When Sunday arrives I am relieved that I will be spending the entire day working on the project with Peeta. He arrives at exactly nine o'clock, punctual and proper, and greets my mother and sister with his usual polite kindness. This time around he brought a large loaf of walnut bread, and dismisses all my objections that he shouldn't give us things like that for free.
"Think of it as a thank you," he says, smiling gently. "For looking after me the other week, when I wasn't feeling well. You owe me nothing for the bread, if anything I still owe you."
"Well, alright…" I agree grudgingly, more for the sake of Prim than anything else. "We'll call it even."
"Good! Then that's settled," he says, making sure the paper bag with the bread ends up in Prim's hands and not mine. Maybe he's concerned that I'll try and sneak it back into his backpack if he hands it to me.
He follows me into the kitchen and at my urging pulls out a chair and takes a seat. I'm glad my mother and sister didn't follow us in here because I could use a moment alone with him.
"I just wanted to say…" I begin awkwardly as I pull out my own chair. "I want to apologise for Gale. He was rude to you the other day. He's not…really like that, he's just…"
"Katniss it's fine," says Peeta dismissively.
"Why do you say that?" I question. "Someone you don't know is rude to you and you just say it's fine?"
He shrugs.
"I've got tough skin."
"Well all the same…" I look down at the table for a second, then back up at him. He's unpacking his bag, just sending brief glances my way. "I'm sorry for what he said, and how he said it. I hope you know… that while I think this project has often been a huge pain, I've very much enjoyed working together with you." I swallow nervously. "I'm glad we're partners."
Peeta smiles faintly.
"Thank you."
We end up spending the entire day together, from nine in the morning until seven in the afternoon. At lunchtime Prim, my mother and I all try to serve the walnut bread with the meagre soup my mother has prepared, but Peeta won't hear of it. He says he would feel too awkward about it, that the bread is meant for us, not him, and that it would be too weird if we ate from the bread and he did not, so it would be better if we saved it and enjoyed it just the three of us.
"You really are annoyingly pig-headed sometimes," I sigh, moving our schoolwork out of the way so that we can have space to eat at the kitchen table.
"Yeah," he grinningly agrees. "And you like me for it."
"Just shut up and eat," I retort, but I can't hide the smile on my face.
All through the rest of the day I can't escape the notion of how much more comfortable I am in Peeta's company than I am in Gale's nowadays. How did it end up this way? Gale is one of the few people I've ever felt truly comfortable with, someone who has been my closest friend and confidant, a person I thought would always be close to me. Now, because of the whole dating debacle, things have changed, and not for the better.
I cannot deny that in becoming Gale's girlfriend I've seen sides in him that I never knew existed before. This jealousy he displays, the apparent refusal to acknowledge that I mean it when I say I don't want marriage and children, the way he seems to believe I share his feelings exactly… All of it combined has somehow turned him into a person I feel less comfortable with than I do with a merchant boy I had barely spoken to until a few months ago. Peeta always makes it so easy to be in his company. He doesn't make unreasonable demands of me, gives me all the space I need to be myself, makes little jokes to relax me and listens when I need a sounding board.
I observe him on the sly as he sits right beside me, working with me on the part of the assignment that we need to write together. When we're both leaned over the books our forearms touch, and I can feel a whiff of cinnamon and dill, a scent I've never felt on anyone else. Gale smells of more earthly things, like wood and coal and snow-damped leather. It's funny how their scents alone reveal the difference not only in their milieu but in their very characters. Gale practical and earthly and focused on survival. Peeta gentle, seeing a world of colours that I cannot even imagine, and with the time and sustenance to look on things beyond the basics of survival.
Sitting close to Peeta this way reminds me of all those times Gale and I found ourselves a comfortable tree to wait for the electricity in the fence to go out. I never gave much thought to those times before, but now I feel deeply nostalgic for them. Gale and I were so good together then. It was nice to sit there with him and wait, nothing to do to pass the time but to talk to one another. We were so close then. Why aren't we now? We ought to be closer than ever.
And thinking of how Gale has changed in these past months, I can't help but wonder about Peeta. If I were to date him, would I find him to change, too? Peeta is a fundamentally different person than Gale, but all the same, there are sides to my boyfriend that I never knew existed until he became my boyfriend. Who's to say there aren't such sides to kind-natured, polite, patient Peeta, as well?
Come Monday Peeta and I are pretty much on track with our project work, having ample time to finish up everything we need to do together. There is, unfortunately, the matter of the essays we have to write, but even though Peeta, only half in jest, suggests that we help each other out with our evaluations of one another, all of this work is such that can be done on our own, in our own homes.
