If morning sunlight weren't so rude, Katniss could have slept longer. But the translucent rays were dancing insistently on her eyelids, prying them open.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, realizing that she hadn't had a nightmare. Instead, she had that recurring dream where her father, James Everdeen, was taking long strides to greet her after his shift ended in the mines. But this time, the figure she thought was her father turned out to be Gale. Like her father, Gale wrapped her in his arms and spun her in circles.
She sat upright, forcing her eyes to focus on her surroundings. She was in Peeta's house – what she was now supposed to refer to now as 'their house' – and she was on the three-seater couch against the window that faced the fireplace.
Memories from the night before flashed through her mind like scenes from a Capitol drama. The furrow of his brow as he clutched the phone receiver in his hand. The ire that must have illuminated her pupils when she accused him of manipulating her and all of Panem. The anger mounting his face before he took to the stairs. His unexpected words that shook her to the core: Let's try to make it to the next reaping in six months… you and I can quietly annul this 'farce' of a marriage.
She fingered the delicate necklace her father had given her for her 10th birthday, an heirloom from his mother. That was what she wanted, right? An annulment. If she and Peeta weren't married, she would be free to continue what she and Gale started before the Hunger Games interrupted their lives – even if they had to do it in secret for a while.
Still, if an annulment was the end goal, it didn't produce the feeling of hope that it should have, something she could hold onto like a gem and gaze at whenever she needed to be distracted or reminded. Instead, remorse doused Katniss like ice water. Her careless, insensitive words were an arrow that shot straight to Peeta's heart.
8:49 a.m. The silence in the house was deafening. There was always a stillness, a loneliness here. The clock above the fireplace was a prime example. Katniss had the same clock in her house, above the fireplace. The Capitol hadn't put much thought into varying the décor or layout of the homes in Victor's Village. But at her house, the clock made an insistent ticking noise with each jerk of the second hand. Here, the clock did its job in silence.
"8:49," she said aloud.
He'd probably been at the bakery for the past three hours, helping his father prepare breads and pastries for the merchants and Justice building officials who stopped by on their way to work. By the looks of it from where she sat in the living room, the kitchen was untouched from the night before. She wondered if he skipped breakfast to avoid waking her, interacting with her.
Katniss pulled herself from the couch and shuffled to the hall shower upstairs. She peeked into the master bedroom; the bed was made, and Peeta's pajama pants were neatly draped over the side of the loveseat against the opposite wall.
"Life goes on," she told herself before shutting the bedroom door and heading to the shower down the hall.
As the hot water rinsed the remorse from her bones, she couldn't stop thinking about her conversation with Gale the day before. He'd been so disparaging toward Peeta, increasingly so over the past few weeks.
Gale. Her Gale.
Hours after she'd returned to District 12 from the Games last fall, she met Gale at The Hob and they sat outside at the deserted back entrance eating a piece of fudge like they'd done so many times before. Gale told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be more than her best friend.
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything before, but I thought you and I had more time to let things build slowly." He stared intently into her eyes, pleading with her to understand. "But you can't deny that you felt it too, Katniss. You already knew that we were becoming more than we'd ever been before."
He was right. And she nodded and leaned into his kiss, allowing his arms to wrap possessively around her waist.
President Snow was in her den the next day. Telling Gale about Snow's house call was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.
Snow had seen their kiss behind The Hob. He knew that Katniss and Peeta were not the star-crossed lovers that they professed to be in front of the cameras. And now, the girl on fire had to make a choice. Either she quieted the growing rebellion in Panem by convincing everyone that her defiant actions in the Games were those of a teenaged girl in love with her fellow tribute, or she and Peeta would be placing the lives of their families and loved ones – including Gale and his family – in imminent danger.
They couldn't have that conversation behind The Hob. Katniss walked Gale deep into the woods before she told him.
"So what does this mean?" he asked with furrowed brows. "What does Snow want you to do? Visit the districts? Talk to the rioters?"
