The walk back to Victor's Village is a melancholy one. Peeta and I are both thinking the same thing. We are worried Haymitch will relapse. He shouldn't spend all this time alone.
"Do you want to play chess, Haymitch?" Peeta asks.
"Well, if the kid hasn't come out of hiding," Haymitch retorts with some bitterness to his voice. Peeta knows it's not meant for him. It's meant for the whole situation. I wonder if he'll start to resent me. Or Effie.
"Why don't you come in the woods with me?" I ask.
"Ha!" he guffaws. Clearly not. "Look, kids, I appreciate you trying to keep the old man on the straight and narrow, but the two of you have been keeping to yourselves lately. Don't let me stop you." He closes the door to his house and leaves the two of us on his doorstep.
"Hi," Peeta says.
"Hi," I say back.
"Well, I should probably get going. I've missed most of my morning baking, and I haven't even started the batch for Sae to hand out at the Market today." Peeta tries to excuse himself, but I grab his hand as he starts to pull away.
"I miss you," I confide. I know I shouldn't, but I am unable to help myself.
"Good," he says, and pulls away again.
"Good?" I ask. "What does that even mean?"
"It means I'm glad you miss me." Peeta replies with a confusing casualness to his voice. He reads me like a book, because he adds cryptically, "I'm not the one with something to get over, Katniss."
"Oh really? So you're over it? Over me?" I ask. I feel my stomach drop. This is not what I expected relief to feel like.
"Oh hell no. You're not the one waiting here, Katniss, I am. I'm waiting for you to get over it. To get over whatever wall it is that you've built up that's keeping you from me. I've been waiting a long time. I'll keep waiting." He turns to walk away, but after a few steps he turns back. "You asked me once to stay. I meant my answer. You know where to find me." Peeta walks up the front steps of his house and closes the door behind him. I hesitate at mine.
I feel exposed in my dress. I wanted to look nice for Effie, but I'm feeling naked in the sun with my legs shaved and nothing but a flowy drape held on by straps as thin as Beetee's wire. I catch my reflection in the glass pane of my front door. I look pretty. I don't want to look pretty anymore. I open the front door to my house and am immediately on guard when I realize someone is there. I reach for an arrow instinctively, but find my back bare of weapon. I peer into the kitchen and am stunned to see Johanna Mason bent over, rummaging through my fridge.
"Ahem…" I clear my throat and she spins around, chewing an apple from the bushel on my counter. "Well there you are, stupid. We thought you'd be home since your door was unlocked."
"We?" I ask. Without a sound, Gale slips into the kitchen.
"Hey there," he says. I glare at him.
Johanna babbles on as if I can even hear through the fury boiling inside me. Something about them coming in on the train, an escape from the Capitol. How she wasn't really here to see me anyway, but wanted to catch up with her comrade-in-pain, the lovesick puppy from District 12. She bites the apple and holds it in her mouth. She takes both of my hands in hers, and says through the cortland clamped in her teeth, "Lovely to see you darling." With that she skips out of my house, presumably to Peeta's, and I'm left standing in my kitchen with the man that killed my sister.
"I tried to call, but…"
"You need to go," I interrupt. I feel even more naked than I did before in this stupid dress. I feel like Gale is looking right through it, like I'm completely exposed. He shouldn't be in my house.
"We are staying in the vacant house 2 down."
"We?" I ask, with the accusation just dripping from my teeth.
"What? Me and Johanna? Oh god no. Ha. No." Gale replies.
I stare at him.
"Where's Peeta?"
I scowl. "We're not seeing each other right now."
"As in you're not dating, or…" The look on my face clearly gives me away. "Oh, you aren't even seeing each other." His eyes get a little too hopeful for my liking, and I shove him toward the door. "I'll go but, I'd really like to see you later. Maybe we can talk? Just think about it," he says before exiting my home. I run upstairs and change. I return to my kitchen and lock the door. That night I see Johanna and Gale at Haymitch's house. I know he and Johanna have shared a friendship for a long time. They were the black sheep of the Hunger Games mentors, and he's always found her rough-around-the-edges antics both funny and charming. It's probably good he's not alone. I hear them laughing and making a raucous until I head up to bed. I look out my window and see Peeta's lights are out. I let myself doze off.
