A/N: Hey guys! Sorry it's been a while. It's just getting harder and harder to update regularly. Especially with finals coming up soon. Next week actually and I really should be studying but I'm here! Because I want to make you all happy! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. It's going to have a lot more of Paige in it and may include a few time skips. Not big time skips just a few days and sometimes weeks like in the very beginning. The very beginning is about three weeks after Katniss and her family arrive in District Thirteen. Thanks again for all of the lovely reviews and keep reviewing!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games although I do wish I did.
Chapter 15
"But I thought this is what you wanted, Katniss. This is what you told him that you wanted. For him to move on," Prim says.
"I know!" I exclaim. "But- but it wasn't supposed to feel this way! I shouldn't hate her because she's always around, or that he spends all his time with her. That's exactly what I told him to do."
"Exactly?" Prim asks, glaring at me slightly.
"Well, I told him when we got to District Thirteen that he needed to find a girl. Someone good for him, unlike me-"
"Katniss, you are perfect for him!" Prim interrupts.
"No! I'm not, Prim. And the sooner he realizes that the better," I retort.
"You're jealous, Katniss. That's all it is. I think you need to talk to him. Tell him the way you feel about her. How you just don't think she's right for him. He'll understand, Katniss, I promise! He'll take you in a heartbeat.
"I don't know," I whisper. "I thought this is what I wanted."
"And what are you thinking now?" Prim whisper back.
I glance at her. Oh, how grown up she is becoming. But will she understand? Will she understand the concept of possible love?
I swallow then whisper to her, "I think I'm falling in love with him."
The morning before!
Three weeks after arrival!
The seal of Panem popped up on the screen two minutes after Gale, our fathers, and I arrived in Command. The anthem began to play soon after. When the anthem was done playing the seal disappeared and President Snow's face popped up on the giant screen.
"Hello, Panem-" President Snow's voice was soon drowned out by a loud scream.
"Wait! Don't start without me!" Paige Coin came running into the room flaring her arms about. "I'm here! Don't start yet!"
"Shhh!" I exclaim. "It's already started we can't stop it."
"Oh!" she whispers while placing her hand to her mouth. "Sorry!" she whispers around them. She walks to the only empty seat, which is beside Gale, and I roll my eyes as she leans down and places a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. He smiles at her and takes her hand as she sits down. That's when I turn away. I can't watch the train wreck that will eventually happen with them two.
It's difficult to ignore the stabbing pain that runs through my chest when I see them together. They've only known each other for hardly three weeks and act like they've been married for twenty years. I don't wan't to understand the pain that makes its way through me when I see them. I'm scared of what the answer will be if I ask myself or anyone else about it.
"-although the disappearances and deaths of four wonderful victors is very tragic, we still believe it is necessary to continue the reaping of The Hunger Games," President Snow continues. "The games have been held off for a few months now because of the deaths and disappearances but as we all know, life must go on. The reaping for the 77th Hunger Games will be exactly one week from today. May the odds be ever in your favor!" The screen goes black.
"He's going to continue life as if we never existed?" I ask.
"Yes," Coin answers. "You never mattered to him. He just wants more people to die."
That night I couldn't sleep. The Games and Gale and Paige and Prim and Rory. I kept tossing and turning in the bed that I shared with Prim. There were five beds in the "apartment" that the manager of housing put us all in. That meant two people to a bed. Me and Prim, mom and dad, Hazelle and John, Rory and Vick, and poor Gale had to bunk with Posy.
I flipped over for maybe the thousandth time and then I heard Prim sigh. "Katniss?"
"Yes, little duck?" I whisper.
"Are you okay?" she whispers back.
"Yeah. Go back to sleep, Primmy."
She sat up in the tiny twin bed that we shared. "You're not okay," she retorts.
I shake my head as I sit up beside her.
"Is it Gale?" she asks. It's crazy how she knew me so well.
"Partially," I reply. "The Games are bothering me, too."
She nods. "I can understand why it's bothering you. Who do you think is going to mentor the tributes that are picked from twelve?"
"Haymitch says that they will assign them one from the Capitol since apparently there are no more living victors. They've had to do that for District Eleven before, remember?"
"Oh yeah," she says.
"I'm just worried for all the people we left behind. If the Capitol knows that we left and aren't really dead, they will definitely send in one of our friends into the arena. That's what is scaring me the most."
"Okay, well I can tell this is really upsetting you so let's go to something a little happier," she smiles. "Gale?"
"That's hardly happier," I reply.
"What do you mean?" she asks, her eyebrows scrunched together.
I sigh and glance over at his sleeping figure across the room. For a while his snores are the only thing that breaks the silence.
"I don't know. He's just been spending a lot of time with Paige lately. We've hardly spoken to each other," I reply minutes later.
Prim grins at me, "So your jealous!"
"I'm not jealous!" I reply a little too defensively. "I just want to spend a little more time with him like I used to; that's all."
"You guys don't go hunting together?" she asks.
"We've been three times and John and dad were with us," I reply. "It's just I wish he wasn't spending so much time with her."
"But I thought this is what you wanted, Katniss. This is what you told him that you wanted. For him to move on," Prim says.
"I know!" I exclaim. "But- but it wasn't supposed to feel this way! I shouldn't hate her because she's always around, or that he spends all his time with her. That's exactly what I told him to do."
