I've got to hand it to Gale — he sticks around even after I go off on him. He comes back every time. For some strange reason, he's willing to put up with me day after day. All he ever expects is for me to listen to his Capitol rants, which are nothing more than my opinions, peppered with twice the passion.

Passion. Funny thing is in 12, there's really no time for passion when everyone's too busy surviving. What is my passion? I suppose hunting — but I don't do it for sport. It's illegal, anyway, but the only reason I risk my life out there is to feed my family. Besides hunting and trading, there's nothing I do besides school and generally taking care of my family.

And Gale? Well, we live just the same, and him even more so, with three siblings and his mother to tend to.

But, Prim, she has things she's passionate about. Buttercup, for one, even if I'm convinced he's Satan himself. She even takes pride in her daily chores with Lady, carefully milking and caring for the goat. It's not much, but it's a little extra milk and cheese.

I bet my mother had something she cared about back before my father died. My father always claimed that when she sang, all of the birds stopped to listen. It's hard to imagine my mother being out in the woods, where there are even any birds to hear her. But, there has to be some reason why my father fell in love with this woman, who is nothing but a shell now.

Prim — in all of her passionate beauty — is perched on the steps waiting for me. "Katniss!"

"Little duck," I reply, pulling up a smile. "How was your day?"

"School was great," she flashes a returning smile, pulling at my fingers as she drags me inside. "We learned about District 4 today. Did you know they have a real ocean there? Can you imagine an ocean, Katniss? A real ocean!"

I feel my heart falter as I listen to her excited chatter. I can't really a pin an exact reason to it, but I know it has everything to do with (maybe) deciding to leave her. As I make my way to the pantry to scrounge up something for dinner, I'm suddenly struck with the idea of telling her.

It's something I need to talk to Gale about. Maybe he wasn't ever serious about running out there, maybe it was just a moment's thought. When I try to convince myself, try to lie to myself, really, that this was case, all I can picture is the way his eyes suddenly opened and I could see so much deeper into them.

I can't tell Prim, or my mother, about leaving. If Gale has a plan for us to leave without telling, I could mess that all up, which might mean we'd be caught by the Peacekeepers before we even made it out to our valley.

"Katniss?" Prim says quietly from the doorway, head peeking from behind the wall.

"Hmm?" I reply absently, blinking away my thoughts. "What, Prim?"

The rest of her body appears. "You've been in there for an awful long time."

"Just picking out dinner," I lie, hastily reaching out for one of the squirrels from the valley and dangling it by the tail. "See? This is a nice, big one."

"You weren't thinking," Prim states as she follows me to the back door. Gale gutted the kills for me earlier, which is one of my least favorite parts, only second to cutting up the meat as I am now. For some reason, the sensation of the blade cutting into the jelly like meat is absolutely unnerving.

"What?" I can't make myself listen to Prim for whatever reason. "What, little duck?"

"You're not listening," she scoffs.

I pull my blood covered hands away from the squirrel for a moment. "Prim, I have some other things on my mind, okay? Sometimes I'm a little tired."

I watch her for a moment, as she brings her hands behind her and smooths her skirt as she takes a seat on the step, careful to sit around the sticking out nails I never got around to fixing. "You've never been too tired to listen."

My heart falls. "Prim . . ." I trail off, pressing the blade into the last of the squirrel meat. "I'm sorry, Prim. You know— you know that I have to take care of you and Mom."

"Why don't you ever do something other then that?" Prim continues, propping her elbows and resting her chin.

I wipe my hands on a dirty scrap of burlap as I wrap the squirrel meat in some wax paper to throw it into a stew. "I don't really have any time to do anything else, okay? That's what I do."

Prim watches me intensely as I dump the meat into a pot. "Aren't you afraid of turning into Mother?"

I look up immediately. "What—"

"All you do is survive."

I furrow my brow. "Prim, she exists. I survive. I make sure you and her and me, I make sure we all eat. I am totally different from her."

Prim is stubborn. "What's the difference?"

I'm determined to keep my calm, Prim doesn't deserve me getting frustrated with her. I take the time to close my eyes, and press my palms against the rough, wooden table. "Prim, I'm not having this conversation with you. You'll understand when you're older. Go entertain yourself while I make dinner."

I watch her out of the corner of my eye as I ignite the fire for the stew. She heads outside, but her foot hovers before it makes contact with the ground, as if she wants to say something else before she leaves the room. But, she never does.

I don't know what any of this means as far as me leaving, now that she's pointed out that I'm not really doing myself any good here. What am I going to do when she grows up and lives off on her own? Who's life to I have to watch, since I have nothing of my own?

All I know is that for the rest of the night, that question torments me. It takes the flavor out of the squirrel, which even my mother goes so far as to compliment. It takes the effort out of falling asleep, but it also takes the regeneration of sleep as well. And when I wake up in the morning, my mouth is filled with the bitter taste of it as well.

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to answer Gale. Even if I carry the bland, dullness of that question with me for the rest of the week, I manage to mull over it all the way till Saturday morning, when I can finally steal Gale away again. Before I leave to meet him in the forest, I drown the bitter taste out with some wild berries, and head off.

It's no surprise when I spot him leaning against our rock. I crack a smile and hurry towards him, and he answers with a genuine hug. We don't exchange any words as we pull our bows from behind the trees and break into a jog to check the snares. We make quick work of untangling whatever we can find between the wire traps, and then reconfiguring them for the next unfortunate animal.

It's one of the more brisk days we've had. The air is a certain kind of cold, just enough to be refreshing, and to put a bit of a hurry into every being in town. Even the animals seem to move a little faster, as if the cold snap has pushed their blood into flowing faster through their veins. Luckily enough for us, it'll mean that our kills will keep for a while.

Wordlessly, I follow Gale a little further into the woods ,where we layer our rabbits and voles and squirrels under a layer of leaves. He stares at our handiwork for a moment, and then utters the first word of the morning. "You're quiet today."

"You never said anything," I reply quickly. He's not teasing, in fact, I know that he's just as comfortable with talking through sighs and breaths and motions as I am. But, considering the decision he's waiting on, he likely expects me to a bit more talkative.

He sighs loudly, and runs his hand through his hair. "You're not going to make this easy, are you?"

"Make what easy?" I ask, but it's all too forced for me to believe. I am exactly sure of what he's referring to, but I'm hoping the longer I play dumb, the more he might forget about it.

I have no reason to want him to forget. Just as the taste tormented me, I have been perusing this decision ever since he proposed it. Haven't I always joined him in his anti Capitol rants, used every vile phrase I know to those jackasses? Haven't I always wished there was some sort of freedom? Haven't I always known I would do anything to get out of here?

And haven't I always loved my family more than anything?

Haven't I— haven't I always loved Gale?