To both mine and his surprise we put the finishing touches to our joint work when little more than half an hour of our allotted school time remains. For a moment I'm filled with excitement and a sense of accomplishment, and when Peeta grins widely at me I can't do anything but mirror his expression.
"Hey!" he cheers. "Well done, us!"
He holds up both his hands and before I can think about what I'm doing I've held up my own and smacked them against his, feeling his fingers bend down and give my hands a brief squeeze before he pulls apart. We lower our hands and I look around, feeling a bit embarrassed, noting that a few heads have turned in our direction at the sound of our hands slapping together.
"Well that's enough with the levity," I mumble. With a deep sigh I open a new page in my notebook and tap my pencil against the paper. "We've got an essay and an evaluation to write. Or at least I do. You've probably already gotten it done."
"Are you kidding?" he asks, scoffing and laughing at the same time. "Barely begun."
"Writing it down, maybe. I have no doubt you've got it all mapped out in that head of yours."
"I'm a painter, not a writer." He opens a page in his own notebook and I can see a few paragraphs written down, but no more than half a page. He sighs wistfully. "Or at least I would be, if I had the means."
I make no further comment, focusing instead on trying to get my own work started. Like I usually do with these things I begin by listing the things I want to include before I get started on trying to formulate it all into decent sentences. Peeta just seems to write whatever comes into his head at any given second but his work is always very good, which is why I'm convinced he's already got the finished thing in his mind and is just putting it onto paper.
Our little bubble of peace and quiet is suddenly interrupted when a girl comes up and wraps an arm around Peeta's neck from behind. It's Belle, and she's grinning as she tousles his hair and ignores his protests at her ministrations. As discreetly as possible I watch them on the sly, annoyed by my own curiosity. Peeta turns his head up towards her and smiles. I note that they don't kiss.
"Hard at work, I see," he teases.
"Oh, you know me," she giggles, the sound far more cheerful than any I could produce. Then her attention unexpectedly turns to me. "Hey Katniss!"
"Oh… Hey," I answer back, lifting my eyes from my work, nervous that she might want to chat with me. Does she dislike the fact that I'm working with Peeta – whom I presume is her boyfriend, though neither one of them has said so openly and I've heard no gossip to that effect. Being in a relationship of my own since a few months back with nobody at school knowing about it except for our siblings – and Peeta – I can't dismiss the possibility just because they're not open about it.
Luckily, she doesn't seem to want to speak to me any further, even though her greeting was sincerely pleasant. She turns her attention back to Peeta, moving her arm away from around his neck and placing both hands on his shoulders, tapping her fingers in an unfamiliar rhythm.
"I was just stopping by to see if you have any thoughts about this weekend."
"Nah, not really," he shrugs, his head still tilted back in order to look at her while they speak. The angle looks uncomfortable.
"Whatever you want to do is fine by me. How do you feel about it?"
"I feel the same way you feel – how do you feel?"
"No, really – whatever you want is fine."
This goes on for some time. I find it highly obnoxious – good grief, I pray I never become that cutesy, nor that indecisive. If I had the faintest idea what they are really talking about I would have offered a suggestion, just to get them to stop. Instead I try to tune them out, which works so-so.
"Maybe we can continue this later," Peeta finally suggests, mirth in his voice. "We're annoying the hell out of Katniss."
"… What?" Though I'm caught off guard by his remark, it luckily comes off as surprise at being spoken to.
"You're scowling," he smiles. "And you've got that look on your face like you're rolling your eyes on the inside."
"You want to watch me rolling my eyes on the outside?" I reply dryly, embarrassed that my thoughts were so plainly written on my face.
"We'll pick this up after your practice," says Belle, running her hand through his hair again, making his curls stand every which way. "Oops. Messed up your hair."
"Get lost," he barks, but he follows it up with a laugh that matches hers when she just apologised for something she clearly did intentionally.
"Remember now, work hard, not smart!"
"It's the other way around, stupid."
"Oh now you tell me."
They share one more look, full of smiles, and I feel like I'm missing out on more than one private joke between them. My scowl deepens, and I try even harder to ignore the two of them, even though she's walking away, back to her own table. Once she's gone Peeta turns back to me, still chuckling warmly.
"Sorry about that. It's always been our thing. Mutual indecisiveness."
I say nothing, but think to myself that it's a little sickening. In part because I have no doubt it stems from them both being just that nice, always willing to defer to someone else's opinion or desires. People like that don't tend to do well in life. They tend to be run over and taken advantage of. And they are so very infuriating to compare yourself to, because no matter what, they always come off as the better person. I know I'll never be anywhere near that nice. I suppose they deserve each other. I just hope they don't end up dragging each other down.