"Exactly?" Prim asks, glaring at me slightly.
"Well, I told him when we got to District Thirteen that he needed to find a girl. Someone good for him, unlike me-"
"Katniss, you are perfect for him!" Prim interrupts.
"No! I'm not, Prim. And the sooner he realizes that the better," I retort.
"You're jealous, Katniss. That's all it is. I think you need to talk to him. Tell him the way you feel about her. How you just don't think she's right for him. He'll understand, Katniss, I promise! He'll take you in a heartbeat.
"I don't know," I whisper. "I thought this is what I wanted."
"And what are you thinking now?" Prim whispers back.
I glance at her. Oh, how grown up she is becoming. But will she understand? Will she understand the concept of possible love?
I swallow then whisper to her, "I think I'm falling in love with him."
Gale and I had training at the same time the next day. We had it early in the morning so our families were still getting ready for their day when we left. Dad and John had been sent to their own training where they would be taught how to shoot guns just in case they actually had to go out into combat.
The official war hadn't started yet. Coin believed that The Capitol had no idea that District Thirteen was even still running. That gave us an edge for when we decided to finally attack and when we did we would be sent out into a full blown war. The only thing is, District Thirteen was prepared. We had the weapons and we had an edge. We would start this war. The Capitol did have weapons but they had no idea what was waiting for them and even if they did, they had no idea when.
I waited for five minutes while Gale was getting his gray suit on behind our makeshift changing room that we had made by hanging an extra blanket up. The actual bathrooms were separate from the compartments and Gale thought it useless for us to walk all the way across District Thirteen just to change clothes.
Five minutes wasn't much to wait. I didn't mind. But what pissed me off more than anything was when Paige showed up right before we were supposed to leave.
I opened the door to a fist that I knew was just about to knock on the previously closed door.
"Oh! Hello, Katniss!" She smiled giddily. "Is Gale here?"
I frown as Gale peeks around me and out the door. He smiles, "Come on in."
She brushes by me and I briefly hear an "Uh Oh!" from Prim when she sees who has entered.
"Hello, Hazelle!" Paige says excitedly.
Hazelle gives her a fake, half smile that makes me feel good. So she's not that warm with Paige either. "Hello!" Hazelle replies.
"Well, we were just about to leave to go hunting so-" I grab Gale's arm to lead him out the door but he yanks it back.
"Come on, Catnip. We can wait a few more minutes. She just got here," Gale says.
"We're wasting precious hunting time, Gale," I complain. "We only have two hours."
"Well today we'll have one hour and forty-five minutes," he replies while taking Paige's hand.
I glance down at the intertwined fingers then back up to his face. "No," I retort. "You will have one hour and forty-five minutes. I want my whole two hours." And I stomped out of the room and soon found myself at the edge of the District Thirteen woods.
I don't know why but there were tears running down my face the whole way there. It hurt so bad. Why did it hurt so bad?
Fortunately, I dried up my tears before Gale found me, just as he had said, fifteen minutes later.
"I love you," he says. "I hope you know that."
"Well-" I sigh. "You sure don't act like it." I face him and look into his eyes. "You've hardly spoken to me in a month."
"I know," he replies as he sits next to me. We are sitting on a rock facing a beautiful river that we found the first time we were out here. I lean into him a little and he wraps his arm around my waist.
"It's just-" he begins. "It's just-" he sighs. "Paige."
And that's all he has to say. I know what he means. He means she's like a drug. Addicting. Like the Morphine they gave me right after I came out of the Games.
"Gosh!" I moan. "Why is this so difficult?"
"What?" he asks.
"I hate her!" I exclaim. "I hate her with the most fiery passion that I have ever had. Except for President Snow."
"Why do you hate her, Katniss?" he shakes his head.
"Because she has you!" I scream. And then I realize what I've said and I know I can't take it back. I shake my head back and forth quickly then place it into my hands. There are tears streaming down my face now.
"God! What is wrong with me? I've never acted like this before," I say mostly to my self.
Gale sighs and takes my hands from my face firmly grasping them in his.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" he asks. I can only nod.
We sit there in silence for a while then I reply, "Hurts like a bitch."
And then his lips are on mine. But it doesn't last long. I push him away while shaking my head again.
"Don't!" I exclaim. "Don't do this to me. Don't do this to Paige. She really likes you."
"But Katniss-" he sighs. "This-" he points between us. "This between you and me, it's love. I don't love her. I love you."
"Then learn to love her," I reply.
"But Katniss-"
"No!" I interrupt. "This is for the greater good. We don't need to be together right now. There's a war raging, Gale. And they want me to be the main part of it. I know that if we are together during this war then they will want us both in the middle and I can't have that. Two fires starting a war? Two fires just creates a bigger fire. It will obliterate Panem. And obliterate us in the process."
"I don't get that logic," he sighs.
"You don't have to," I reply. "I was going to be with you if you gave me the chance. But I changed my mind at the last second. It's better this way. It's better if only I understand the logic behind my reasoning."
A/N: Woah! Pretty long chapter! I was just typing away and before I realized it, it was already over 2,000 words! Woohoo! Hope you liked it!
Gahhh! Isn't Katniss' logic sooooooo stupid. Ahhhh! When is she gonna see sense?!