I drop my bag on our front porch,
because Peeta hates the thought of dead animals sitting inside our house,
and I walk inside.
Even without him saying anything,
I know he's home.
I can feel him.
I've just begun to take out my braid (another request of Peeta's that seems silly to me, but which I give him anyway)
when I realize it is dauntingly quiet
and our house smells far too much like me
(dirt, wood, and fire)
than it does him
(bread, warmth, and cinnamon).
I know what that means.
I'd be stupid not to,
after living with him all these years.
And so I trudge slowly into our kitchen,
because I know it's where he'll be.
I do not run;
it will startle him.
I do not speak;
his mind is far too loud to hear anything I would say,
not to mention I still don't have words to help him.
Instead I go to him,
place my hand over his white-knuckled one,
the one clinging to my seat at our table,
kiss his arm underneath his t-shirt,
and hold him.
Gently, not too tight,
not to squeeze the life back into him,
because goodness knows no one can do that.
No, just gently,
my hands resting on his,
ever so slightly rubbing his shoulders in small circles,
every once and while kissing his skin,
just to let him know that I am there.
That I am not leaving,
nor dying,
nor trying to kill him.
That I am his, so completely,
that I will be his forever,
because I promised him.
It is the one thing I knew I could promise.
So much I've taken from him;
his sanity,
his family,
his prospect of children.
But this thing I can promise,
this thing I can keep.
I will always and forever be his in just the ways he needs me to be.
Sometimes that is lovingly and tenderly beneath the sheets of our bed.
Sometimes it is holding his hand on a walk that he insists we go on because the sky is simply too blue.
And sometimes it is this,
being there through the bad because he does the same for me.
I may not pull through very often,
but this vow I intend to keep,
and I know it is only me that can keep it and keep him whole.