Over the next several days I have no time to contemplate the state of my relationship with Gale, or even be out in the woods and hunt, the last of which especially frustrates me as springtime is a good time to be out there. Sure, it may still be the early days of spring and the snows have only begun to melt, but I could still benefit from the tranquillity of the woods and the sights and the smells… Just getting to be there and exist in all of that would do me wonders right now. Instead I'm stuck inside writing that god-awful essay and struggling to write the ridiculously long evaluation I have to complete. The last one, in particular, is hard to get done. I want to do Peeta justice, want to give him good feedback, knowing that it's probably the only real way I will have of thanking him for all his hard work, his support and his friendship over these past months. The only way that will be of any use to him, at least. A good evaluation might go a long way for his end grade.
I'm so caught up with the work, and hating it so much, that I spend the last week of the project cursing under my breath, writing draft after draft on paper I really can't afford to waste – another reason why it's idiotic that these things have to be so long – and biting my nails down to practically nothing. Gale gets grumpy when I blow him off for the second Sunday in a row, but he seems to brighten a little when he realizes the project will be over in just one more day. For my part, I spend that last day struggling way into the evening, putting the finishing touches to Peeta's evaluation just after eight o'clock. I lean back and make a face, my neck aching, my right-hand aching, my shoulders aching… And it's not until then that it hits me again – this is really the end of it. Well, not really, we still have one more half-session tomorrow, but for all intents and purposes we're done. And the feeling that hits me is one of melancholy and emptiness. All this over a stupid school project. And the partner I've worked on it with.
So it finally arrives. The very last time that Peeta and I gather up our books from the previous class, converge at the door, make a quick stop at our lockers and then walk towards the assembly room. I feel oddly emotional; it's almost impossible to believe that our partnership is only about half an hour away from its finale. I've come to like these Monday afternoons in his company and the way our minds work well together whenever we have to be creative. I'm going to miss this. And him. Most of all him. This project could so easily have been months on end of desperately dull and seemingly pointless work together with somebody I have little to nothing in common with, and probably feeling embarrassed to let that person read my work. I am so utterly grateful that Peeta Mellark asked me to pick him as his partner. He saved me from what could have been the worst assignment in all my years of school, turning it instead to an exercise that was not only fun to work on a lot of the time, but from which I ended up learning a great deal.
"So how was your weekend?" asks Peeta as we walk to the assembly room. Five months ago I would have said he sounded just like normal, but I know him much better now, and I picked up on the hint in his voice that he's emotionally conflicted about all of this, too.
"Filled with schoolwork, mostly," I answer him, smiling slightly. "How was yours? Did you do… whatever it is you were talking about doing last week?"
"Yeah, but I'm not going to bore you with details." He lets out a short laugh. "And lucky me – this weekend Delly and I are visiting her senile seventy-year-old grandfather to help clean out his place, which looks like a pig sty, so that he can move in with her aunt and her family."
"Delly?"
"Delly Cartwright. We've been friends since we were kids, and she asked me to help out, and like a complete sucker I said yes. So I've got my pick of either scrubbing the apartment clean from top to bottom, or spend hours playing Go Fish with old Mr. Cartwright to keep him occupied." He rolls his eyes, but his smile is warm and friendly. "I really can't believe I agreed to help out, when I could have been…" He pauses when a group of people, neither of which seem to be watching where they're going as they talk amongst each other, walk right in-between us. Peeta and I both stop, waiting for the group to pass. When we continue walking he smirks. "Wonder if they'll end up walking straight into a wall or something," he comments. Then he chuckles. "That reminds me of a funny story – did I ever tell you about that time my brother was carrying a bowl of cake batter up in our living quarters, heading for the bakery kitchen, and tripped over the cat we had back then? Right at the top of the staircase, of course."
He tells the story in vivid detail, laughing at the memory, and I smile politely and try to laugh convincingly. Under other circumstances I have no doubt I would have found the story hilarious, but there's too much melancholy in me at the moment to fully appreciate it. The project ends within an hour. I won't get to listen to Peeta tell me stories anymore.
We spend our last thirty minutes of project work making pleasant small talk, and sharing several looks between us that tell me we are completely on the same page with how we are feeling. It's funny, because I can't describe my own feelings about it all, yet I still know without a doubt that Peeta feels the exact same way that I do. It ended up being such an easy, natural partnership with him. We bring out something in one another, something great within us both, and when those sides then come together we elevate our own work as well as each other.
