Author's Note:
Apologies for the long time between updates. There are neither enough hours in the day nor days in the week. In any case, I hope this is less painful to read than it was to write. Thank you again for reviews and encouragement - there are no words for how much it helps!
Days pass. Each morning when I wake up, I immediately think of meeting her in the woods. A deeply-ingrained habit. Some mornings it takes a split second, others a whole minute, but when full consciousness comes crashing in the realization is always the same: No, you're not meeting anyone. And I grit my teeth, get up, dress. Pull on boots, tie them. Run a hand through my hair. Or not. Shave very, very carefully. Because what I really want to do is put my fist through the wall. Or the door. Or the warped mirror over the sink.
Each morning I talk myself out of it. If you break your hand, your family starves. Katniss' family starves. Can't set a snare with a broken hand. Once or twice, I seriously consider the fact that I know how to throw a punch correctly, that I could actually do it without breaking a hand. But it would wake up the kids, break something else that would cost time and money to fix, and earn me a look of disappointment from my mother (which is truthfully worse than getting yelled at). So I don't do it. It sure would make me feel better, though.
Each morning I check my lines. I can't decide if it's relief or torture. The motions are familiar, the solitude is not. Even on days when I had done this alone before, there was always the knowledge that she would be here the next time. The thought that she was probably wishing she were here instead of doing whatever it was that was keeping her busy kept me company almost as well as she did herself. I wonder if she is even given the chance to wish, now. Only on the days the traps are light do I hunt; it reminds me too sharply that she is absent. I'm a good archer, but she was better.
Each morning, I drop a rabbit or grouse at the Everdeens', and take the rest of my haul to the Hob before school. Most everyone tries to pretend that nothing is different. I can't decide if it helps or not. I don't think they can decide, either. They still haggle over trades some, but when an arrow-damaged pelt fetches the same price as a clean one from a snare, the simmering ire boils again. Because Katniss' pelts were always worth more, they required no repair. So now I have to feel grateful. And I hate that feeling. Obligations are inconvenient. I have a long enough list already.
Then to school, which is (and I never thought I'd say this) a small comfort simply because it has not changed. I still refuse to acknowledge that homework has ever been assigned to me since I turned fourteen, and my teachers still don't bother me about it. I learned a long time ago that if I ignored their nagging but still earned good marks on my tests that they would let it slide. Since we are two years apart, I rarely saw Katniss at school so it's a little easier to forget that I won't see her some other time.
Until about noon. Because that's when I'd have a chance to catch her if I needed to, to make plans for the next day, while I was between classes during her lunch period. I didn't do it every day, true, but I could have if I wanted to, and now I can't. Now, I pass the cafeteria doorway daily, looking for her. And all I see is and empty chair and Madge Undersee. Damn it. Why doesn't she find somewhere else to go? And the worst part of it is that every day I find myself looking longer than the day before. One day, her hair is pulled into a ponytail with a plain black band, and she stares blankly at her lunch tray. No Katniss. The next day, the same ponytail with a blue ribbon that matches her eyes. Still no Katniss. After that, a messier ponytail, reading a textbook. Then pinned into a knot at the back of her head, chewing on a pencil as she reads. I wonder if she knows anything. She must. Her father is the mayor, works for the Capitol. I should have been nicer to her…. Something about the thought makes me uncomfortable, so I crumple it up and throw it away. Problem solved.
Each afternoon I spend my class time paying closer attention than I usually do because the distraction helps me shake the discomfort brought on by midday. After the last bell, I wait outside for my brothers; my mother brings them to school so I can trade at the Hob, and I am responsible for getting them home so she can finish her laundry. Vick always throws himself at me, bursting at the seams to give me the latest update on the exciting life of a third-grader, but Rory is getting old enough that he doesn't really want to be walked home by his older brother. No matter how great he thinks I am. I suspect it has something to do with waking up one morning and realizing suddenly that Primrose Everdeen is adorable. It's funny at first, because I remember dropping off strawberries a couple years ago at the Mayor's house to discover that his daughter had gone from gangly and awkward to grown-up and gorgeous in the space between two Saturdays. Then it isn't funny anymore. It pisses me off. In the end it's painful. Because it doesn't really matter how gorgeous she is. And the reason that Rory has a good excuse to start walking Prim home is that her sister isn't here to do it. My day is ruined anew.
