Dark. Empty. Dark and empty. That's what the canvas in my head looks like, and that's all I see for several hours.
After I manage to stop drowning in tears, I lie on my couch and start to go numb. I stare at the dark, blank canvas until the sun comes up. I don't sleep, I don't know how I'll ever sleep. I can't sleep without him. I don't know how I'll ever sleep, but right now I don't dare even try.
When the room begins to lighten I start to feel worse again. The canvas burns away and I feel like I'm on fire. Weak. I am so weak. How did I let myself become dependent on someone again, after I lost so many and tried to sever all of those connections? I let myself need him, and then I made him disappear. I have no one to blame but myself. I feel myself start to cry again but I don't fully process it.
A few more hours pass like this and then I hear the door open. I lift my head, an impossible flicker of hope emerging in my chest that it's Peeta, but slump back down when I see it's Haymitch. He looks me over, taking in my bloodshot eyes, disheveled state, and matted hair.
"What the hell happened here?" he asks me, walking over to where I am, still laying down on the couch. I don't say anything.
"You've gotta talk, sweetheart," he says. I roll my eyes at him. "Katniss," he repeats firmly, and the use of my real name seems to get through to me a little.
"We..." I start, clearing my throat which is hoarse from crying. "Peeta and I...we..." I can't really get it out, but it's obvious. Haymitch sighs and sits down on the couch, and I shift to make room for him.
"You and the kid got in a fight, eh?" he says. I nod.
"Yeah," I say, my voice cracking.
"Well, I have no interest in getting involved in this, but I'm just gonna say there isn't a chance in hell that he's gonna stay away from you for long." I shake my head at him.
"No, no. I...I pushed him away too far this time. It's different."
"If it makes you feel better, you've pushed him away plenty of times before. It's never seemed to have much of an effect."
"This is different, Haymitch," I say, my voice starting to break again, my eyes filling with tears. "I...I did too much."
"The fuck did you do, sweetheart?" Haymitch asks me, trying to lighten the mood while also getting an answer out of me. I give him a glare filled with all of the contempt and hurt I'm feeling and I can see the shift in his expression.
"Alright, not funny," he says. "And we don't have to go there. Just...I can see you slipping and you can't just let yourself go."
"It's not that easy," I say, annoyed.
"Sweetheart you're talking to a man who's been drowning himself in liquor for over 25 years. I'm aware it's not easy. It's fucking hard. But I want to see you do better than me, so I'm not letting you off this easy. Now I'm gonna make you some goddamn toast, and you better fucking eat it."
He's crude as ever, but that's honestly one of the nicest things Haymitch has ever said to me. He cares so much, just in his own weird way. I eat a piece of toast more for his benefit than anything else.
Satisfied, Haymitch leaves shortly after. I see him walking over to Peeta's house. I don't know if I want to know what's happening over there. Any sense of calm I found at Haymitch's visit disappears as I think of Peeta, and I spend most of my day pacing around my house in a state of anxiety that is simultaneously making any real activity exhausting while also making sleep or rest impossible.
I can't stop my mind from wandering to just how angry Peeta must be with me. I actually don't think angry is the right word. Very few things make him angry in the usual sense, he's too forgiving, too compassionate. I think he's deeply hurt, and that's worse. Anger I can deal with, because you fight anger, and I know how to fight. Fighting hurt doesn't work, you have to heal. I've never been any good at that.
I think remorsefully that Prim would be the perfect person to talk to in this situation. I realize she's really the only person I want to talk to right now. She'd listen and be a shoulder to cry on, but also give advice on how to apologize that is so much wiser and more mature than her youth gave her any right to be. I feel tears starting to flow again at this. Great. Now on top of everything else, I'm stuck in the pain of how much I miss her.
Haymitch comes back around dinner to force me to eat again. He can't cook to save his life, so he brings a portion of stew from Sae's that he must have picked up at the market. He sits me down at the table and watches me as I take small bites. I know he went to Peeta's but I don't say anything. I'm not sure how much I want to know, or how much I even have the right to know.
"The kid is stupid," Haymitch finally says. I look up at him. "Well, he's not stupid. It's like he's choosing to be stupid because it's safer."
"What do you mean?"
"He told me what happened," Haymitch starts.
"Figures," I mutter under my breath. Haymitch gives me a look and I shut up.
"He told me what happened and he told me that he flashed afterwards, which frankly should not come as that much of a surprise."
I feel my stomach drop. Haymitch is absolutely right, that should have been my first thought as to the impact my actions would have had on Peeta, and yet it didn't even cross my mind. What is wrong with me?
"He's fine, but it was worse than normal, relatively speaking. He broke a couple of chairs, nothing too major, but now he's in that whole cycle again where he's angry at himself." I'm starting to hyperventilate thinking about the situation of misery that I've put him in.
"He's saying that same goddamn idiotic argument all over again, that he's too dangerous to be around you. He says that you were right to want him away from you, and that since you'd already seemed to have made up your mind he'd just follow your lead so it would be less painful for you. Now the stupidity comes in with the fact that you're both making a choice that neither of you want in the guise of not hurting the other person. You're both fucking stubborn."