I tried to write about this in my evaluation. I tried my best to explain how he's been encouraging and supportive, pressuring me to go the extra mile and do the best work I can while still giving me the space I need to develop on my own. I don't know if Peeta will get to read the evaluation or not. I hope he will. I spent hours finding the right words and I know that if I were to sit down with him right here, right now and attempt to tell it all to him face to face I wouldn't be able to. But in the written pages I was able to express myself far better than I ever could verbally, and I hope he gets to see it. I wrote it for him, after all, not for our teachers. We were tasked with including both praise and constructive criticism, and I found the last part to be the hardest. There were a few things I could think of that might need work or improvement, not even Peeta Mellark is perfect, but it was tough to express it without it without sounding mean. I most certainly don't want to sound mean. For the vast majority of our time working together I've thought of him as the perfect partner. And I'm really going to miss working with him, a thought that passes through my mind every five minutes it seems. Sometimes when our eyes meet I think he shares that feeling with me too.
I ended my evaluation of him with the very first thing that I wrote down on my initial draft: "The ideal teammate or partner is, in my view, someone who will lift you up and bring out the best in you, always supporting you, but without letting you walk all over him or her. Someone able to stand their ground while also open to listening to the other's point of view, and skilled in the art of compromise. I've seen those qualities in Peeta Mellark over the course of these months, and it is my firm belief that not only will these qualities that he possesses make him into a good husband when, if, that day ever comes for him, but it will also make him a wonderful father. Even the most arduous task is made easier when the person you are handling the situation with is able to make you feel comfortable and confident. I want to thank Peeta Mellark for being such a good sport during this project, for helping me and for allowing me to help him, and I wish him all the best in the future. I have no doubt in my mind that he has everything it takes to be an ideal husband and father."
I came close to adding that whomever he marries will be a lucky girl, but that felt a bit too personal to write. As I was writing it down my mind went to the conversation we once had, during which I revealed that I don't want to have children. I recall Peeta expressing complete understanding for my point of view, and that he actually agreed with me in many ways. He said he wasn't sure if he wanted children, either. I find myself hoping that he will change his mind. I don't wish upon him the pain of being a father whose child ends up in the Hunger Games, but he is merchant, so the odds would be more in his children's favour. I know that people have to keep having children, or the human race would wither away, and that if everyone were as selfish as me humanity would be in big trouble. Peeta really ought to be someone who decides to go ahead and have babies. I can easily imagine him as the father of a litter of children, all of them blonde of hair and blue of eyes, all of them happy, all of them loved. Anyone who spends any amount of time with Peeta can see that he's got all the qualities to be a great parent. It seems so wrong for him to never become one. I bet he would love being one, too. I bet he would enjoy playing with his children, teaching them how to draw, singing nursery rhymes with them and clapping his hands as they sing along, his nice laughter blending with the pearly laughs of young children. I sincerely hope that I, in expressing my own viewpoints on the subject of procreation, haven't manage to convince him to reject the idea of fatherhood. After everything he's done for me, not just with the project but above all with the bread that day in the rain, it seems like the worst possible form of payment to dissuade him from something he is so clearly suited for.
"You okay?" he suddenly asks, and I look up to find his kind eyes studying me, his head tilted, and his lips formed into a gentle smile.
"Yeah," I say, surprised by the question. Of course I'm okay. It's just a school project coming to an end – one I dreaded before it began and oftentimes thought was ludicrous while it was going on. But when I bring the corners of my own mouth slightly upward I can see in Peeta's eyes that he's still feeling the same thing I'm feeling. An odd sense of loss, and of nostalgia for something that is about to be over. The project felt never-ending – how can it have come to an end so fast?
"It's going to be weird," he says, laughing softly. "You'll forgive me if I walk up to you by habit the same time every Monday for a few weeks and start pestering you about what you did over the weekend?"
"I can't believe you never grew tired of asking me that," I reply with a small laughter of my own. "I never once had an interesting answer."
"Sure you did. Your life is interesting to me."
"I admire you, you know. I've never had your ability to find what's interesting in the dullest people around me. It's like my world is terribly unimaginative compared to yours."
"You know, you shouldn't do that all the time," he tells me. "Put yourself down like that. I haven't known you for very long, but sometimes I wonder if the person you see when you look in the mirror is the same person I see sitting across the table right now."
What am I supposed to say to that? Sometimes he makes comments that flabbergast me, making me feel embarrassed and like a bit uncomfortable, even though I know he's trying to pay me a compliment. It's just that sometimes his compliments are… well, they're odd. Had it been any other merchant boy I would have been convinced he was trying to get me to the slag heap for some pretend-marital fun, but that's not Peeta's way.
"Have you ever thought that maybe you only see what I want you to see?" I manage to answer.
"No, I don't think that's it," he says with a carefree shrug, tearing a few pages from his notebook and stapling them together. Presumably it's either his essay or my evaluation. "When have you ever gone out of your way to present that kind of image of yourself here at school? It's one of the things I find refreshing about you. You are who you are, and the rest of us can either accept it or go about our business. You're not like all those others, girls and boys, who try to act overly friendly and perfect and whatnot, and then when you begin spending time with them it's like you meet an entirely different person."
Again he surprises me. Does he honestly believe what he just said? Does he really think I simply don't give a damn what people think of me? It's true that I've never gone out of my way to act like someone I'm not in order to gain friends, but part of that is because I wouldn't know where to even begin, and I'm a terrible actress. I don't particularly want to be seen as odd and sullen and withdrawn. I wish more people liked me, I just don't know how to make that happen. Gale likes me, and so does Madge, and I've always figured I can't be unsatisfied having those two people care about me for who I am. Madge is easily the best girl in my entire class, and Gale one of the best people I've ever known. Their good opinion of me is something to be proud of. How I somehow managed to get Peeta to like my company is beyond me, but he seems to like more or less everyone. I know that if I could be like him – kind and friendly and generous – I would want to be.
"You're not like that either," I point out. "You're just genuinely friendly, and a good person."
"Yeah, well…" he scoffs. "I may be more outgoing than you, but that doesn't necessarily make me a good person. I'm just good at knowing what sides of myself to show and what to hide."
"Now who's selling himself short?" I counter. "Come on, Peeta. I of all people know what you're like when it all comes down to it."
He pauses midway through tearing out another page and his mouth falls open slightly as his wide eyes meet mine. It's the first time I've ever made any direct allusion to our meeting that day in the rain six years ago but it's evident from his reaction that he hasn't forgotten, and that warms my heart to him even more. I suppose in one way it would speak more highly of him if he had forgotten – if what he did was such an everyday, mundane event for him that it blended in with all the other times he's endangered himself in some way to help somebody else. But in all the ways I care about it speaks volumes about him that he remembers it. For over a minute he looks at me, his mouth slowly closing, and he seems to be waiting for me to continue to talk about that day in the rain. I can't, however. Nor do I feel I need to. The two of us know what happened that day and that is all that matters.
Suddenly he blushes, looks away, and finishes tearing out the page.
"Katniss that was different."
"No it wasn't," I insist, keeping my eyes on him, refusing to look away.
"If you knew-"
"There is nothing to know," I interrupt, firmly but kindly. "Nothing more than what I found out then and there. So what if you're not always in a splendid mood or you feel selfish on occasion or you make mistakes, or anything else that isn't perfect. I know who you truly are when it matters and that is all that truly matters."
He tears out two more pages, clears his throat and, still with a blush on his cheeks, nods to the papers in front of me on the table.
"Are you, eh… are you done with yours? Everything ready?"
"Yeah."
He nods.
"Okay good," he says, his voice barely audible.
He staples another stack of papers together and begins to sift through them, refusing to look at me and still with a light shade of pink on his cheeks. I don't get it. But if he needs a moment, for whatever the reason, I will allow him that. I give my own work one last look-over before we begin getting everything together to hand it in. It's mostly just something for my eyes and hands to do while I wait for him, my mind busy with other things. I've spent months now working together with the boy with the bread, my dandelion in the spring, and while I've definitely gotten to know him there is still so much that I don't know. On occasion he's shown me hints of a deeper world locked within him, an ability to see things that I, and maybe nobody else, can, not just on an emotional level but in the very way he views the world around us. He is an enigma, and a fascinating one at that. There is no way he will ever be able to convince me that he's not the great person he appears to be, regardless of what unpleasant thoughts he might sometimes have in that head of his. He's not a saint, and everybody has bad qualities and nasty thoughts. I can't imagine him capable of any thoughts or actions that are too bad, certainly he could never be like the bloodthirsty careers in the Games or the cruel people in the Capitol who send us to the reapings every year, but any negative things about him are counterbalanced by all the good that's in him. A goodness that comes naturally. He took that beating to give me bread because that was what his instincts told him to do.
And as for who we see when we look in the mirror, and what others see when they look at us… I wish I could see what he sees in me – and in many others around me. Gale, who knows me best, sees more or less the same thing that I see myself, but what Peeta sees is far more alluring in many ways. I'm surprised when he attributes qualities to me that I never thought I had, and I wonder where on earth he deduced that I might have them. I would very much like to view the world through his eyes for just one day and watch it come to life in a whole new way. He is such a contrast to who I am. I have never been a particularly exuberant person, and the death of my father certainly didn't help me in that regard. I'm withdrawn, unfriendly, prone to quick judgement and I tend to view things as either right or wrong, with little leeway in-between. Peeta is outgoing, charismatic, sociable, always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and wanting to think the best of everyone. I feel as if I am a person of black and white, and Peeta Mellark is colour. And five minutes from now, when we hand Mr. Stoker our final part of the project, I worry my life will be a drearier place when that colour leaves.