Each afternoon when I get home, I become a living jungle-gym for Posy and as tired and taxed as I am I still wouldn't skip it for the world. She is thrilled to have a fresh audience for the new song she made up, or dance she invented, or list of a-million-and-one questions. Vick embarrasses Rory every day by announcing loudly that he cannot understand why he walks home way ahead of us, because as far as he is concerned girls are still icky. Too bad the poor kid will grow out of that someday. A game of chase inevitably ensues, with Rory threatening Vick with bodily harm. I intervene not because I think Rory would actually hurt his brother (he doesn't have a mean bone in his body – the one time Rory made Vick cry, Rory cried harder) but more because it's like having two deer tear around the kitchen and living room, which are very, very small. Every time I do this, Posy stands with her hands on her hips and tells her brothers sternly to listen to me, which is hysterical. My day gets a tiny bit better.
Each evening I keep the three of them occupied so my mother can have a few minutes of peace to herself, which she uses to cook a meager supper. I don't help, because I am utterly incapable of cooking anything except over a campfire, and admittedly even those results are suspect. In exchange, I direct the kids in washing our worn, chipped dishes so she can have a few more minutes to herself to do nothing. Somehow, one of them always ends up wetter than the dinnerware.
Each night, I try to stay up for a bit after I herd the kids into bed, but I don't want too much time to sit and think. I get enough of that through the day. So I collapse in bead and fall asleep to the nightmarish thought that I'll have to get up and fight through all of it again tomorrow.
Days pass, all the same, one running into the other. Until today. Madge sits alone in the cafeteria as usual, and I see today her hair is down, she is writing in a notebook while one foot taps idly on the floor, concentrating intensely. But today, her long eyelashes flutter, and maybe it's the stress, maybe it's the sadness, maybe it's the lack of sleep – my reaction time isn't at its sharpest. Her blue eyes come up. And catch me.
….
I am exhausted. All the time. My mother stays in bed for days. My father is stuck working longer hours than usual. So I spend a lot of time alone. It seems like it shouldn't make me so tired, but it does. I'm up far earlier than necessary to get ready for school because I need to make breakfast, check on mom, try to coax her into eating something before I give her the medicine. If she eats and the morning goes smoothly, I have time to clean up the dishes and make myself look presentable. If she doesn't (and this happens more frequently after Reaping Days) and I run behind, the dishes get dumped in the sink and the most I can do is make sure my clothes are on right side out before I dash out the door. When this happens on the mornings that Rose, our housekeeper, is scheduled to come in, it makes me feel doubly bad - I can't stand the thought that someone else will be cleaning up my mess. By the time I actually get to school, I feel mentally drained. Class is a struggle to stay focused between worry over my parents and the fear that Rose will start to think I'm an entitled little brat, which are set against a noisy backdrop of self-loathing; how selfish of me to be so consumed by such trivial things, while my friend is locked up like livestock set to literally fight to the death? I just have to endure life. Katniss has to find a way to save hers.
Lunchtime is difficult because Katniss is ostensibly missing. If I had other friends it might be less obvious, but I don't, so the empty chair across the table gapes at me every day. Reminding me just how close to home this year's games have hit. I have faith in her, but it doesn't make it any easier, any less worrisome, any less lonely. It's a struggle to eat my meal, but I force myself to do it because all I can think of is how grateful she would be to have it once she's in the arena.
Afternoons are a blur because as much as I miss my family I still dread going home to an existence that is a world apart from the one that everyone else has invented for me, that everyone else resents. I never know if my mother will still be asleep when I get there, crying hysterically, or leaning dizzily over the toilet trying to fight off the nausea brought on by yet another debilitating headache. It's anyone's guess. I'd like to be able to just sit and chat with her again, but I know from experience that it'll be weeks before we get back to that point. When I do get to see my father, there is an invisible wall between us. We had always been close but over the last few years, as I've come to suspect some of the less-legal aspects of his work and he's come to suspect that I'm catching on, something that was never strained before has become so now. He did not raise a stupid daughter, and I think he's starting to regret it; the more I know, the more he worries, and the more guarded he becomes. Rose is the closest thing to normal family that I have, and though she is always kind to me she isn't there every day, and the days she is she's busy. Of late, often with my breakfast dishes.
Day in, day out, I begin to wonder if anyone would notice if I vanished into thin air now that Katniss is gone, because other than her I can't think of another person who would. By the end of the week, I decide officially that I'm a Horrible Person for feeling sorry for myself. And thinking of Katniss, I resolve to fight harder, to count my blessings very carefully, and to make myself a little more useful to my father. He didn't raise a stupid daughter, and if he's going to worry, it I might as well make it worth it.
At lunchtime I write a list of things to do, to say, so I can get my thoughts out and organized before they swirl into an incoherent mess. The sudden rush of determination is a welcome but overwhelming feeling. And then, quite suddenly, it deflates and freezes over when I look up and see Gale Hawthorne staring at me.