(Cai)
The house is quiet except for the soft sounds of Peeta moving around behind the petition of his sleeping place. I know he's awake. The question is whether or not to go to him. He's happy when I do, but he doesn't beckon me there. Maybe he believes he shouldn't.
I slowly rise from my sleeping mat, checking to make sure that Min is asleep before taking a few tentative steps. The moon is full tonight, and although the house is still very dark a small amount of light does shine through some cracks in the upper parts of the walls.
Peeta intertwines our fingers when I find him. He's sitting up against the wall, and when I sit next to him he immediately leans in to kiss me. As his lips move slowly against mine I begin to imagine him as my husband and companion. He'd never leave me. I deepen the kiss and Peeta places a hand on my lower back. My shirt is lifted a bit by the motion, probably accidently, and I feel his hand directly on my skin. While it is cold it sends shockwaves through my body, and I find myself arching my back a bit in response. I slowly lower myself down to the floor, Peeta leaning over me with one hand now on the floor and the other still resting behind me. He sighs, and for a moment I think he's going to withdraw from me again, leaving me to wonder if he's not enjoying this or if he's simply too conflicted to make a go of it. All I know is I need him. I need his warmth, kindness, kisses, and strength. I need them right now.
Suddenly he removes his hand from behind me, and I brace for his retreat, preparing myself for the rejection I'll feel. Why do I let myself love him when I know we can never be together? But instead of withdrawing Peeta places his hand under my head and begins to kiss me again, ever more passionately. He lowers his body so that he's lying beside me, and I turn on my side to follow his movements. We're face to face now, as we once were in the cave. So much closer than usual.
"You're so beautiful," he whispers. "I know you don't want me to say it, but you are."
"You can't even see me, Peeta."
"But I know you are beautiful. I see you all the time, and it's not just this that's beautiful." He lifts his hand and moves it up and down. "All of you is beautiful."
He's confusing me now.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"You take such good care of your mother and Min. You even take care of me," he says. "I think that's beautiful. And…and…I want to be with you forever. Where you are, that's where I want to be. Your father was wrong. That connection…that bond…it's with me, not Gao. It was always going to be with me."
I shiver, wanting to tell him that I believe him, but unable to say it.
He kisses me again. It's a long, unhurried kiss. Along with his honey sweet words it makes me lean into him without even meaning to do so, but he's moving away suddenly. I reach for him, but I only feel the coldness of his absence. I try to say his name, but my voice fails.
Suddenly what has been ethereal becomes concrete. I'm aware that I've been sleeping with my arm folded under me such that it tingles from being neglected and pressed too hard by my head. My other hand forms a fist as I open my tear-filled eyes. I find that I'm lying on the floor beside Peeta's sleeping mat. He's rolled off of it and is lodged between it and the petition.
It was a dream.
I am here with him, but not at all in the way my mind just imagined. Gradually I remember what a bad day Peeta's had, and I start to focus on him. He's sleeping heavily now, and I'm grateful. My dreams must have wanted me to forget about watching helplessly as he learned a new lesson in hunger.
(Peeta – 3 hours earlier)
The girls look thinner these past few weeks, and I wasn't expecting that they would, probably because they were already thin enough that I couldn't imagine them thinner. When Cai looks at me now her eyes seem to take up more of her face, and her whole body appears more angular. When I touch her shoulders or arms the bones feel more prominent. Her skin feels more delicate but not as soft. I wish there was something I could do to provide more food for us, but I can't think of anything we haven't already done.
Nightmares interrupt my sleep most nights, and I often take a nap or two during the day. Naps would have been an unfathomable luxury during the hard work of harvest, but now napping helps to pass time when I would otherwise be very hungry, bored, or cold. The others seem to sleep more also, so I know my sleepiness is not entirely due to the toll the nightmares take. I've been noticing those changes for a while, but nothing compares to today.
I press my forehead harder against my hand and squint my eyes closed in an attempt to banish the one thought that seems to be consuming my whole mind. Food. How can I, personally, get more food? All I can think of is food, and it's not some fleeting wish. Today food is an obsession.
I know where Cai stores our rations for the day. I could just…take some. Maybe nobody would notice.