"We need to head back soon," I tell him softly, wishing we didn't have to go yet.
"I know," he nods. "I'm ready. You?"
I push my part of the work towards him.
"As I'll ever be."
Peeta takes the bundle of papers and stacks them against the table to make them align perfectly. He puts them into the envelope and seals it, exhaling in a "whoosh" sound that reflects the same sense of anxiousness that I am feeling. This is it. The end of our project. Nothing more to be written, nothing more to be added, nothing new that will befall our fictional selves. We have written up our last budget, completed our last essay, raised our last make-believe child. I remember looking forward to this moment when the project was first announced, unable then to even imagine feeling anything but tremendous relief once it was all finished.
I could sit here and tell myself that it's the routine of it all that I will miss. It has, after all, been several months in which this project has been a reliable staple in my week. In the end it did also turn out to be a fairly interesting experience, watching a made-up version of your own life as it unfolded and dealing with challenges as they were presented to you. I have enjoyed the work far more than I ever anticipated and I will miss it to some degree.
But the fundamental reason why this feels so melancholy is because of Peeta. He has been my constant companion through this enterprise and we've formed a partnership that has been rewarding and constructive. More than that I've made a good friend. Someone who might have even been a really good friend, on par with what Gale was to me before he was more than just a friend. But without the routine of the project binding us together I'm almost certain that our journey together is coming to an end now. Sure, we'll say hi to one another as we pass each other by in the hallways and I suspect we might be teaming up for other exercises during the brief time we have left at school, and possibly even meet up for lunch every once in a while. And of course we'll sometimes see each other at the bakery when Gale and I come to trade, but I know those moments won't allow for anything more than friendly smiles and polite small talk about the weather. Not with my boyfriend standing right next to me, jealous of my fondness for the baker's youngest boy.
"This is it," says Peeta. "Time to end the project."
"Well, then," I say, pushing back my chair and reaching for my things. "No use dragging it out. Come on, I don't want to end up waiting in line behind half our class."
"I forgot how unsentimental you can be," Peeta half-chuckles.
"I'm pragmatic," I argue.
"I didn't say you were wrong."
We gather up our things and walk in silence back towards our classroom. Several of our classmates are already there when we arrive, but many are absent, probably working frantically to finish everything in time. At this point I feel there's not much left to say between Peeta and myself, not pertaining to the project anyway. When we fall in line behind the two other pairs waiting to hand their work to Mr. Stoker Peeta turns to me and holds out the envelope in offering, but I shake my head. I don't care which one of us hands it in, and since he's already holding it he might as well do the honours. Within a minute it's our turn and Peeta's face lights up with one of his trademark smiles as he holds out the thick envelope to our teacher.
"Mr. Mellark, Miss. Everdeen…" says Mr. Stoker, crossing our names off a list. "I'll be looking forward to seeing what you've come up with for your final assignment." He takes the envelope from Peeta and places it on top of a pile on his desk. "There won't be any big announcements at the end of class. You're free to head on home, unless you want to stick around and chat with your classmates or something."
"Thank you," says Peeta, turning to me. "Come on, Katniss."
He walks out of the classroom and I follow, unable to spot Madge anywhere in the room. I figure I'll make the most out of this unexpected bit of free time and hurry home, so I can go from there out to the woods. Once outside in the corridor Peeta and I both take a step to the side, allowing others to pass through the door, and then we stop, standing opposite each other, tentatively smiling.
"I should get going," I say after a second. "I could get some extra time in the woods."
"Sure," he nods. "I'll stick around. Not much point going anywhere when practice starts as usual after the school day is over." He raises an eyebrow at me. "And don't try and object! You're officially no longer my project wife, we have stuck it out till completed project now do us part, I'm free to wreck my lungs and anything else to my heart's content without it interfering with your studies."
I roll my eyes and give him a playful shove. He chuckles softly, running a hand through his beard. I've gotten used to seeing it now, and it will be strange in a few weeks when the tournament has been held and he will be shaving it off. At least I assume that's what he intends to do. I kind of like him with the beard, but my opinions don't matter.
"I still think you're crazy for putting wrestling above your health," I tell him. "But you're right. I've got no grounds to complain anymore. Besides, you're able to go several hours now without coughing until your ribs almost crack, so that's progress, I guess."
"Yeah," he says with a light laugh, his hands landing on his hips. He looks over his shoulder in the direction of the assembly room, then back at me. "Well, anyway… I should let you get going. No point wasting this bit of free time if you can spend it out in the woods, right?"
