200 reviews guys?! High five people!

So hey guys! So I really like how this chapter turned out. It was hard but I like the end result. So sorry to say, it's another sad chapter. WAY more sad then Clove's chapter. Well, how I wrote it i feel like it is but the situation is just as sad as Clove's.

Anons

S: Aww so cute, Marvel or Cato part? Just wondering! Yeah, Clove's thanksgiving is a sad one. Just like Peeta's is going to be. Aw, thanks! it was hard to write. Yeah, it's hard to go to a midnight showing but my dad is letting me miss school the next dad because he is so awesome! :)

WARNING, it's sad.

Chapter 19 "Broken (Part 2)"

Johanna's POV

"Thank you so much for coming!"

"Well, thank you for having us."

I wait by the door while Blight and Cecelia say goodbye to their friends and thank them for the Thanksgiving meal. They're all hugging and I'm started to think we won't be leaving anytime soon.

"They do this all the time, you know," Enobaria says beside me.

Enobaria is the daughter of Blight and Cecelia's friends. I've known her since I first came to live with Blight and Cecelia. Enobaria has always been nice to me. She's a little wild, but she's fierce as can be. The girl knows how to have a good time.

"I'd give them another twenty minutes. Do you want to go hang in my room till then?"

I nod.

We head upstairs together as the adults continue to say goodbye.

"Where's your brother?" I ask as I sit on her bed.

"Probably out with his girlfriend," Enobaria says. "Brutus is always with her."

"Do I hear wedding bells?" I joke.

Enobaria rolls her eyes. "He's only a year older than us and no: she's the devil."

"How's it going with you and your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" Enobaria takes a dramatic pause. "I don't label things. I like my options open."

Enobaria has dated but she's never had an official girlfriend or boyfriend. She says she likes playing the field and loves playing for both teams.

"Really? You don't get jealous?"

"Nope," she says popping her 'p'. "Never. When I do, it must be love."

I snort. "You are not normal."

"Anyway, how's it going with your man? And don't you dare tell me you don't have one because you're hot. If our parents weren't best friends and you weren't straight, I'd be all over you."

What does she mean 'if'? Enobaria hits on me all the time. She can creep me out at times to be honest, but I'm flattered.

"Everything is fine. Gale and I couldn't be in a better place."

"Gale? Why does that name sound so familiar?" Enobaria hops off the bed and starts to scramble all over her room.

"What are you doing?" She's here, over there, and everywhere. "You look like someone just spun you around a dozen times."

"Nothing." Yet, she continues to destroy her room. "Hm…tell me about your other friends. How's Peet?"

"It's Peeta, but very close. He's—"

"Yeah, that's great!" Enobaria hops back on to the bed with a book in her hand. "I don't really care. Look at this!"

She flips through her book, which is apparently a photo album. She comes to a stop at directs my eyes to a certain photo. A bunch of little kids, maybe around six or seven years old, in rows, and Enobaria is pointing at his little brown haired boy.

"Is that Gale Hawthorne?"

"Oh my God, yeah," I practically shout. "How do you know him?"

She snorts. "You're a horrible girlfriend. He never told you he used to live here?"

"No." Why didn't he?

"He moved only three years ago. Does he never talk about his old life?" Enobaria asks with disbelief.

I shake my head. I never thought about how odd it was that Gale never talked about his old life, I never talked about mine. What's the point? Why hold on to the past? When I left all those homes, it was the same as closing a chapter in my life. I never looked back and I never will because it didn't matter anymore. I would forget everyone I met and soon enough they'd forget about me. That's just life.

"So I'm guessing he never talked about Kat."

"Who's Kat?" I ask curiously. "An old girlfriend?"

She laughs. "Damn, you get jealous fast. