I OWN NOTHING. THIS IS GALES NIGHTMARE.
An angry spark ignites in my stomach as I watch her hang all over him. I wouldn't even be watching if I wasn't in love with her, which is ridiculous since it's obvious she has feelings for him, so why do I care? Oh, right, I'm her friend and she has no idea that I have spent the last four years pinning for her. I'm such a coward, if I had told her how I felt four years ago, instead of just recently, maybe things would be different now. I didn't though, so now I have to sit here and pray I don't lose my lunch all over the closest television set for three miles.
When I see the way she looks at him as he makes some pansy speech about how the tributes of District 7 were brave and "fine adversaries", I have to excuse myself from the room. She admires him, maybe even loves him, though she claims she doesn't know. How can she not know how she feels about someone? I may not be an expert, but it seems to me that when you're in love with someone, they become you're world. Everything they do makes you want to hold them and never let them go.
Like when Katniss moves her hair behind her ears when she's getting ready to take a shot with her bow, or the way her lips perk up in a small smile every time Prim asks her about her father. Even the way she speaks, so unsure of herself sometimes, but always willing to speak up, makes me want her even more. And she has no idea that she does this to me. I peek back into Greasy Sae's sitting room where a few families, including my own, have gathered to watch Katniss and…him parade around the districts. The angry spark returns when she laces her fingers in his when the depart, and I decide to head home early.
I trudge through the snow, remembering the time Katniss and I spent a day last winter helping our siblings make snow men. When I came out from inside where I had been finding a spare scarf and a carrot nose, she had made a small wall and stationed my brothers behind it, armed with snow balls. They pelted me with frozen balls of pain for ten minutes before they finally ran out. Normally I would have been irritated with that sort of childish thing from someone younger than me, but since it was Katniss, it was charming, cute even.
I shake my head free of the memory and breathe deeply, allowing the cold air to push my feelings for her to the side. She doesn't love me like that, it's obvious. I might as well accept it now, because she'll probably marry him, and then I'll have to kill him, and that could all get very messy. I take a detour on my way home, under the "electrical" fence, and walk into the forest to check my traps. It's getting cold, so I run to get my body heat up.
Why would she choose him? He can't hunt like me, he's not strong like me, and aside from the money that he "earned" for "winning" the games, he could never provide for her the way I could. I wonder all these things as I run deeper and deeper into the forest. Her with him is like a living nightmare, and the whole idea of it must have distracted me pretty badly since I don't notice that I'm running head first into a low tree branch until it's too late.
My head throbs, the pain giving me permission to stay asleep, but the voice of an angel pulls me to the surface. She calls my name, pulling on my hand, asking me to get up. I open my eyes and she is inches from my face.
"Gale, it's time to get up." She says. I must be dreaming, she can't be here, she's off on tour with…him.
"Yeah, it's time to get up, buddy. We have a big day ahead of us what with the wedding and all…" Another voice says. I sit bolt upright and see that "him"—I can't even think his name --is standing behind her. His speech is slow and it seems to be hard for him to talk. I laugh to myself as I picture him trying to give a speech at another district; stumbling over his words.
"What wedding?" I ask thickly, knowing how stupid I must sound, but still thinking I sound more intelligent than he does.
"Our wedding." The angel says, and for a moment I think she means that she and I are getting married and my head injury made me forget, but then she straightens and kisses him passionately. When she says "our" she means "their".
"Get a room." I say angrily as their kiss deepens. They pull apart and she looks at me, blush coloring her perfect cheeks. She's embarrassed. Good, she should be to be seen with him.
"Sorry," she says, "we would have let you rest, but we really need you to be at the wedding today since you're the one who's joining us in marriage."
"I'm not joining you two in marriage." I say.
"Sure you are, buddy. You already agreed. We can't get married unless you come today." He says.
"Even better." I tell them both. I rise and start to make my way through the woods, coming across a lake I don't recognize. It's frozen over and I try to walk across it, falling flat on my tail bone.
"Careful!" the angel says. She's behind me on the snow.
"Go find your boyfriend." I snap at her as I try, in vain, to stand.
"He's my fiance, actually." She corrects me.
"Whatever." I know I shouldn't be so mean to her; that I should be happy that she's happy, but I know she won't be. He can't make her happy like I could. I finally find purchase on the slick frozen surface, and rise once more. I make it exactly two steps before I'm down again. A small, perfect hand helps me up, and when I rise, I'm staring into the most gorgeous grey eyes.
"You can't leave, Gale. We need you to marry us." She says.
"No. I'm not going to help you make the wrong choice."
"Well you're not being very friendly." She looks hurt.
"Maybe I don't want to be friends anymore, Katniss. Maybe it's all or nothing for me." I tell her, my voice more harsh than it needs to be. The ice beneath me begins to crack, giving in to my weight. I push her back and out of harms way as the ice I'm standing on breaks off from the rest and begins to float down a river I hadn't noticed before.
"Help!" I call out, knowing there is little she can do for me.
"I can't, Gale. You're abandoning me, and I can't make you stop." She cries. I jump off of the ice raft and try to paddle back to her, but the current is too strong; the water too cold, and I can't do it. I sink below the surface, and when I emerge, I'm on land.
My head throbs, and I get up, shaking the snow off of my clothes. It was all a dream, or a premonition. Either way, I walk home in a worse mood than I've been in since she took Prim's place.