After a few days of rest, broth, and sleep, we all feel better. Haymitch and Effie eventually make their way back home, but Peeta stays with me. He sleeps on the couch. We work on the new book. We write letters to friends. We don't touch at all. Annie send us a picture of her new baby, and we decide it's time for a page we've been avoiding.
Finnick. Finnick's death still feels so raw to me. I somehow deluded myself into thinking that he was invincible, but no one is invincible in the Games. No one is invincible in a war. A disproportionate number of my nightmares are about Finnick. His bronze flesh being torn from his body. Him screaming my name. Harder than those are the dreams that don't look like nightmares, but are. Dreams where we sit together tying knots. Where he teases me. Where he shoves my shoulder playfully. Where he scoops up Annie and I watch them twirl. Where we grieve together, where we're restless together, where we bicker like an old widow and widower who rely on friendly companionship to get them through the day.
I spend a whole day writing about Finnick. It inevitably drifts into a page about Mags, but they deserve to be together in this book. Mags gave her life for me and Peeta. So did Finnick. For an idea. For a world where the Games don't exist. Where his child won't be reaped. I feel guilty being here when he isn't. Peeta tells me about all the time he and Finnick spent together in 13. He tells me a story where Finnick flirted with Prim, and my little sister turned a thousand shades of red when he tickled her nose with the end of her braid. Finnick helped Peeta sort out the Quell. Peeta is also efficient at knots now. Peeta sketches and paints until he's captured every detail of Finnick's beauty. I capture his soul with my words. We clip the picture of his son to his page, and close the book for the day.
The phone rings and I flinch reflexively. I feel a rage boil inside me. I don't know who is calling, and I don't care. I grab my phone and rip it from my wall. I storm to my front door and throw it as far as I can. When I turn around Peeta is right behind me. I'm careful not to touch him as I try to dart around him to one side and then the other, but he steps in my path.
"Hey," he says soothingly, but I'm still too angry.
"Move, Peeta! This isn't funny!"
He steps forward and wraps his arms around me. I squirm and resist.
"Stop it! Stop!" I cry out and he holds me tighter. "No, I mean it Peeta. Stop!" I push him away. "We can't keep doing this. We need to move past this. We need to just be friends."
"Friends don't hug each other?" he asks.
"Not like this they don't."
"And friends don't… ask their friends to sleep in their beds? And kiss?" he asks, and I don't like it.
"Don't throw stuff back in my face," I spit.
"Well, it's just confusing, Katniss! You tell me to leave and pull me closer. You kiss my neck and then don't talk to me. You invite me to your room and then we don't touch for three days. What is that?" Peeta asks angrily.
"I just want it to be like how it used to be. When we were friends."
"How it used to be? I've been in love with you this whole time, Katniss! I've been in love with you on every step of this screwed up journey. Even when I hated you, I loved you. Do you know what that's been like for me? Do you know how confusing this is?" He's stepping away now, and my feet want to draw closer to him, but I know I shouldn't. I should shut up and take this. I should let him leave.
"I just want to be with you! Why is that so hard? It shouldn't be this hard anymore. There is no war. There is no Reaping. All that is done."
I nod my head.
"I'm going to kiss you," Peeta says, and takes a step forward.
"No," I say as I back up. I do the same dance we've been doing for years now.
"I'm going to leave," he says quieter.
"No," I say, but it's not a sound at all. And Peeta is out the door.
Good. Good. Right? Good. This is good. Then why am I shaking?
That night Peeta doesn't come over for dinner. Effie leaves to check on him - she's his guardian after all - and Haymitch and I eat in silence for most of the meal. As Haymitch uses the heel of his bread to soak up the last bits of stew, he comments, "So what did you do to the kid?"
I'm instantly confrontational. "What do you mean what did I do? Maybe Peeta did something to me."
He raises an eyebrow. "Not likely," he says as he stuffs the soaked bread into his mouth. "I've said it before, sweetheart. You could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve that boy." Haymitch calls it an early night and leaves me with my thoughts.
This is good. I clean the kitchen. I dry the dishes. I put them away. This is Peeta's chore, but I choose not to think about that. We just need a little distance, a little time. Peeta will get over things and then we can resume our friendship. I call it an early night too. I brush my teeth. I crawl in bed, but it smells like Peeta, and I'm instantly up and stripping the sheets from the mattress. I don't have extra, I'll just have to wait. I carry all the bedding to my laundry room and toss it all in the machine. Logically, I know there is too much in there. I know. But I'm too mad to act sensibly, so I stuff the whole lot in and press the buttons for soap and cycle, and before I know it the machine is rattling and water is spewing down my hall.
