107 days:
And yet
It's the one thing I've never shared with him: the moments I sit with my sister's roses, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, always with a bitter reminder that I can no longer quite picture her face, no longer quite hear the particular cadence of her voice. She has now been dead longer than she was alive, and there are times when I have to stop and think: Were her eyes blue or gray? Is she the one who liked daisies, or was that my mom?
It is just sliding into fall when I bring her the question I have been agonizing over, and the roses are starting to wilt and turn brown, are starting to scatter the brittle grass with a lacy patchwork of pink and ivory, the forgotten flowers left behind after the bride has walked the aisle. There is still only the hint of a chill in the air, but I've shrugged on Peeta's jacket, wanting to carry something sweet with me.
"Peeta is sure it's a girl," I tell Prim after we've sat for several long moments with only the wind as accompaniment. "He asked me if I want to name her after you."
I reach forward and touch one of the petals and close my eyes, trying to remember if her skin was ever this soft.
"I told him that if we went down that route, this kid would have forty-seven names," I say with a grin. "I said I wanted to name her Effie."
I picture Prim's reaction to this, the way she would clap a hand over her mouth when she laughed, as if to take it back, as if to hold it closer, and for a second I miss her so much that it sucks the breath out of my throat, that it pangs in my stomach like a chord.
"I wish you were here," I say wistfully, opening my eyes all of a sudden so that they are dazzled with pale pink, with deep green, with spangled sunshine. "I wish you could see him. He's like a little kid. He's already painted her room twelve times trying to get it the right shade of pink. I don't know what he'll do if it turns out to be a boy."
I wonder, not for the first time, if this would all be happening if Prim was still alive. If she hadn't died, if Gale hadn't put up an immovable wall, I might still be in the Capitol, he might be here, I might go to bed every night next to a pair of gray eyes instead of a pair of blue.
A burn pricks at my eyes, and I dash a hand across them, whisking away the moisture that stings, cold, on my palm.
"I'm scared, Prim," I tell her simply. "Every minute of every day, I am afraid for this baby. Peeta and I were doing okay, don't you think? We sleep through the night more often than not. He paints people instead of landscapes. I can talk to mom on the phone without ripping it out of the wall afterwards."
I picture her eyes – blue, I'm almost positive they were blue – glaring in disapproval, and I laugh.
"Just the once," I defend myself. "Like I said, I don't do that anymore. We're doing better, all of us."
Idly, I pluck a piece of grass and rip it into tiny pieces.
"Everything is about to change. If it was just me and Peeta, even Haymitch, they might have left us alone. Might. The chance isn't great, but it's there."
The snap of a branch from behind me, but I make myself ask anyway.
"Prim," I tell her. "I'm afraid that I'm going to love her more than I have loved anyone in my life, and they are going to destroy her. So here's the real question: How do I let myself love her?"
His hand on my shoulder, but when I reach up to touch his fingers they are plumper, rougher than Peeta's, and I snatch my hand away as if it's touched something hot.
"Here's the second question," I say acidly. "Do I kill Haymitch slowly, or do it fast and get it over with?"
"You're all talk," Haymitch says lazily, and there is a gentle thump from beside me as he folds himself gracelessly onto the grass. "If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now."
"Don't be so sure," I tell him. "All great strategists know that timing is everything."
"The answer is yes," Haymitch says, ignoring me. "You love that little baby with everything you have. Didn't you already learn how pointless it is to fight it?"
The first arena: You're not leaving me here alone.
The second arena: I do. I need you.
Right after I shot Coin: Let me go.
I can't.
The answer to my other question, too, is yes: Even if Prim hadn't died, I would have found my way back to Peeta.
"You think you're smart," I mutter, and Haymitch snorts.
"Peeta came to see me," he remarks. "He's worried about you."
"I haven't done anything," I protest. "I've even stopping hauling deer around by myself since he yelled at me."
"Not that," Haymitch says. "He's worried because he thinks you're not happy about this baby."
"Intuitive," I mutter. Haymitch turns to look at me, and I hold up a hand in defense.
"If you're here to talk to me about how I don't have a choice in this anymore, you can save it," I say tiredly. "I already know it's going to happen whether I want it to or not. I just have some things to figure out, that's all."
"Do you?" he asks mildly, and when I cock my head and look at him, bemused, he is quick to elucidate. "Love isn't always a choice, Katniss."