My throat tightens. Could hunger make me into a monster who would steal from two equally hungry women and a young girl? And have I forgotten how much I care about them, especially one of them? I am not who I was before the plane crash, but I refuse to allow myself to betray Cai and her family when they've been so kind to me.
Still, all I can think of is food. I think of my mother's food, the simple dishes she prepared for weeknights and the complex ones she occasionally tried for special occasions. I think of the food we were eating this fall here in China, when we could eat as much as we wanted without even considering how much might be left. Even the mundane field rations from the army now seem mouthwatering in my memory, even though I know they were not.
Much of the day and into the evening I've been lying on my mat, mostly because I feel unsteady when I get up. I'm not exactly sick, but I'm not well. Selfishly hoping Cai will come to visit me I make a little more noise than usual when I shift from one side to the other on my mat, but there's no response from the her side of the house. Maybe she's sleeping again.
I lay my hand over the waist of my pants. Unlike at home, I wear the same clothes to sleep in that I wear all day. I do change and wash them, but they aren't what I would call clean at the moment. The pants are loose at the waist even though Min has already taken them in for me once.
"I can always let them out again," she said cheerfully while doing the work, "I'm sure I'll have to in the spring."
In spring the world will come alive again, bringing us back to life with it. God, I wish it would come faster. I lay my hand across my belly, which aches in a different place now than it once did. Changing sides again to take the pressure off my hip I decide to try to sleep. Maybe I won't have a nightmare. Maybe if I do it won't be worse than this.
"Peeta?" Cai whispers from behind me. I didn't heard her come to me, but I'm so glad she did that a smile immediately spreads across my face when I see her. She's such a relief from the hopeless times here in China and the only person I truly want to enjoy the good moments with me.
"Cai, thank you so much, I am so…" Realizing how desperate my voice sounds, I stop talking. Cai's face scrunches into an expression of worry. She drops to her knees beside me.
"Are you having nightmares? You sound like you can't lie still," she asks.
"No. No nightmares," I tell her, reaching my hand up to touch hers. If I sit up I'll feel funny. Today is just different. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel stronger. Cai was right when she said winter is about survival.
"Then what is it?" she asks.
I can't tell her the truth. She might try to give me something to eat, and that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the family. Cai leans over and kisses me lightly on the lips while passing her hand down my cheek, past my ear, and into my hair. Then she lies down beside me, facing me. I don't even have the energy for her proximity to do to me what it normally would. Instead, I just sigh wistfully. I interlace our fingers, trying to squeeze her hand but finding my grip weak. Cai rests the hand I'm not holding on my chest.
"Are you thinking of home?" she asks.
"No," I tell her. "No more questions. Please. I can't think."
"A hollow day then?" she asks, a knowing tone in her voice.
My silence tells her what she needs to know. She starts to pull her hands away from me, tying to sit up. I grip the hand I'm holding as hard as I can, ultimately retaining only her fingers. She pauses.
"No!" I snap, sounding surprisingly angry. "I won't take any more. That'll make me feel worse than I do now. Min already gave me some rice your mother didn't eat. I don't understand! I still feel so empty."
"And it's likely that nothing will make you feel full, but eating a little more might make you stronger," she whispers as she kisses my ear. I know what she's doing. She's trying to calm me, but it won't work. I've been trying to calm myself for hours.
"No!" I tell her, vainly fighting to keep hold of her fingers as she tries to pulls away again.
"Peeta, what good do you think it'll be to any of us if you get so weak you can barely move?"
She has a point, but it scares me that she believes that's a possibility right now.
Why can't I be stronger?
"But you are not feeling the way I do, Cai," I say guiltily.
"I have, and I will again. Everybody's different," she says. "Besides, you are a man and bigger than me. It makes sense that you feel this way. Gao usually felt it first, too. But Min, Mother and I will have times like this."
Wanting anyone else to feel the way I do would be so wrong. No, I want to be stronger…and for all of us not to need so much.
I try to refuse the food again when she offers it, but I can't.
"What do you want to eat, Peeta?" she asks. "It might help to eat what you want most."
I don't even like what I feel driven to request, but it does make me feel like I've eaten something. Maybe that's because I eat it slower.
"Some of those preserved vegetables maybe," I tell her, "and a little soup."
