Chapter 27

Katniss threw herself into her work, staying late, picking up extra shifts. Anything to distract her from the gaping hole where her heart had been.

The hole Peeta left when he walked out of her life.

It was better this way, she knew. She couldn't afford the kind of love that led to marriage or a family. She wasn't built that way, and despite what the people of Panem seemed to think, Peeta definitely was. It was better that he hated her now, and used his time to find the right woman to give him that family and that future.

But she missed him. So much. And not just the sex, though she felt slick and hot and empty every time she woke up alone.

More than that, she missed his smile and his flirty winks and the way he made her feel grounded, safe. No one's arms had made her feel that way in a very long time. Not since her father died. Not since the Katniss who was capable of love died with him.

"You miss him," Annie said. They were sipping lemon barley water—which Finnick's mom swore was fantastic for Annie's pregnancy-induced indigestion—on Annie's deck, boxes of takeout pad thai between them. Nightfall had barely taken the edge off the sticky summer heat and the scent of bushfire smoke hung heavy in the air. A constant reminder of the danger that surrounded them. A constant reminder, too, of Peeta.

Katniss didn't know if some of their coworkers had told Annie about her foul mood or if she'd been talking to Peeta, or if maybe she'd just intuited that Katniss was alone and miserable. But Annie had insisted on a girls' night in, just the two of them. Finnick was in the city again, and Peeta, well, she hadn't seen or heard a peep from him in days.

And damn did that hurt.

Katniss shrugged. There was no point pretending she didn't know who Annie meant. She'd tried to keep what she and Peeta had been doing private, but Annie was her closest friend. "It was just a fling."

"It wasn't, Kat," Annie said. "Not for you. You really care about him."

She did. And that's why it hurt so much that he walked away. That she let him walk away.

"It's for the best." He was always going to leave, once he figured out how broken she was. At least this way she could keep her dignity. "I couldn't love him the way he deserves."

"You sell yourself short, Kat," Annie said. "You've got an incredibly big heart. Anyone who ever saw you with Prim knows that.

"That's different."

"With your patients too. You care."

"Caring isn't the same as loving." Katniss sighed. "I don't have that gene," she said. "I'm not made for relationships."

"That's bullshit and you know it." The curse word, so unexpected from mild mannered Annie, caught Katniss's attention. "You're afraid, and I get it."

"You don't." Katniss looked away. Prim had been the only one who understood, who knew how truly screwed up she was.

"I know about your dad, and about your mom snapping." It wasn't a secret, not really. Though Katniss didn't talk a lot about Dale Everdeen, she'd shared a few bits of information with Annie when they were living together. And Annie had known the Everdeen girls had gone to live with Haymitch because their mother hadn't been well. She'd probably guessed why.

Katniss shrugged.

"I know about the foster care too," Annie whispered.

Katniss's head snapped up, her expression horrified. "How?" she whispered. She'd never told a soul. It was her private shame.

In the days and weeks after her father's death, Katniss's mother had ceased to function, had climbed into bed and simply not gotten up again. At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, Katniss had been forced to take over as head of the family. There had been no other choice, their mother couldn't take care of them.

She'd held on as long as she could, tried to stay strong for her sister. But one day at school, with no lunch and in filthy clothes, a teacher had asked Katniss if everything was all right at home.

Her mother had always said that the teachers were there to help her. So, tired and disheartened and so very hungry, Katniss had confessed. She'd hoped old Miss Trinket would give her a sandwich, maybe.

Instead, she called the police. And they'd called Child Protective Services. Katniss was sent to one foster home, Prim to another.

It took six long months to find a relative—Uncle Haymitch, their mother's estranged half-brother—willing to take the two girls, to go through the court system to have him declared legal guardian and finally to send them to his house in the city.

It took six months to destroy Katniss's childhood entirely.

The foster home itself had been fine, her foster parents somewhat distant but she was provided with the essentials. But her ability to trust anyone was shattered. And with the exception of Prim, she was certain her ability to love anyone had been too.

Haymitch was a cardiologist, unmarried and uninterested in having children. He was far too busy to pay them much attention. But he did give them a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, clean clothing, private school tuition. He'd helped them both get into med school and paid their way. It was a good life, and Katniss was grateful. But the happy little girl she had once been, the one who liked to go fishing with her father and sing old folk songs, that child was gone forever.

Adult Katniss didn't blame the teacher, she herself was now a mandatory reporter after all, she knew Miss Trinket hadn't had a choice. But that distrust, that inability to allow herself to be vulnerable in front of anyone, that had never left.

"Prim told me, that summer she lived with us, before she went off to school." The summer after Haymitch died, Katniss remembered. Between Prim's undergrad and first year of med school. Katniss scowled. "No," Annie said, "don't be mad. She just wanted to protect you."

"How does that protect either of us?" Katniss mumbled, shame stealing over her, making her eyes sting. She hadn't even thought Prim remembered, she'd been so young at the time and they had never, ever spoken of those months, after. Now all of the secrets Katniss had held onto so tightly, all of the poison she'd fought so hard to hide from... Annie knew about it all.

"It doesn't define you, Kat."

But it did.

Eventually, their mother had returned to them, released from a psychiatric in-patient program to live in Haymitch's house with him and her daughters. Prim had been thrilled to have her back, but Katniss kept watching, waiting for her to disappear. Never trusting her. Some small, gnarled place inside hated her mother for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put them through. Prim forgave her, but Katniss had taken a step back from her mother, from everyone but Prim, really, put up a wall to protect herself from needing anyone, and nothing was ever the same again.

Their mother's ultimate abandonment some months later ensured it never could be.

"I've seen what happens when you get in too deep, when you let yourself rely on someone," Katniss whispered.

"You're not your mother," Annie said softly, the killing blow.

"Loving my dad destroyed her."

"No, honey, it didn't," Annie said, wrapping her arms around Katniss. "She had a disease."

"I know that," Katniss said. She'd taken a psychiatry unit in medical school, had learned all about bipolar disorder. If she was being honest with herself, she'd known long before that. But the associations her child-self had made, between her father's death and her mother's break with reality were stuck fast on her heart. Not only had she lost a father that day, but a mother as well. "I know."

"Then you know that it would be okay to let yourself love Peeta. And to let him love you back."

Katniss hadn't cried since she was eleven years old. She hadn't cried when the social worker put her in a car and dropped her all alone with strangers. She hadn't cried when her mother killed herself or when Haymitch's heart had given out. She hadn't cried when the doctor told her and Prim it was cancer. She hadn't even cried when Prim closed her eyes for the last time.

She sure as hell wasn't going to cry over Peeta Mellark.

Katniss swallowed back the pain, shoved it down deep. She'd loved her mother once, long ago. But she'd learned how to wall that up, push it away to where it couldn't hurt her anymore. She would learn to do the same with Peeta. Eventually.

"It's too late, Annie," she said. "He's already gone."

They all left, in the end.