"Fine! FINE!" I yell at the machine. Buttercup gives me a sideways look and retreats to the first floor. I go downstairs, grab a blanket off the couch, go back upstairs, and sleep on my bare mattress with its naked pillows. Sleep is a generous word for what I do. Mostly I toss and turn and scream. My nightmares have never truly stopped, but this last week with Peeta here they'd started to subside somewhat. Instead, tonight I'm chased by mutts and unable to save Finnick. I watch him die in every way I've seen someone die. I watch him evaporate in a purple light. I watch him ripped to bits. I watch him incinerate in a bomb. I shoot him through the throat. I watch him consumed by poison fog. I watch him and I watch him and I wake up screaming.
This goes on for weeks. I never get new bedding or a new washing machine. I'm regressing and I can feel it. I stop showering, I stop caring. I let my nails and hair go wild. I don't come down for breakfast. I escape to the woods and spend hours wandering, and I come back with no game. I'm mad at Peeta. Just get over it already. Come be my friend. Haymitch tries to get through to me, but I'm not interested. Soon, I learn that Effie's assignment is complete. Dr. Aurelius has determined Peeta is no longer in need of in person supervision. She is scheduled to head back to the Capitol at the end of the week.
Effie comes to see me. I can she's worried, but if I can take anything positive from this, it's that Peeta must be doing better without me. They wouldn't send Effie away if he was regressing like I am. At least I'm self-aware. I just don't care.
"Katniss, I am truly worried about you." Effie reaches for my hand, but when she glimpses the layers of grime she pretends to tuck her hair behind her ear instead. She may love me, but cleanliness is next to holiness to Effie Trinket.
"Then stay." I say bluntly. I know it's not her job to take care of me, but I am a selfish person. Self-aware, but selfish.
"This isn't my home, Katniss. You know that. While I've loved being here, being part of a family, I need to rebuild my home too." I can't begrudge her that. The Capitol was ground zero to the siege, and we need people like Effie influencing what it will become.
"But what about Haymitch?" I ask. It's a low blow, but he can't be handling this well.
"A fish may love a bird, my dear, but where will they live?" I remember Haymitch calling her a fish out of water. She never really fit in, not really. But I don't think I can bear losing her again.
"How's Peeta?" I ask, looking out the window.
"He's doing as well as can be expected. He won't talk to me about it. He spends most his time locked upstairs painting."
I'm glad he's painting. Since our fight, we stopped working on the book. I think it's part of the reason I am struggling as much as I am. I also have no phone, so it's pretty isolating and I've missed nearly a month's worth of sessions with Dr. Aurelius. At this rate, I'll have a guardian until I die.
"Would Haymitch go with you? If he wasn't stuck here with me?" I ask meekly.
"I daren't ask. I don't want to begrudge him his answer."
We chat for a while. She brushes out my hair. She tells me that, even though she won't be in 12, I'm not alone in this. That I'm important to her, and to a lot of people. Not as the Mockingjay, but as Katniss. I tell her I will be there to see her off. She smiles and squeezes my hand. "Thank you, Katniss."
The morning of Effie's departure I clean up a bit. I shower and condition my hair so it falls like silk around my shoulders. I put on a sundress. It's been hot the last few weeks, and I want to look nice for her. I want her to think she's left some impact on me, because she has. I can't believe we've come this far. From making fun of her in the woods, to hating her for calling Prim's name, I am now in tears over the thought of not seeing Effie every day. I clean up my face. A lady doesn't make a scene.
I meet Haymitch, Peeta, and Effie at the entrance of Victor's Village. We all walk together to the train station. Effie makes small talk. Haymitch drags his feet. Peeta doesn't look at me. It's probably for the best.
"Well, this is it!" Effie exclaims as an attendant loads the last of her bags onto the train. "Now let me look at you, my Victors!" She holds out her arms and Peeta and I embrace her together.
"Mr. Abernathy." We let go, and Haymitch sweeps Effie into his arms. He squeezes her hard and lifts her off her feet.
"Don't be a stranger," he whispers to her.
"You know I won't," she says back. Still plastering a smile on her face, wigged, painted, and looking like her old self, Effie Trinket boards the train and leaves District 12.