She stared at the trees for several minutes, unable to speak. "I have to marry Peeta," she said hoarsely. "Our wedding is in less than two weeks."
She couldn't watch as Gale raged against the earth, angrily kicking, throwing, destroying whatever he possibly could. When he finally slumped to the ground, his head in his hands, she inched beside him and they held each other, crying silent tears for hours.
With Effie's planning and connections and Cinna's prowess with fabric, Peeta and Katniss's wedding was pulled together in a matter of days. It had taken nearly two weeks for them to return home after the Games. Then, two weeks after they returned to District 12, Katniss and Peeta and their immediate families were boarding a train to the Capitol for the big Everdeen – Mellark wedding.
The ceremony was absolutely stunning. And absolutely contrived. At least it had been for Katniss. When Peeta recited his vows, tears streaming from his eyes, she knew he meant every syllable of his promise to love and honor and protect her for as long as he lived. And just like Gale's rage, Peeta's sincerity was painful to watch. Still she felt worse for Gale who was probably forced to watch the wedding on one of the monitors in the mines or in the town square.
It was so very unfair, to all involved.
When Katniss first returned from her wedding, Gale's comments about Peeta were callous but fairly benign: You're the real victor, Katniss. He's pathetic. He would never have survived in the arena without your help. He knows that. We all know that.
Then, his comments became more vitriolic.
It's all an act, Katniss; Peeta is a manipulator. He's still playing the game. I know how those merchant men think. You'll always be a Seam girl to Peeta and he's trying to get in your pants. Don't trust his good-guy act. I bet he's already bragged to his brothers and his friends that he finally got what he wanted.
And most recently: This is all Peeta's fault. If he hadn't professed his so-called feelings for you to all of Panem, you and I could be together. Instead, you and I have to play along with your farce of a marriage.
Katniss knew she should have defended Peeta, but she always lost her nerve around Gale. So instead, she allowed herself to be convinced by Gale's 'Peeta-Mellark-Conspiracy-Theory.' And now, as she stepped out of the shower and slid into her warm bathrobe, she felt entirely foolish.
Still, she looked forward to seeing Gale that afternoon when his shift ended. They'd made plans to meet at his mother Hazelle's house where Gale lived with sister, 4-year-old Posy, and brothers, 10-year-old Vick and 12 year-old Rory. The six of them spending time together would provide a nice diversion to her real life, and she could still be seen going home to Peeta.
She finally started to relax. She would just have to take her life one day at a time. And at some point, she would have to make sense of what she wanted to happen in the next six months.
Katniss walked up to Mellark Bakery, hoping to see Peeta through the window. Instead, Nance Mellark stood at the counter, her shoulder-length brown hair hidden beneath a scarf.
Katniss groaned. Nance had made her disdain known for all things Everdeen during their train ride to the Capitol for the big wedding. She disliked Katniss because with her dark hair and gray eyes, Katniss looked like a girl from the Seam and Nance's blonde-haired, blue-eyed Merchant son was in love with her. She disliked Maura because she once dated Daniel Mellark. She even griped about Prim, the least threatening person in all of Panem, because the 12-year-old offered her an enthusiastic greeting one morning on the train. According to Nance, "No one should be that perky this early in the morning."
Nance wasn't much nicer to her own family. She had a reputation in District 12 for losing her temper with her three sons, Thatch, Rye, and Peeta, whom she'd been known to hit with her open palm or with a rolling pin when they were younger.
Katniss would always remember being 11 years old, starving, and in search of food scraps in the Mellark Bakery trash bin. Nance Mellark ran her off, and Katniss made it as far as an oak tree in front of the bakery where she collapsed from hunger. Then Peeta walked out with two partially burned loaves and tossed them to her instead of feeding them to the pigs. It was an act of compassion that many adults in District 12 hadn't mustered for a hungry child whose father had recently died in a mining accident.
When Nance saw what Peeta did, she stormed out of the bakery, rolling pin in hand. The next day in physical activities class, Katniss saw the indigo bruises on his forearm and shoulder. His concern for her had cost him.