I'm awoken by a distant screaming. I assume I'm waking from a nightmare, but as I come to it gets clearer and louder and immediately recognizable. It's Peeta. The lights from his house are still out. I don't hesitate. I race across my lawn wearing a nightshirt and nothing else. The grass is dewy after the heat from the day has burned off, and my feet are soaked when I reach his door. I am relieved to find the it unlocked, and I slowly creep my way into his house. Peeta is not in his bedroom. This is not a nightmare. Peeta is in the middle of a full-fledged flashback. I've just walked into a pitch black house with Mutt Peeta.
All of my senses are immediately on edge. There is a current in the air, and I can feel the rage pulsing through the walls. I know I need to pull him back, but if he's too far gone I may not make it out of here. It's too late to keep him from slipping, he's gone already. I don't call out his name. I don't want to send him on the hunt. Instead I peek around the corner. My eyes have adjusted somewhat and I can make out his frame in the living room. The couch is flipped over. He's covered in what I first think is blood, but I quickly realize is red oil paint. He's pacing and panting and heaving. I can see my Peeta trying to make his way back, but the Mutt is winning.
I know what brought this on. Peeta hasn't slept since our fight. He is devastated over Effie leaving. He is lost about us. And he saw Gale coming out of my house. That's just too many emotions and not enough sleep. He was on edge already - any little thing could have been the final trigger. I assume it was something in his studio, but at this point it doesn't matter. I need to bring him down. I hear him ranting.
"There was blood everywhere. It was raining blood and Johanna was choking on it. How did she get all that blood?"
He's not making sense.
"She killed everyone and they sprayed it all over the Arena. It's my father's blood. It's Cato's. She'll kill me next. She'll kill us all. I have to stop her before the next rainfall."
He grabs a chair from his dining room table and hurls it across the room. It splinters into pieces on the floor. He screams again, and it reverberates throughout the house. Everyone in Victor's Village will be up soon. Peeta clings to the edge of his table and his eyes roll back into his head. He's fighting this. I can see him forcing his way back. He drops to his knees and lets out a strangled sob. This is my chance.
I come around the corner, exposing myself to him. Peeta is shaking violently. When he looks up I see his heart break in his eyes, but the eyes belong to Peeta. They are blue and they are wild, but they are mine. He's trying desperately to cling to this reality. His face fills with fear, and he manages to get out, "What are you doing here? Run! RUN!" I think back to our Games, when I was delusional on tracker jacker venom and Peeta told me to run from Cato. It was the moment I realized he was on my side in the Arena. Well, I'm on his side now.
I drop to my knees with him and say, "I'm not running anywhere. Look in my eyes."
He forces his eyes to mine. He's slipping.
"Not real, Peeta. What you are seeing is not real. This isn't blood, it's paint." I swirl some of it between my fingers and show him. "I am right here." I run my fingers through his hair. I try to anchor him to reality. "We are in your home in Victor's Village. See? This is your table. Smell the scent from the kitchen? Breathe in with me." I cradle his face in my hands while he breathes in. "It smells like cinnamon. And dill. Smell it?"
"...Yes…" he barely gets out.
"I'm here with you. This is real. Me and you and the cinnamon and the table. My hands on your face. This is real."
His entire body shudders and Peeta collapses into me. I stroke his hair and he grabs onto my waist. This episode is over. I keep running my fingers through his curls, and his breathing steadies. We are a tangle of limbs. The red paint streaks my bare legs as he clings to me. I sing a low, soft lullaby. He's asleep in seconds. It took a lot out of him.
The voice from behind me doesn't startle me. His silent entrances should hardly be surprising after years in the woods. "Does that happen a lot?" Gale asks.
"Not a lot," I say, "But sometimes."
"This isn't safe for you."
"Haymitch keeps a tranquilizer in case things get really out of hand," I reply.
"This wasn't out of hand?" Gale asks, looking at the bits of broken chair.
"No."