Cai finally frees her fingers, and she uses them to stroke the back of my empty hand a few times before saying, "that's fine."
While Cai's gone to get the food I take my time to sit up and lean against the wall. When she returns she's holding a small bowl of the vegetables in her hand, and she presses a slightly larger bowl of soup into mine.
I sip the soup, hoping she still intends to give me both the soup and the vegetables.
"Are those for me?" I finally ask quietly, pointing to the smaller bowl.
"Yes," she tells me, not surprised by my question. "It's all right. You'll feel better tomorrow. More like yourself."
I nod, hoping she's right. Frequent thoughts of gorging myself on the family's food supplies are difficult for me to stomach, and this insidious irritability that I can't quite explain concerns me.
When I've finished eating, I want to lie down again. Cai watches as I do, saying nothing. She runs her fingers though my hair a few times, then lies down next to me.
"You really have days like this too?" I ask her.
She pauses before answering.
"I can't know exactly what's happening to you, but if it's what I think it is then I certainly do. Nothing you eat comes close to satisfying you. All you can think about is food, food, food."
"Yeah, that's it. And I'm so tired. I can barely hold my eyes open."
"Then go to sleep, Peeta. You'll feel better later."
"Is this what starving feels like?" I ask her.
"I think so, but you're not going to die. I promise."
"You can't promise that," I huff.
"I told you I've felt that way before, and I'm still here," she says.
"I won't let you risk your life or your family for me, Cai."
"And I won't let you slip away because you don't think you're worth saving," she tells me. "You can't give up, Peeta."
I close my eyes, too exhausted to make any more flustered arguments against her way of thinking. As I drift off to sleep I feel her arms around me.
/
The next day I decide to take up a hobby to keep my mind occupied when I'm awake, so it doesn't drift to dark places as often. With a small knife I start to carve pieces of what would otherwise be firewood into small objects. First I carve a cross, which is relatively easy for me. It's plain, without decoration. I don't believe in things like that protecting a person, but I think I can use it as a reminder that I'm not alone…even when I am alone. Then I carve something for Min, a small four legged animal. I'm hoping to make it look like the water buffalo. I have something I've started for Cai also, but I can only work on it when I know she won't see me if I want to keep it a secret. So, progress is slower on the project for Cai. I've never been very good at sculpting, and carving doesn't come that easy for me even with relatively simple designs. Still, I can lie or sit on my mat and make attempts at these projects for hours.
Cai watches me sometimes as I work on the cross and the animal for Min. She wants to know what they are and why I'm making them, so I tell her. I think I could talk to Cai every day for the rest of my life and never get bored. She gets tired easily too these days, and sometimes she lies down or leans heavily on my shoulder. We start to give up all pretense of avoiding being "alone" together during the day, but at night we separate to sleep in our usual places. A few times, Cai falls asleep beside me during the day, even rolls into me in her sleep. I don't see any shame in it. She sleeps close to Min at night, and I think it's just that she senses the warmth of another person. Her mother is oblivious, and Min doesn't seem surprised. I wonder how things were with Gao in the house. He and Cai never acted comfortable with being physically close to one another when they were around me.
Min catches me working on Cai's "gift" one day. She's very inquisitive and already knows I'm making something for her, though I am bad enough at carving that she couldn't tell exactly what it was supposed to be.
"So this one is for Cai? What is it?" she asks, pointing to the small round piece of wood I'm carving.
"I'll never tell," I joke.
"Oh, please," Min begs. "You can tell me what hers is even if you won't tell me about mine. It'll be our secret."
"No, no secrets."
Min cuts her eyes at me.
"Well, I know your secrets. You aren't that good at hiding them, Peeta."
I shake my head at her.
Silly girl.
"What secrets do you know?" I tease as I run the knife along the wood.
She leans in and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper.
"Cai says you are not truly promised to each other, but I know you want to be."
I lean back. Min grins broadly as if she's proven something. I can almost feel the color drain from my face.
"Min, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that," I finally say.
"You should say, 'that's right, Min' because it is. Don't you believe in telling the truth?"
"Usually," I say, returning my attention to the small piece of wood in my left hand and looking it over to see how I can continue to shape it.
"You should tell her," Min whispers. "Isn't that what you would do at home?"