Another icy tingle shot down Katniss's spine when she realized that Peeta's concern for her was still costing him. His happiness. His peace of mind. His leg, part of which was amputated after an attack in the arena where he shielded her from a fellow tribute's knife that sliced into Peeta's thigh instead of slicing into her.
Katniss squared her shoulders and approached the door. She owed Peeta an apology. And that was more important than avoiding Nance.
The bell hanging from the top of the door chimed. Nance looked up, ready to offer the standard smile and Mellark Bakery greeting. Her lips twisted in annoyance when she saw it was Katniss.
"Is Peeta here?" Katniss asked quietly, not bothering to greet Nance. She never returned the greeting anyway.
"No," she said curtly before walking to the back of the bakery, out of sight. Katniss pursed her lips and rushed out the door.
Peeta lobbed his keys on the kitchen table and washed his hands in the sink. It had been a particularly busy day for him, as he was tasked with making all of the deliveries in town.
When he first returned from the Hunger Games, his mother had repeatedly mentioned that they needed a motorized cart for all the deliveries they needed to make for the bakery. There actually weren't a whole lot of deliveries normally: the occasional birthday party, baby shower, social gathering, Peacekeeper function. But he offered to purchase a cart with his winnings from the Games. It was an amenity his parents would never be able to afford otherwise.
Today he was glad they had the cart. His leg would have been aching if he had to make the numerous trips to and from the bakery by foot. Plus, his mother wanted him to make the deliveries. She was still peddling her Capitol wedding cookies from his and Katniss's wedding.
His brother Thatch usually made the cinnamon-flavored shortbread cookies that were dusted in powdered sugar. Thatch convinced Peeta to try one of the cookies once, about four months ago. Despite his mother's distasteful gimmick, the cookies were pretty good.
When the work day finally ended, Peeta walked home from the bakery with three loaves of wheat berry bread, and when he got home, he started a vegetable stew that contained carrots, leeks, potatoes, green beans, and tomatoes. Even with all of her hunting with Gale the day before, Katniss hadn't returned with a single piece of game. That wasn't lost on Peeta.
Soon, the savory smell of the stew filled the entire house. He ladled stew into three containers. One container and a loaf of bread went to Haymitch, who bit into the loaf as soon as Peeta handed it to him. The two other containers of stew and a loaf of bread was for Maura and Prim, who lived in Katniss's old house next door.
Despite his weak relationship with Katniss, Peeta had developed a solid relationship with Maura and Prim Everdeen. Since his marriage, he'd spent many days alone in his house. Maura and Prim would sit and talk with him on his porch, or he would stop with bread or to see if they needed anything done around the house.
"I love your vegetable stew, Peeta," Prim said excitedly when he set the containers on their kitchen table. Maura nodded in agreement and asked him to stay and have dinner with them. But he declined the offer because he had some things to take care of around the house.
Back at his kitchen table, Peeta ate his stew and bread in silence. He deliberated about whether or not to put some into a bowl for Katniss, but he decided against it. She would probably eat with Gale anyway.
Peeta let the remaining stew cool and put the entire pot in the refrigerator. After dinner, he threw a small pile of shirts and slacks into the laundry, changed a few air filters around the house, tightened a door knob on a bathroom cabinet door, and cleaned up the kitchen. As his clothes were drying, he turned his attention to an unfinished painting on the screened back porch where he often awaited the sunset.
Around 10 p.m., Katniss still hadn't made it home. But after their argument the night before, he didn't expect her anytime soon. Peeta knew Katniss wasn't in love with him, but he hoped they could at least be friends. That didn't seem likely at this point. Now, all he could do was pray that President Snow wasn't watching too closely. At least there hadn't been any more white roses left as warnings.
He shut off the lights on the back porch and was halfway upstairs when the phone rang. Prim's voice was panicky on the other end.
"Peeta, someone just called and said they saw Katniss collapse near The Hob. We have go get her."