TW for this chapter: suicidal ideation + mentions of self harm
I don't speak, I don't eat, I don't even move. I hardly even think, and it seems as though at some point I must not be breathing, yet I always am.
Peeta tries, he's trying so hard and I can see the panic in his face, but I am unreachable. I don't know how many hours I've been like this. I know it's dark out and I know he's been by my side for a while now, but that's about all I can tell. If I cared to guess I might suspect it's sometime in the middle of the night, but it really doesn't matter to me. It's not like daylight coming in the morning will bring any change in my ability to get up and try to live. I am numb, and I am frozen. Living is too much,
Peeta keeps talking to me. I guess he's hoping that something he might say will spark some form of recognition in me, but it won't. I can't care that we're snowed in, or that he has food for me downstairs. I can't even care that he loves me. He tells me that over and over again, but I can't do anything except stare blankly past him and blink, eyes focussed on nothing in the physical world, but rather on the canvas inside my head. I think I must be drifting in and out of consciousness, because sometimes I feel as if I close my eyes and when I open them Peeta is talking about something completely different than he was before. It's confusing and it just makes me tired.
"It's crazy how hard the snow is coming down, I'm not even sure if I could make it across Victor's Village with it this deep -" Blink.
" - just, you're the love of my life, Katniss. I don't know what happened, but I can only guess you're in so much pain. Just please know that I am here, and that I'll help you with whatever you need. I love you so mu -" Blink.
" - some days when things were really bad, if my mom had gone particularly hard on me or someone I knew well was Reaped, my dad would make this special sort of tea and cookies. Well, except, there's nothing special about it, really. It's lavender tea and chocolate chip cookies, it's stuff we always had materials for at the bakery. But it was special to me, because he always did what he could to try to make me feel better."
I blink a few times. It takes a moment for my eyes to process that it's light out, and another beat to realize that he's placed a mug of hot tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the bedside table. I think I feel something at that, maybe some pang of loving, or longing, or pain, or warmth. But I don't know, don't even know if I could ever be sure. I don't move to pick up the mug or the cookies. I'm not sure if I've moved at all since I curled in on myself after destroying the comforter and pillows. The likelihood that I've even rolled over in sleep seems slim to me, as I'm in the exact same position I put myself in, and I don't believe that my muscles are capable of moving.
My eyes find Peeta's face for the first time in a while, or at least the first time clearly. He looks distraught, his hair rumpled and his eyes red. I can't remember hearing or seeing him cry, but he looks like he must have. I should feel guilty for putting him through this. But all I feel is that he should give up on me and leave me alone. He doesn't deserve any of this, and yet this is all I can give him. He should just leave me alone. These thoughts rattle around my head as I drift off into oblivion.
Blink.
I don't know how long my eyes are closed, but when I open them it appears that Peeta is no longer by my side. I feel a strange stabbing feeling at this. All I have wanted is for him to go away, but now that it seems he has gone, I am somehow managing to feel even worse than I already was. I stay still in the silence for several minutes, just staring at the blank canvas and sinking in the hurt. Tears, which have been pricking at my eyes off and on throughout this long night, return in full force, flooding my eyes until I just squeeze them closed in a vain effort to prevent them from falling.
I keep my eyes closed, trying to block everything out and escape from the world. I'm interrupted in my attempt, however, by sounds from downstairs. The door opens, then it shuts. A heavy set of footsteps moves around. No, actually, it's two sets of feet.
"I don't think I've ever seen her this bad, Haymitch," I hear Peeta's voice say, sounding distressed and broken. "I can't get her to speak, or even look at me, let alone eat or drink anything."
"Sounds like how she got right after Prim died," Haymitch replies. "But even then, she was able to get up and move about the world. She just did it as a dead girl."
"I don't know what set her off, but I should have been here," Peeta says. I feel a bit of something like guilt sting within me at the completely unfair responsibility Peeta has put on himself. "She never would have gotten this bad if I'd been here."
"This isn't on you, boy, don't put it there," Haymitch says. "None of it is your fault."
"I...I just want to be able to help her," Peeta chokes out, his voice sounding as if it is coming through tears. "To protect her in some tiny way. I don't want this for her, Haymitch."
"I know kid, I know," Haymitch says, his voice as soft as I've ever heard it. There is a moment of silence, and then I hear Haymitch's voice ask "She's in the girl's room?"
"Prim's, yeah," Peeta responds, sniffling. Another minute or so goes by, and then I hear two sets of feet making their way up the stairs. No. I don't want this. I don't want to talk to anyone at all, certainly not two people at once. Peeta's presence I can tolerate to a point, but Haymitch too and it's just too much. I normally regard Haymitch as one of the few people on this planet who don't really count as people to me in the negative sense; that small group whose presence I never find exhausting, no matter how much I may crave alone time. Now, though, I think that already small circle has shrunk to contain only Peeta. Anything else is just too much.
