"You can also do it with your feet," she says, suddenly startling me from the memorizing rhythm of swinging the bunch of rice plants over my shoulder and against the bamboo rack. The sound of the food falling fills me with the hope of living. I've never lived so close to death, nor felt more alive than in the time I've spent with Cai's family. But what seems to make me feel most alive is Cai, and I can't stop thinking about her.
"You can do what with your feet?" I ask.
"Thresh rice," Cai giggles.
I wrinkle my nose and shake my head before swinging another bunch of rice over my shoulder and onto the threshing rack. Cai follows, much more effectively threshing her bunch of plants despite her smaller size. Years of practice, I suppose.
"But this way is better?" I ask.
"We think so," she explains. "The rice tastes less like feet."
This time I'm the one who laughs.
Harvest is incredibly hard work for everyone. Trying to make myself as useful as possible creates challenges for me, but as my broken leg slowly heals I'm able to handle more and more of the workload. Leaving the cave involves some risk, but Gao has pointed out that the neighbors are so busy harvesting their own fields that they rarely visit during this time of year. My nightmares are a bit better, probably from the sheer exhaustion and better sleep that the long workdays bring me. I wear Cai's father's clothing. In fact, I've hidden my uniform with the items salvaged from the plane. My military life seems a million miles away, and I feel increasingly part of Cai's family as a substitute for my own. I don't know if they feel as bonded to me, but they are kind to me none-the-less.
I avoid being alone with Cai because it's simply too much of a risk. If Cai can act impulsively and end up kissing me then I know I'm capable of doing the same to her. Whether or not Cai truly understands the reasons for my cautiousness is something that worries me. I would hate to think I've made her feel badly about herself, but I don't want to "cause trouble" as Gao so eloquently put it when clarified the boundaries in the cave the night Cai and I accidently fell asleep together. Gao would certainly see the one kiss that Cai and I have shared as a breach of boundaries. It simply cannot happen again. It happens again in my mind, though. I've relived that kiss in my head a thousand times, expanding on what really happened when I'm alone in my dark cave with little to do but think of Cai. I don't think about Delly, a fact that makes me sad and guilty. My feelings for Cai are simply too strong and growing stronger. Delly is so far away and reminds me of everything I might never see again. I know I'm entertaining these thoughts of Cai, even encouraging them. God help me, I just can't seem to stop.
Lost in thoughts of our lips meeting again while I continue threshing the rice, I don't notice when Cai first yanks my arm.
"Peeta! Hide," she says.
"What? What is it?" I ask her, not immediately following her instructions. Then I hear voices and footsteps just outside the barn. One voice sounds like Gao's. The other is a woman's voice I can't identify.
"Hide!" Cai whispers frantically. I'm not sure where to hide in the barn, it's small and is basically one open space except for a small stall for the water buffalo. Cai grabs my wrist and pulls me to the stall. I'm surprised when she crouches down in the stall with me just before the door opens. I can finally understand Gao's voice clearly as he enters the barn.
"I just don't know how to get out of it. They are like my own family," I hear him say.
"But they aren't your family. I'm going to be your family," the woman's voice answers.
Cai puts her hand over her mouth.
"But I've lived with them since I was so young. I have to find a place for Cai. It wouldn't be fair for me to just abandon her, and I can't disrespect my father that way," Gao tells the woman.
"But you are willing to break from the plans he made for you. The problem is Cai," she says, her tone angry.
Cai bows her head. I want to comfort her, but I'm too afraid of making noise to move.
"But Cai needs a future, too. So does Min. Cai can't leave this farm. Her mother and sister need her," Gao explains.
"What does her mother say? The woman asks.
"She doesn't know," he answers. "I can't bring myself to tell her. She practically raised me."
"Does Cai know?" she asks.
"I think so, but I haven't actually told her."
The woman sighs. "Any prospects yet?" She asks.
"Our landlord suggested one of his servants. He says he's a good worker, and he grew up farming."
Cai looks up as her eyes widen and her face twists into an expression of pure grief.
"Our landlord says he will handle the negotiation if necessary," Gao continues. "We already checked with the matchmaker, and their birthdates are compatible."
"And your landlord is willing to let this man go?" the woman asks.
"He says he owes this servant a debt, and the man wants to go back to farming. So the landlord likes the idea."
