him. I want to be left alone, I so desperately want to be alone.
"Katniss, what did he do?" he asks.
"What do you mean?" I ask, not moving my arm from covering my eyes. "Are you really that drunk, Haymitch? He called me. He talked to me."
"No," Haymitch says. "What did he do? Why have you been avoiding him for months, and why are you so freaked out by the phone call? I've been letting you off on this for a long time, even though I know it's been bothering you, because I've been figuring it would be more trouble than it's worth to get into it. But now I'm asking, sweetheart, and you're gonna answer. What did that boy doy?"
I move my arm and sit up slightly. Haymitch's voice is firm, and his face is entirely serious. He's let me get away with hiding this for a long time, but he's not going to anymore. We make eye contact and I know he won't move on this tonight.
"Peeta," I say softly, although my eyes don't leave Haymitch's.
"Yeah?" he responds. He looks at me from the spot behind the couch he's been standing at since I sat down.
"I need you to hold me right now," I say. My voice is quiet but calm, at least for now. I know, though, that talking about this will break me if I'm not in his arms.
Peeta doesn't need me to ask twice, and within a matter of seconds he's seated next to me on the couch and I'm leaning into his side, with one of his arms around my shoulders and the other holding my hand.
"What happened, Katniss?" Peeta asks quietly. I take a deep breath before I open my mouth to talk.
"The bombing..." I start. "It was 13. I'm almost positive."
"In 12? I don't think that's true, Katniss," Peeta says.
"No, no" I say, shaking my head. "The dual release bombs in the Capitol. The ones we were caught in. The ones that...the ones that killed Prim."
My voice becomes a small squeak when I say her name. I feel like someone is stabbing me in the chest. Haymitch lets out a long exhale. I look to him, and see realization hitting his face.
"Gale and Beetee," he says. I nod.
"What?" Peeta asks, confused. He wasn't there, he never saw what they were doing in Special Weaponry.
"They developed a dual release bomb in 13. It was Gale's idea, all based on old hunting strategies. It was exactly like the ones that went off in the Capitol, the exact same principle. I know 13 had it. And then...when I talked to Snow, just a few days before I was supposed to kill him, he sort of implied the blame was on Coin. At first I didn't believe him, but then I kept thinking about it. If he had a hovercraft, he would have escaped. He was a coward. It was Coin's call. I'm almost sure of it. The thing Gale invented is the thing that killed Prim."
I'm crying a little bit, although I feel a weird sense of numbness, which is keeping me from falling apart entirely. That, and Peeta's arms around me. The longer I talk the tighter his hold on me becomes, and that helps ground me in reality.
"Shit," Haymitch says, running his hand back over his forehead and pushing his greasy hair back.
"Yeah," I say. I look up at Peeta, and the expression on his face is unreadable. It's a strange mix of surprise, anger, shock, sorrow, and a few other things I can't figure out. I don't fully know what he's feeling.
"Did he ever tell you?" Peeta finally asks. I look at him, a bit confused. I don't know exactly what he means, but his voice has a coldness to it that I haven't heard since the first few months after his hijacking. I realize that he is deeply, deeply angry. I remember how much he loved Prim too. "Did he ever tell you what he did?"
"Sort of," I say. "The last time I saw him, the morning I killed Coin, he seemed really sad about it, but he didn't know. Beetee didn't know either. No one told them whether or not it had been used."
"Did he think it was his bomb?" Peeta asks with the same controlled yet frigid tone.
"He really didn't know what he thought. I think the thing that made me so angry, more than anything, was that he said it didn't matter, that I wouldn't be able to stop blaming him either way. He's right, I guess. I still don't have confirmation, and I still do blame him. I just really didn't want to hear it at the time."
Peeta stands up with such speed and force that I'm thrown back a little bit. He walks a couple small circles around the couch and the coffee table. He's fuming.
"A matter of weeks after your sister's death, he was criticizing you for being angry at him?!" he asks. I realize now just how much of his anger at this, at Gale, is on my behalf. He doesn't need to feel that way, I don't need him to defend me. I understand it, though. If anyone did something equivalent to Peeta, I'd want to shoot an arrow through their neck.
"Yeah. At least, I think so," I say. I should be trying to diffuse his anger, but we agreed so long ago not to lie to each other.
"Fuck!" Peeta yells. He picks up the glass he's been drinking out of and throws it to the ground. It shatters into tiny pieces and the last few drops of the liquor fly through the air. As he looks at the broken shards of glass, he seems to come back to himself a little.
"I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "I'll go clean that up." He walks over to the closet to search for a broom and a dust pan. Haymitch and I just stare at each other. We don't need words, he knows what I'm feeling. Peeta comes back soon after and sweeps up the shards of glass. He empties the dust pan into the trash before sitting back down next to me. I take his hand.
"I'm sorry," he repeats.
"You're fine," I tell him with a small, sad smile. The three of us sit in silence for a few minutes. The mood that was so comfortable and happy just a short time ago is completely changed now.
I feel like if someone from another planet came down and asked what it was like to live after the war, this day would be the perfect example. An hour ago we were happy, feeling confidence in our world and our future. Now we're all sad and angry and stuck in the past.
It's strange to feel both the future and the past at the same time. I don't feel whole. It's like no matter what way I look, forward or back, some part of the picture is missing and it's wrong. I don't really know what to do about it. I've been feeling somewhat better recently, like maybe I was making progress, but it's astounding to me how quickly I slide back, and with the smallest of triggers.
"You okay?" Peeta asks me. I shrug.
"More or less," I say. He chuckles wryly and puts his arm back around my shoulder. Haymitch grabs his bottle off the shelf and starts drinking straight from it.
"What's that for?" I ask him.
"This?" Haymitch says, holding up the bottle. "This is for the nightmare that is the entire fucking world, sweetheart. The nightmare that never fully goes away even when we think we've woken up."
"I thought that was celebration booze," Peeta jokes.
"It can have many different purposes," Haymitch replies. He's joking, but he's right. I think back to what Peeta said when we were making his mother's page in the book, about living in greys.
I've always been more comfortable with absolutes: facts over feelings, security over spontaneity, certainty over uncertainty. I'd have thought everything with the Games and the war would have conditioned that out of me, but the amount of control and certainty I had to sacrifice for so long just makes me cling to what little I have all the more now. I get rattled when I can't find control. I need to remind myself when I can that Peeta and Haymitch are right; the good and the bad don't have to fully contradict each other. One doesn't always win out. The past and the future can live together.
I look between Peeta and Haymitch. I will always have the uncertainties, but at least I have them too.