The two men enter the room despite this, though. Peeta hangs back by the door, seeming to be deferring to Haymitch, and the older man approaches me cautiously, taking the seat by the bed that Peeta had been occupying for who knows how many hours.
"What's going on, sweetheart?" he asks me, clasping his hands in his lap and leaning forward slightly. I say nothing, of course, just staring back at him with a blank expression that is slightly tinted with anger. "Yeah, I didn't expect you'd say much," he says. "Just figured I'd try, on the off chance I got lucky."
If he thinks he's being funny, he's not. Or even if he might be, I have no interest in funny. All focussing on humor would do is distract me from all the damage I've brought on this world, and trying to forget does no good. It will all still be there, ten times worse when I start to remember.
"You've got your boy pretty worried," Haymitch tells me, jerking a thumb in Peeta's direction. "It stopped snowing over night and once enough had started to melt that he could make his way over to my house, he was banging on my door. I was taking a nap and he woke me, and I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but one look at his face and I knew something was wrong. He told me how he found you, and how long you'd been like this, and brought me here to try to help. Now, I don't know what on earth Peeta thinks I'm going to be able to do to comfort you better than him, as I would say he's the world expert in that shit. But, what I do think is that you should know I am here for you, and he is here for you. You've got a whole crew of people here for you by phone, too. Dr. Aurelius, for one, who the boy has already put in a call to. But also Effie, and Johanna, and Annie. All these people want to be here for you. So if there's anything you need, anyone that you think it might help to talk to, you just tell us. Because we've all been there, in one way or another, and we all want you to come out of it."
I don't respond to Haymitch, because I don't think there is any way that I can. I feel some muscles in my face move, but I genuinely couldn't say what expression I'm making. I don't even know how I feel. I'm too numb. Haymitch seems to recognize something familiar in my face, however, as his mouth turns up into a small smile.
"I know you don't believe me," he says, chuckling slightly. "I can see that plain on your face, even through all of this. But it's true. And it'll sink in eventually. Don't block us all out, sweetheart, because we really are here to help."
I say nothing, and this time so does Haymitch. He just settles back into his chair, adjusting until he gets comfortable. He seems content to reciprocate my silence, as long as he can keep his eyes on me. He and I are alike in this way, we always have been. We both know that words can't always fix things. Peeta, with his prodigious skill at moving mountains with his speech, always tries to use it to help in whatever way he can. Haymitch and I both have points where we know there's no use in us talking, so we don't. But we both know that you can't let someone you care about out of your sight if you want any chance at protecting them.
Peeta takes a seat on the floor by Prim's bed, leaning his back up against the side so his head is right under my catatonic form. A very small twinge in me yearns to stretch my fingers out just the few inches it would take for the tips of them to touch his curls, but even that feels like too much effort.
"You haven't slept," Haymitch says, looking at Peeta's face. I can't fully see it from my position, but I can only imagine it is lined with exhaustion, both physical and emotional. "You should go lie down, even just for an hour or two. I can watch the girl and make sure she's okay." He pauses briefly before adding, "Well, at least relatively speaking."
"No," Peeta says immediately, shaking his head. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, but just as strongly I can hear the stubbornness. People are aware of my stubbornness, and they are not wrong about it, but they often underestimate how stubborn Peeta can be too when his mind is set on something. "No, I'm fine. I'm staying here." Haymitch just shakes his head, looking slightly exasperated, but also as if he knows there is no use in arguing with Peeta. The two men lapse into silence, and it seems as if there is no sound in the world.
We stay like this for hours. I don't find myself falling into sleep anymore. I guess it just doesn't feel possible with both of them watching me. Peeta drifts, though. I can hear his breathing occasionally becoming slower and heavier, though usually for no more than half hour increments at a time, and he always snaps out of it with a start, seeming angry at himself for ever letting it happen. I don't care if he sleeps. He should sleep, because he should live. Just because I don't want to, doesn't mean he can't.
Haymitch's eyes never seem to leave my face, though I try not to meet them because the thought of eye contact makes me uncomfortable. Instead I just continue my blank stare, focussing only on that canvas, on Prim, and on the mess that I've made.
The hours of the afternoon pass like this. Occasionally Peeta and Haymitch will talk to each other. Peeta brings food for the two of them at one point, and leaves extra for me on the night table, though I think we both know there is no chance I'm eating it. I would say about once an hour he makes an effort of talking to me, of telling me he loves me, but I stay trapped in my silence. He looks so disheartened that I feel stabs of pain dig into my chest like a knife, but despite it all there is nothing I can do about it.
It seems that my body is registering physical sensations far later than it should, because it's only now in the hours of early evening that I start to feel the stiff ache of not having moved for nearly an entire day. It isn't enough to motivate me to actually get up, but it does make me stretch the slightest bit. I extend my legs slightly and then bring them back to their original position, and I flex my ankle a couple times.