"No…"
"It's been good working with you, Katniss," he says, smiling genuinely at me. His blue eyes keep me captive, and I think to myself how much they remind me of Prim's. Same kindness radiating from them, even if there's a stability in his that my little sister doesn't yet possess, and the colour is somewhat different. "I'm glad you took the chance of partnering with me. And not just because it saved me from several months of working with you-know-who."
"Yeah," I chuckle, having almost forgotten the reason why he asked me to pick him in the first place. "I've had a good time. It's been… interesting and productive."
He laughs a little at that.
"You sure know how to give a person a compliment, Everdeen." But his smile is nothing but friendly. "Sorry. Just teasing. I had a great time, too. It's been nice getting to know you, even if it was only for a few months." I half expect him to kiss me on the cheek, or something like that. But all he does is reach out his hand and give my upper arm a squeeze, then he turns to walk down the corridor, sidestepping two of our classmates coming hurrying with their envelope in a tight grasp.
"Peeta!" I call his name just as he begins to walk away, and he turns around and looks at me, a spark of interest in his fine blue eyes. I hesitate for half a second, licking my lips nervously, but I know I'm going to say what's on my mind. Otherwise I wouldn't have called out to him as he began to walk away from me. "I didn't mean what I said. About… about us not speaking to each other anymore once the project is over." He walks slowly back to me. "Or, I… I did sort of mean it, but not… not the way it probably sounded. I didn't mean that I wouldn't want to, or don't… want to… I was thinking out loud, I guess, at how different our circles are and that we might end up not speaking much anymore." I swallow, meeting his eyes. "But I would like to… Keep speaking, that is."
He smiles softly, his left hand reaching up and finding the side of my face, his fingers in my hair and my ear cradled between his fingers and his thumb. It's an intimate gesture, made even more so by the three slow strokes he gives me with his thumb, and by the way we're looking into each other's eyes during. Too intimate, perhaps. Heck, I don't even know if I'd let Gale touch me this way out in public. And here we are, standing in the middle of the hallway, other students all around us. Somehow deep within me I know that it's the look in my eyes that's telling him it's alright, that he wouldn't make such an intimate move without feeling assured that I would allow it. I feel my heart pounding as we eye each other, and then it comes over me. The overwhelming desire for him to kiss me. To the point that I don't even care that we're out in public, that anybody might see and gossip and it might get back to Vick or Rory and through them to Gale; the desire is so strong that I know I've never wanted anybody to kiss me this badly in all my life. I'm even chanting inside my head – 'kiss me, kiss me, kiss me'.
Of course, he doesn't kiss me. He removes his hand, as usual leaving both a feeling of cold and one of my skin tingling.
"Thank you," he says instead, but I'm so caught up in my body's reaction to his closeness that I'm momentarily confused as to what he's thanking me for. "I should like for us to keep talking to one another. Check in on one another. Have lunch, perhaps?"
"Uhm, yeah, sure," I mumble, my eyes turning to my shoes, needing a break from his while at the same time never wanting to stop looking into them.
"I'll see you around, Katniss." A sudden grin flashes across his face. "And hey – thanks for today."
"Thank you for the past five months," I say, lifting my eyes back to his, my voice sounding frail and low.
He gives me a wink, and then he's off again. This time I allow him to leave, and don't stick around to watch him go. I turn in the opposite direction and head for my locker, grabbing my things while barely aware of my surroundings. I walk past Madge on my way to the school's front door and she says something to me, but I walk right past her, not even slightly aware of what she's saying. I feel more than a little shaken by what just took place and I want to get back home where I can think about what it all was about. Normally I'd go to the woods, but I can't do that this time. I need to think not just about Peeta, but about Gale.
Luckily nobody is home when I walk through the door – nobody but Buttercup, whom I promptly lift up from his cosy spot on the couch and, ignoring his indignant meows and hisses, carry him to the kitchen door. There's a large pile of snow still sitting by Lady's pen, and I throw him into it, closing the door on his protests. I then walk into my bedroom and lie down on the bed, trying to make sense of everything.
On surface level it seems easy – I just felt a stronger attraction towards, and desire to be kissed by, the boy with the bread than I've ever felt with Gale – my actual boyfriend. Clearly that should be telling me that if I ought to be dating anyone it should be… it should be Peeta. If he's single, which I'm still not clear on whether or not he is, I believe he would be agreeable to go on a date with me. I'm not at all good at picking up on whether or not a boy likes me like that, but he did sort of ask me to go with him to the Harvest Festival as his date. Clearly he's not entirely against the concept of us two going out.
