Chapter 4 Part 1 (Peeta's POV)
When she picked up the phone I could hear the pain in her voice. After Prim died, she couldn't handle it anymore and she moved to District 2 with Gale. Ever since the day she left, she hasn't sent any letters, she hasn't called; she hasn't tried communicating with Katniss in any way. Katniss hardly ever shows her fear or pain, but I know it's in there. I talk to Mrs. Everdeen on the phone for about twenty minutes and I tell her everything that has happened with the attacks. Immediately she insists that Katniss and I come to District 2 and stay with her until everything is sorted out and we are safe again. It was strange and unfamiliar how urgent her voice was when she invited us to her home. She had finally realized that Katniss was all she had left and that she couldn't let it go to waste because of something horrible that was out of everyone's control. "Alright, we'll be there by tomorrow night," I say quietly into the phone because now Katniss has entered the kitchen slyly and I'm afraid to break the news to her. She isn't going to like how I planned all of this without her permission, but it is for her own safety. "So where will we be tomorrow night?" she says with a grin as she sits in the chair right next to me. The smile on her face makes me feel completely guilty because I know she is expecting something wonderful. Maybe she thinks I've set up something romantic. I grab both her hands and put them between mine, kissing them softly. "Katniss, we're moving to District 2. We're moving in with your mom," before I could even finish my sentence her hands have slipped out from between mine and she is heading for the door. I get up and catch up to her, blocking her exit," I'm doing this for YOUR safety!" I say in a stern tone so she knows that I am truly doing this for her and not for the sake of her relationship with her mother. She looks at me for a moment with a blank expression and I can't seem to read how she feels because she seemed angry a moment ago, but now she is sitting on the couch by the door. Her face is now resting gently in her palms, but I can see her body shuddering like she is going to have a panic attack. I sit beside her on the couch and pull her into my arms. Once she is lying safely against my chest, she lets out all the demons that have been eating her inside. She starts talking about how Prim's death was her fault, how she missed her father, how her mother never showed her the love she needed when he died, how Rue's whistle appears in every one of her nightmares, how Annie's son will never have a father because of the war she started. I don't say anything in response. I don't try to convince her that everything happened for a reason and that because of her no more children will die in vain. I just let her say how she feels because one day she will realize that it wasn't her fault and that she changed Panem for the better.
I let Katniss fall asleep on the couch as I go upstairs and pack her things because the train leaves in an hour. While looking through her drawer I find the pearl I gave to her, safely wrapped up and hidden. I know she won't notice it's gone with the state she's in, so I slip it in to my pocket. I want to marry her without any cameras around, without all the publicity. I want it to be real. Once we get to District 2 I will find someone who can make this pearl into a ring and I will propose to her, with her mother's permission of course. The thought of Katniss in a wedding dress reminds me of Cinna and the pain it will bring her to wear a creation that isn't his. It makes think me of Prim and how she'll never be able to see her beautiful sister walk down the aisle with her father; her father, Mr. Everdeen, who will never be able to hand her off to me properly. Who will be the ring bearer? My brothers are dead. My whole family is dead. My father won't be able to see me marry the girl of my dreams, the girl I've been thinking about since I was young. I close my eyes and grab onto the drawer, I imagine my father in the bakery that is burning from the bomb, and he's holding my mother in his arms. I notice that there is no way out of the bakery because the fire has caused parts of the roof to fall in front of all exits. I see tears on my mother's face for the first time as she clings to my father's chest and I see my father looking across the room at a picture of me hung up on the wall. His lips are whispering something, but I can't hear or read them. I start to scream to him, "Dad! What? What is it?" a frustration stirs in me and a fire builds in my chest, burning through my shirt. I want to run to him, but my feet don't move and I begin to claw at my chest as it burns every bit of me away. I am still screaming for him as I fall to the ground. I give up on trying to walk and begin digging my nails into the dirt, dragging myself to the burning bakery. I am almost there when a fog covers everything in my sight and I'm back in Katniss' room. I look in front of me and see the dresser that held the drawer I gripped had practically been destroyed, and when I look down at my hands they are bloody. I feel Katniss holding me in her arms, swaying me back and forth and singing to me as she caresses my face with her hand. She didn't leave me. She stayed.
I let her know that I am awake and she releases me from her arms. "Your hands, they're bleeding," she says in a shaken voice and as she is getting up to retrieve a towel from the bathroom, I grab her arm gently and pull her back to me. I kiss her so deeply that when a knock at the front door breaks us apart, we are both in a daze. We had never kissed that deeply before and we were both craving for more, but this wasn't the time. Right before she leaves the room to go answer the door she whispers "You're welcome," with a smile so radiant it puts the sun to shame. I hadn't seen her smile like that in a long time and it makes me think that maybe we will be all right after all.