Cai's breaths are coming in short pants. I can't tell if she's enraged or about to burst into tears, but it doesn't matter. Whatever the reaction, the cause is pain. No longer able to stand Cai's emotional breakdown, I reach for her hand and squeeze it as I give her the most sympathetic look I possibly can. How terrible for your fiancé to be planning to marry you off to someone else, and yet I can hear in everything Gao is saying that he cares about Cai and the rest of her family.
"If you believe that finding Cai a husband is the only way for us to be together then so be it. I just hope it doesn't take a long time," the woman tells him, her voice warmer now.
"I hope it won't, but I can't make her marry anybody. Cai has a mind of her own," Gao points out.
Cai's face hardens as if she is planning at this very moment exactly how she's going to demonstrate that she has a mind of her own.
"Come here," Gao says. Shuffling sounds follow, along with a laugh from the girl. I wonder what's going to happen next. Hopefully nothing else because I doubt Cai can take much more of this.
/
As soon as the barn door closes Cai falls into my arms.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her, but her hands are balled into fists, and she shakes with what I believe is rage.
"How could he?" she questions through clenched teeth as she presses her forearms against my chest. "I'm going to tell him to…"
"No, no. Not yet. Don't talk to him yet. Calm down first," I warn her, gently pulling her into a tighter embrace. She allows it. "I'm so sorry," I repeat, smoothing her raven-colored hair with my hand as she rests her cheek on my chest. Cai wears her hair up, but it has been steadily falling out of its neat arrangement as we threshed the rice.
"I hadn't given up," she admits. "Up until today I still thought Gao and I would get married someday." She talks about the end of this belief with grief, similar to how people talk about the death of a loved one.
"But he said he can't force you to marry anyone else. Is that true?"
"Yes," Cai explains. "But what else can I do but marry who he finds for me? Gao's going to leave us, Peeta. I can't run this farm with only Min to help me." She pauses, then places her open hand on my shoulder, nudging the sore muscles there unwittingly. "And I'm going to miss Gao. I thought I'd spend my life with him," she adds.
I imagine these are difficult admissions for her given Gao's rejection.
"Do you love him?" I ask hesitantly.
"Love him," she repeats slowly. "I don't know, Peeta. I'm supposed to marry him. I assumed I would feel what I should feel for him. If that is love, then the answer is 'yes.'"
"But do you love him now. Do you think you'll miss him because you love him or because he's more like a brother to you?" I ask, wondering if these questions are going to confuse her even more. Maybe I should stop talking.
"I don't know," she answers. "I want to marry him."
"But…why do you want to marry him?"
She looks up at me, blinking as she does.
"Do you like to be around him? Do you think of him often when he's not with you?" I ask her.
She opens her mouth as if to speak and then shakes her head instead.
"I'm not sure. Is that how you feel about Delly?" she asks.
"I did," I tell her. "But now thinking of Delly makes me sad. She probably believes I'm dead. She might be with someone else, and I don't want to think about that."
I realize what I've said too late, but perhaps Cai and I can take comfort in the fact that our predicaments do have some similarities.
"Do you like the way Gao looks?" I ask her, feeling uncomfortable with the question but believing that attraction is an important factor also.
Cai shrugs. "Yes, but that's not why I want to marry him. I believe we are bound together, destined to be together. How I feel doesn't matter as much as knowing he is meant for me. When my father chose him for me and his father chose me for him it was for the good of both of us and our families."
I sigh.
"So what will you do now?" I ask.
Cai's brow furrows, and she looks away.
"I suppose I will meet my future husband."
A pang of jealousy twists inside me, and then my mind starts tumbling around the idea of what Cai means to me and what I might mean to her. It's not as if I've never considered that before, but the prospect of Cai marrying a man she's obviously never met makes the internal struggle over my feelings for her all the more real. I've been jealous of Gao, but at least she and Gao had history together. This new man seems like an outsider, an interloper. Then the ridiculousness of viewing a Chinese farmer who might want to marry Cai as an outsider hits me. I'm the outsider, after all.
"What about this?" I ask her, leaning her back against my arm so I can see her face again. "What is this?" I point to her and then to me a few times.
She casts her eyes downward as if she's ashamed. "I don't know, Peeta. Do you think of this as love?" She asks me.
I'm stunned by her response, that she entertains such an idea at all.
Yes, I think this might be love, I tell myself.
To Cai I only answer, "I'm not sure, but it must be something."
"Do you think I'll feel this way about my husband?" she asks, a longing in her voice.
The muscles of my face tense into a pained expression.
"I hope so," I whisper. "Because I want you to be with someone you love."