"Do you want your socks off?" Peeta asks, misinterpreting my movements. He doesn't wait for an answer, knowing I won't give one, and immediately gets up to help in the unnecessary task. As I begin paying attention to my body again, I realize I'm still wearing the socks I went out in the snow in, and that my feet do still have that problematic sting that I never actually was able to counter yesterday. Peeta peels the woolen socks off of me, and while I can't really see my feet because I refuse to move my head, I can tell by his intake of breath that there must be visible signs of the frostbite.
"Oh, Katniss..." he lets out, voice and face both revealing deep concern. Haymitch gets up at this, and moves around to the foot of the bed to see what's wrong.
"The fuck did you do, sweetheart?" he mutters to himself, before turning to Peeta. "You have to get her in the bath. Make it warm, but not too hot. The water will help with that." Peeta nods his head.
"Okay," he says. "Is that okay, Katniss?" he asks me gently. "Do you think you would be alright with having a bath?" I say nothing, of course. I really don't know why they even bother asking me things at this point. The fact of the matter is that no, I don't want a bath, not because the idea of it is so bad in and of itself, but because it represents an effort into trying to get me to live again, and I don't want to do that.
Unsurprisingly, though, Peeta and Haymitch do not seem to agree, and Peeta picks me up gently and begins to carry me bridal style across the room. Haymitch tells him that he will call Dr. Aurelius back, who has apparently been asking for regular updates on me. I don't like that these people have to take care of me. I don't think I deserve it. I don't have the energy to fight, though, and so I just let Peeta carry me, taking me out of Prim's room for the first time since I decided to open her door yesterday.
Peeta carries me into our room and then through the open door to our bathroom. He sets me down gently on the closed lid of the toilet, and then turns on the tap to start drawing the bath, testing the temperature with his hand as he goes. Once he's satisfied, he stands back up again. He looks at me deeply, while I just stare back with the same blank look I've had for hours.
"It should just be a couple of minutes," he says, glancing at the bath briefly before looking back at me again. "Do you need anything? Maybe you want to use the bathroom?" I've been so trapped within myself that bodily functions haven't even seemed to be registering, but once he brings it up, I realize he's right. I nod my head at him. It's the first voluntary action I've taken in hours, and even just this is exhausting. He looks disproportionately relieved at getting any form of response out of me, even if it is for something so simple as this.
"Okay," he says, voice sounding far too excited for the situation at hands. "I'll go wait right outside, to give you some privacy." He hurries out of the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. I can hear his footsteps, though, and I can tell he doesn't take another step away from the outside of the door. He's still worried about me, doesn't trust me not to do something that might hurt myself if left alone too long. He's right to be concerned.
I open the lid of the toilet and relieve myself, going over to the sink to wash my hands when I'm done. I don't want to look at it, but standing at the sink means that the mirror at the counter is right in my line of sight, and I can't help but face my reflection. I look awful. Really, truly awful. There is no color to my skin, except for the redness of my eyes. I am weak and sickly looking. I look half dead.
Peeta knocks on the door softly, and I turn away from the mirror to see him come into the bathroom again.
"I brought you this," he says, holding up an empty glass before filling it up at the sink. "I thought maybe you might want to drink some water." I don't say anything or make any effort to take the cup. I just watch as his expression falters a little bit, and he sets the glass down on the edge of the counter.
"I think the bath is ready," Peeta says, reaching to turn off the tap. "I'm going to help you get out of your clothes. Is that okay?" I say nothing but make no objections, so Peeta approaches me slowly and starts helping me out of my many layers of clothing. I don't really help him or resist him, keeping my limbs loose and responsive to his movements, but not taking any initiative upon myself either way.
There is something very odd about this moment to me. I think Peeta must feel it too. There is just a sense of melancholy so strongly in the air, it's almost palpable. It's not long ago at all that we undressed each other to love each other, and to feel alive in the deepest sense. Now he has to do it just to try to keep me living.
Once I'm relieved of all my clothes, Peeta lifts me again and gently sets me down into the water. It's warm, and despite all my wishes that it wouldn't, it does feel nice. There is a stinging on my frozen feet that is unpleasant, but otherwise the warmth is welcome to my aching body. This is so Peeta, I almost hate him for it. I don't deserve to feel good, I don't want to feel good, and yet somehow he makes it happen anyway. He and I sit in silence for several minutes, as I hug my knees to my chest and let the feeling of the water envelop me.
"I'm so sorry, Katniss," he says after a while, so quietly that I can barely hear him even though he's sitting right next to the bathtub. "I should be able to find some way to help you, and I'm so sorry that I'm failing. Even more than that, I'm sorry that you have to feel this way in the first place, that you have to go through this pain. And I'm sorry I keep making you listen to me talk," he says, chuckling dryly at this. "But, it's all I know how to do, and somehow it's too scary to stop."