I fall silent. Everything Haymitch is saying makes sense. The stupidest part of my brain, though, can't seem to move past just one of his points.
"He said he's staying away?" I ask, my voice so soft it's barely audible. It's higher pitched than normal too. I don't like it, but it's the only sound I can get out through the lump in my throat. Haymitch sighs.
"Yeah. But only because -" I don't wait for him to finish his sentence. I'm up from the table and disappeared up the stairs and into a closet before he's even formed the words to try and stop me. He lets me go, knowing there's no use. He's right.
I sit numbly in the closet for hours on end, staring at nothing. I don't want to sleep, but I doze off against my will and wake screaming and sweating maybe an hour later. I don't remember what I dreamed about but when I wake I feel somehow worse than I have at any point thus far, which seems remarkable to me.
I see light starting to flow in through the slats in the closet door, but it doesn't do anything in motivating me to move. I just want to lose myself, to forget, to go numb to all the pain. Several hours later I hear the door open again and know that Haymitch is going to try to revive me. I don't want to let him.
Sure enough, I hear his footsteps find their place outside the closed door a few moments later.
"Time to get up, sweetheart," he says. When I don't respond, he opens the door. I probably look awful, and I see it register on his face. I haven't brushed my hair, showered, or even changed my clothes in over 24 hours. It's hot, and that combined with my nightmare from last night means sweat has made my clothes and hair sticky. My eyes are red and my face is blotchy from tears. In a brief and odd moment of comedy, I think of just how strong of a horrified reaction my prep team would have if they found me in this state.
"Well, I wouldn't say you're ready to film a propo with Plutarch," Haymitch jokes, clearly thinking along the same lines as I am. I don't laugh, or really acknowledge him at all.
"Come on sweetheart, you've got to take care of yourself," he says, his voice gentler than usual. "You're better than this, stronger than this. You and I both know that." I don't say anything, but I look up at him this time. He looks genuinely concerned about me. I guess that makes sense; I haven't been this bad in months. He is my guardian, even if we both sometimes seem to forget that fact.
"Think you can eat something?" he asks. I shrug my shoulders, which he seems to take as a victory, as he extends his hand and pulls me up off the ground. I don't really resist him or help him move me. Either option feels like too much.
When we get downstairs I look out the window. It's later in the day than I thought it was, I would guess by the sun that it's a little after noon. Haymitch places a plate of eggs in front of me. I wrinkle my nose a little as the smell hits me, but I still can't fully ignore the hunger gnawing at my stomach, so I take a few bites. Haymitch nods at me approvingly.
"Good," he says. He sits awkwardly in silence for a minute before he speaks again. "Sweetheart, you should just talk to the boy." I look up at him sharply.
"No," I say, my voice hoarse. He sighs.
"Well, clearly you need to talk to someone," Haymitch starts. "You can talk to me as much as you want but I know fuck all about this sort of relationship, feelings shit. I'm pretty useless on this. You need to be able to talk to someone about it." I feel anger starting to burn in my chest again.
"Who the hell do you suggest?" I ask, my voice at a normal volume but extremely bitter.
"Well, Aurelius for a start."
"No," I say again, getting louder now. I can tell he's getting annoyed at me but I'm right there with him.
"Sweetheart, you can talk to anyone you want, anyone you think will help, just talk to someone."
"Anyone I want?! Anyone I want?!" I yell back at him. "Who the fuck am I supposed to talk to, Haymitch?! I talk to Peeta, that's it, and now that's done! And you say I should talk to someone who'd be good with feelings? The only other person who was good with me like that was Prim, and she's dead! She was my sister, she was the only one I could talk to like this, and she's dead."
I'm crying again now. None of this is his fault, but I just need him to understand how hopeless this is, how it's useless to try and fix me.
"Who the fuck am I supposed to talk to?" I ask again through sobs.
He looks at me in silence for a few minutes as I just weep. I think he's finally starting to conceptualize just how far gone I am.
"I don't know, sweetheart," he says eventually, his voice no longer angry, just tired, and maybe a little sad. To my surprise, he takes my hand and squeezes it. We don't normally have a whole lot of physical contact, it's usually awkward. Right now, though, it's the most comforting thing I can hold on to. We stay like this for several minutes, until Haymitch's posture shifts. I look at him.
"I have an idea," he says. I raise my eyebrow, but he doesn't really elaborate, he just gets up and heads toward the door. "Listen, sweetheart, if you get a phone call, answer it. Okay?"
"Okay," I say, a little confused.
As he leaves, I move to the couch and resume my typical catatonic position laying down on my side. I stay like this for two, maybe three hours until I'm disrupted by the phone ringing on the wall. I really don't want to answer it; I don't want to talk, I don't want to think, and I don't want to move.
I do feel like I owe it to Haymitch though, as this is the one thing he asked of me. I drag myself up off the couch and over to the phone. I take the receiver off of the base and slide down the wall so I'm sitting on the cold floor of the kitchen.
"Hello?" I ask, my voice weak.
"Hello stupid."