I shift my weight and furrow my brow, trying to focus on the carving. This is a very uncomfortable conversation to be having with Cai's little sister.
"I'm not sure what I'd do at home, but this isn't home. I have to think about what makes Cai's life better."
"You do," Min tells me, pointing her finger into the arm that's using the knife. "She is happy when you are near her."
"She won't be forever, Min. She needs to find somebody here. There's got to be a good farmer who would treat Cai well and be happy to marry her. Has anybody really tried to find a man like that since the whole mess with Fa?"
I look at her, waiting for an answer.
Min presses her lips together, then stares at her hands where they rest in her lap.
"Have you ever wondered why Cai didn't marry Fa?" she asks, timidly looking back up at me.
"I didn't need to wonder because she told me. She said he didn't agree with her about taking care of the people she loved. Then she found out about the bet. I don't blame her for not marrying him, but surely there's somebody else..."
Min sounds much too grown up for her age when you clarifies what really happened.
"Peeta, Cai didn't want to marry Fa mostly because he refused to let her protect you. She doesn't want the landlord to find someone else for her because she thinks her new match won't let her either. She can't allow anybody to send you away. You're too important to her."
Suddenly I can't breathe. Reeling from the idea that I'm so directly responsible for ruining Cai's match with Fa and her prospects for another match, I put the small knife and piece of wood down beside me,.
"She wouldn't do that," I choke out. "Not for me."
"She would, and she did."
"But I thought it was about you and your Mother," I stammer. "That Fa didn't want you here."
"No, Fa said we could stay, Peeta. He said you had to leave. That's when she refused him."
I scrub my face with my hands, then try to appear stoic.
"How do you know?" I ask, slowly.
"Gao told me. Well, Cai told me some of it, but Gao told me the part about you. Everybody knows, I think."
"Everybody?"
"Well, everybody that knows about you at all," Min says.
I close my eyes tightly.
"You okay?" Min asks.
Maybe I will be, but knowing that all this information came from Gao makes it that much more credible.
"Gao asked me what I thought of what she did," Min explains, her tone a little softer. "He's not that good at understanding Cai, but he knows I am. So I told him how different she is around you, and he said he'd noticed that too. I told him that Cai talked about you all the time…"
I shake my head, then open my eyes to face Min.
"Your sister and I can't be together. You know that, don't you? Whether she protects me like this or not, we can't be together."
"Who says?" Min says, sitting up straighter as if to challenge my assumption.
And I honestly can't think of anyone at the moment. Except me.
"Besides," Min adds, "aren't you already 'together?'"
"I think I would put her in danger someday," I finally answer.
"And she's not in danger now? Hungry and cold in a harsh winter?`"
"But you know what I mean," I say, exasperated. "I'm not supposed to be here. People won't want me here."
"Peeta, the landlord suggested that you and Cai marry."
"But he's not the only person around here," I say.
"He matters more than anybody," Min says. "Where else do you think you'll go if you stay in China? My father lived on this land his whole life and so did his father. I don't know how many of my ancestors did before him, but I suspect there were many. The landlord's family has been here even longer. You and my sister are good at working together and at being together. You should be together. Your plane was meant to crash here…"
I shake my head again, trembling all over.
"No it wasn't, and my friends weren't meant to die like that. I'm not meant to betray Delly . Stop saying that," I tell her. "I don't want to talk anymore."
Min bites her lower lip nervously.
"I only meant that you were supposed to meet my sister," Min says slowly.
Min is wrong! Surely Cai wouldn't give up anything more than she already has for me, a foreign soldier likely to die in the not too distant future despite all her efforts. I don't know how to live here, and I won't make it. Thoughts of leaving creep into my mind again, but I know I'd freeze the death. It'd be hard to leave knowing that'd be my fate, but Cai has to realize she's only delaying the inevitable . If she's blinded by affections for me then that's partly my fault. I kiss and hold her. What the hell am I doing to her? I just can't seem to help myself, and it's not some lustful foray, I love her. I truly love her. How can I do this to her?
"I'll talk to her," I tell Min, my voice unsteady.
"Good!" Min says with a cheery smile, obviously misinterpreting my emotion and my plans for the conversation.