He pauses for a moment, taking a deep breath before continuing.
"When I sit in silence, all my mind does is bombard me with thoughts about losing you. And I just...I can't, Katniss. The thought is too overwhelmingly terrifying. I don't know what I'd do without you, but I know I couldn't live. I need you." His voice breaks on the last sentence, and I can see tears filling his blue eyes, coloring them with a level of vulnerability that even I have rarely seen. "I love you so much," he whispers through tears. "I need you to come back to me."
His words burn through me like a fire, the heat somehow both hurting me and warming me all at once. I can't fully make sense of it, but all I know is that his warmth is powerful enough to melt away one of the many layers of ice that have formed around my heart since entering Prim's room yesterday. Not all of them, no. That will take so much time. But the first one melts away.
I still can't speak, that's still too much. I can't offer him the words of comfort that he can give me, or even the words of love that he absolutely deserves. What I do instead, though, is reach out my hand to take his. It's a simple gesture, and I'm weak enough that it is still emotionally tiring, but the light that returns to his eyes is enthralling. He looks almost in disbelief, but like he has never been more grateful to be wrong in his life. He brings his lips down to our joined hands and places a tender kiss on the back of my hand, before resting his forehead in the same spot. We stay like this for a long time.
Ages later, only when my skin has started to prune and the bath water has grown cold, Peeta lifts me out of the tub and dries me off with a soft towel. As he turns to drain the water, I hold the plush material to my body, allowing myself to focus on the pleasant feeling of it on my skin. It is something concrete and real I can focus on, rather than the torrents of pain inside my head.
Peeta leads me back out into our bedroom, and I sit down on the edge of the bed while he looks through the drawers to find clothes for me. It's cold out and without the warmth of the water I'm shivering slightly, so he pulls out a pair of knit thermal pants, as well as a flannel shirt of his own that I often like to steal and comment on how warm it is. I slip into the clothes wordlessly, and find myself pleasantly surprised by the comfort I feel in them. I don't know if I deserve this sort of feeling, but I'm selfish enough to say I like it.
"Peeta," I find myself saying without even realizing I'm doing it. My voice is incredibly hoarse from hours of nonuse. Peeta's face looks incredibly surprised to hear me speak, and frankly I feel just the same. But his face also shows something else, something that is uniquely him. In his eyes I see that tinge of hope that has always been exclusive to Peeta for me. I recognize in him the hope he has given me time and time again, from the bread, to both Arenas, to rebuilding a life. He gives me hope, always. And the hope gives me courage to live.
"Peeta, can I have the glass of water?" It's such a simple request, and it's something I'm asking of him, but the smile that takes over his face would make a person think I've just offered him the finest jewels in the Capitol.
He rushes to grab the glass from where he left it in the bathroom, and when he comes back he holds it out to me eagerly. I take it and sip it slowly, and find it quenching a thirst I hadn't even processed was weighing me down. As I continue to take small sips, a deep sense of relief from both of us seems to fill the room. I finish the glass, having to stop several times to let my body adjust, and set the empty cup down on my bedside table. The minute my hands are free, Peeta wraps me in his arms. I think if he had tried to hug me this morning, I would have rejected it completely, not wanting any sort of love or physical contact. But now, I don't recoil. Now I allow my hands to rest loosely on his back. It's not the sort of embrace I would give him on a good day, but it's something. We are building back to something.
When we pull apart, Peeta looks at me with a small smile on his face.
"That was so good," he says softly. "I'm so proud of you. Do you want anything else? Do you think you could maybe eat?" I shake my head. Food still feels like too much, and there's really only one thing I want right now. The progress I've made is relieving to me, but it also has drained me so much more than the simple actions should. There is too much emotion in it all, and I don't think I can do much else.
"I'm so tired, Peeta," I whisper. "I just want to sleep." He nods at me and gently lowers me down onto the bed. I rest my head on my pillow but don't even bother getting under the covers, that small effort seeming too much for my newly exhausted body. Peeta seems to understand this, though, as he drapes a throw blanket over me. He runs a finger through my hair gently before leaving my side to close the curtains and turn off the lights. I realize he's about to leave the room, so I stop him.
"Stay with me?" I call out, my voice small. I can't see his face through the dark from where I'm lying, but I swear I can almost hear him smile.
"Always," he replies, before coming over to join me on the bed. He lays down beside me and curls his body around mine, and for the first time in a long time I feel safe. I feel as if despite all the pain and fear, the world cannot be quite so bad, or quite so impossible to face, if I have him. It is this thought and the feeling of his arms around me that allow my eyes to close and not be met by the blank canvas. It is the warmth of Peeta that allows me to drift off to sleep.