But things aren't necessarily as cut and dry as they might seem on surface level. And I must be one hundred percent sure before I make any move at all, or else I risk losing not only my best friend of many years, but the new friend I have found in Peeta. Because what if… what if what I experienced today wasn't really about Peeta? What if he was just an excuse? I know I need to make my decision about Gale soon, the sooner the better, and I'm struggling with it. Am I in, or am I out? I want to be in, I want to keep being close with him, I want to stay a part of the best team I've ever been a part of. At the same time I'm frightened of what that entails. I'm almost certain now that Gale won't be willing to put sex out of the equation even if he might be willing to agree not to have children – now that I know that you can have one without risking the other. But am I willing to go that far even with contraceptives to protect us? Those can never be one hundred percent sure to keep pregnancy from happening, but even if they were… Sometimes I'm absolutely convinced I never want to have sex, ever, no matter what. It seems uncomfortable and painful and messy and smelly, and the thought of Gale and I touching each other intimately and being naked together and all of that, it frightens me. Possibly because it's unknown to me and because I've always associated it directly with the risk of pregnancy, and I can't shake that connection from my mind. Then there are other times, when I think I might be willing to take that step so long as the circumstances are right. If I do choose to stay in the relationship with Gale then I must be sure that I would be willing to sleep with him at some point, or else it will all fall apart anyway.
What if the powerful desire to be kissed by Peeta today was just a way for my brain and my body to try and escape? Peeta represents something easier and far less confining, possibly even just a kiss and nothing more. I have no idea what he might want from me but that leaves the door open that he might want nothing from me – not marriage, not children, not sex. Just a few dates, or even just my friendship. In that sense, kissing him might be safe, without the risk of losing a years-old friendship and without the troublesome matter of how to live my life.
I do believe wholeheartedly that the attraction itself was real. He's an attractive person, with his captivating blue eyes, his ashen hair that seems to create a halo around his head in the right light, and his charming smile. What girl wouldn't be open to the idea of being kissed by him? And we get along so well, him and I. A natural fit, an effortless companionship. He makes no demands of me, ever only seems pleased to be in my company, supporting me and challenging me in the best ways. I wanted Peeta to kiss me today, not just any guy in general. But that doesn't mean I wanted it for the right reasons. The reasons he would deserve. The reasons that would be the right ones to walk away from Gale.
That night I wake screaming from a nightmare, my whole body covered in sweat and the sheets tangled around my legs in a way that almost makes me panic the first few seconds before I can get my bearings. I'm alone in bed, Prim has gone to our mother sometime during the night, and I look around wildly, patting the empty side of the bed as if to double-check that I am indeed by myself. It's nothing new, waking from a nightmare. The feeling of my pounding heart and lungs straining to do their job, of hair sticking to my forehead, of a metallic taste of fear in my mouth. But tonight was different. I didn't dream of Father, or exploding mines, or of Prim starving to death.
Tonight I saw him – the boy with the bread. I saw him as from a distance, observing him, seeing him in danger without being able to help him or even call out a warning. It took half the dream for me to realize I was seeing him on television, hunted not by animals or even peacekeepers, but by career tributes. I saw him participate in the Hunger Games, surrounded by dangers ranging from other tributes to game-maker traps to starvation. Oddly the last part got to me the most. He, the boy with the big heart who once saved me and my family from starvation, his face sunken in and his eyes hollow and me sitting at home with an abundance of food in front of me but no way of getting it to him. And then I saw another tribute come up behind him and stick a sword into him and wrangle his life away, and that is when I woke.
"Oh God…" I mumble, wiping my brow with my forearm, forcing myself to try and calm down and slow my breathing.
I know there's no reason to be frightened. Peeta is not in any danger, not at the moment at least. The Hunger Games are more than two months away and he is far safer from Effie's hand than I am, having only the minimum amount of slips in the reaping bowls. As I lie back down in bed and pull the covers tighter around me, my body shivering slightly as the sweat cools against my skin, I tell myself not to be an idiot. There is no reason why Peeta would end up in the Games. If Gale could make it through, having countless more slips than Peeta, then the baker's youngest boy ought to be as safe as anyone can be. I don't even believe I had this dream because I'm worried he might end up called to the stage by Effie. I may not be a philosophical person but it's easy enough to interpret the meaning behind a dream like this, the very night our project came to its end.
I'm dreading the reality of having to part ways with the boy with the bread, and perhaps never get any closer to being a part of each other's lives than we've been this winter.
I know Katniss doesn't paint the most flattering picture of herself in this chapter, and it's not much like the Katniss we know from canon. But, it's meant to be her own insecurities and her own self-view, and like most people she doesn't see herself the way she genuinely is. I also borrowed shamelessly from Fredrik Backman's "A Man Called Ove" with her description of herself as black-and-white and Peeta as colour. It always seemed to me like something Katniss would use to describe herself and Peeta, even if she, like Ove, might be wrong about it.