A knock on the door makes me look up, I've been furiously pounding on the dough for a good half an hour. I don't even know if it's useful for any bread now, but it is helping me let out my anger. I didn't expect anyone showing up today at our door, I thought they would give us a break. After all not one but two members of our family are going into the arena today.

I wipe my hands in my apron, rub the dark circles under my eyes and open the door to reveal no other than Gale Hawthorne. He seems as surprised as I am. I know he doesn't like me, just the way I don't like him. Before he even knew it he was my competition, he was always by her side, he took care of her and her family, he was her best friend and I had never hoped to compete with that. The look in his eyes every time he looked at her made me believe they were together, but it had turned out differently. I knew Gale wasn't fond of that.

"I thought it was your dad." He says after a moment and I shrug. "He's upstairs." I realize it is the first time we exchange more than a simple 'hello', even though he is still part of Katniss' life I know he does his best to avoid me, even though I always make sure Katniss has enough bread to take some to his house, and more than once have his brothers followed her like ducklings into my bakery. "I brought you game." He says, handing me a bag similar to the one Katniss always carried with her, if not the same one and I take it. "Hold on, I'll give you some bread." I say, turning around and leaving the door open. It's cold enough outside for him to give in and step inside, I'm positive it is the first time he does.

I had baked some raisin's bread for my parents, but I know they will probably be too upset to eat, so I give it all to Gale, and I know he is about to protest but I don't pull away my hand. Gale is a very fair person, and he knows that all the bread I'm offering to him is worth more than whatever meat he brought me. "It's what she would have wanted." I say and he yanks the bread out of my hands. "Don't talk about her as if she was already dead." Gale growls, and I know it in my heart that he blames me for her death as much as I blame myself.

I purse my lips and nod, looking down to my shoes and I hear him making his way out, but before he leaves my mouth opens and I make sure to hurt him as much as I am hurting. "He would have done the same thing for Rory, you know?" When I look out Gale is glaring at me, the hatred in his eyes is obvious, and I feel sorry for him. What would I have felt if Katniss had said she loved him on national television? But even like that I can't make myself apologize.

So he leaves, with his bread and his hate. I punch the table, hard.

I flex my fingers once again, it hurts and I'm sure I've broken at least one of them but I don't care. It doesn't hurt half as much as it does to think of Katniss and Danny, especially the first. I have no doubt on her ability to bring my brother back home, especially after I saw the determination in her eyes last night.

For the first time since the reaping I am making my way to the Seam, I haven't seen Prim or Mrs. Everdeen ever since their Katniss vowed to die to save my brother, I shiver at the thought of how much they must hate me. But I can only think of how much Katniss would hate me herself if I allowed her baby sister to starve.

I knock on their door carefully, almost hesitantly, and minutes later Prim opens the door. Katniss has always insisted that Prim looks nothing like her, that while she has olive skin and grey eyes like many others in the Seam, her sister's eyes are blue and his blonde hair shines at sunlight, she used to joke about her being more like me than her. But something about the girl's look when she opens the door reminds me so much of Katniss I feel as if someone has punched me in the stomach.

Someone else punches me again when she takes a step forward to hug me tightly. She is so tiny, and fragile that I am afraid of breaking her when I close my arms around her. "Hi there, little duck." I say, calling her by the nickname Katniss and Danny gave her, and it is just then when she starts sobbing.

"Prim who is it?" I can hear her mother asking from the inside and I clear my throat. "It's just me, Peeta. I brought you guys some bread." The woman pops into my vision and she smiles sadly at me when she sees that Prim still refuses to let go of me. "Well come in then, silly." She says and I sigh relieved once I realize they don't hate me like Gale does. Like I do.

It isn't the first time I sit down in our old couch to watch the Hunger Games, in the small and almost never useful TV the commentators are rambling about her and Danny. It is the first time someone enters the arena without intentions of getting out. My mother is on another couch, fiddling with something that I cannot see, but I think it's a sock of when Danny was a baby. My father and I stare into the television blankly, pretending not to wince whenever a picture of Danny is shown.

Soon after, the longest 60 seconds of my life begin: the camera makes a turn to allow us a 360° view of the Arena, I can feel the mood in the room relaxing noticeably when we see the forest behind Katniss, if there are trees and animals to shoot we know she can make it, which means Danny will be safe. Danny is closer to the forest than she is, and I can see her looking around, trying to take in everything she can before the minute ends, she spots Danny but quickly looks away. Between Cato and the tribute from Nine, Danny seems minuscule, and for a second I panic at the thought of one of them, if not both, going after him as soon as the gong goes off, it would be an easy kill... too easy.

They make close ups of every tribute as they focus, but I cannot help but notice how Danny and Katniss spend more time in the screen than anyone else, it has been this way ever since the Parade. Even during the interviews the cameramen couldn't help but to show her once in a while, she looked so beautiful in her fire-like dress. And when she blushed it had only helped to make her look even more heartbreakingly gorgeous, if only she had blushed for any other thing. I hated to think that our relationship was now the Capitol's hot topic.

I don't notice I have trailed off until the gong goes off and I'm thrown back into reality, Cato and the rest of the Careers storm to the Cornucopia, and instead of killing my brother Cato kills the boy from Nine, even though Danny is right there, defenseless. The little blonde boy doesn't waste time, he runs off to the forest where he knows he is safe, and my parents sigh in relief, but I don't because Katniss isn't heading there. When my parents realize that she isn't following him they tense again.

Katniss runs into the Cornucopia, and I yell at her even though she cannot hear me, passes by many backpacks that for sure held useful things, she dodges a few knives and continues to run towards the bloodbath, not giving the boy she had vowed to protect a single glance. The bloodbath is everything it is expected to be, and before anyone notices five tributes are dead and Katniss is responsible for one of them, she got her hands into a bow and arrow and shot one through the girl from Seven. My father's jaw drops when he realizes why she has done it, the girl tribute was about to attack Cato, who pats Katniss' shoulder when he realizes she saved him.

It is as if the silence that for sure has fallen in the City Square, where people that don't have a television are watching, has made its way into our house, the silence is so heavy it threatens to make my chest explode, and it's cold. It makes shivers run down my spine. Katniss looks around the Cornucopia as the heat of the bloodbath dies off and she cheers with the rest.

"She is one of the Careers." My father chokes out.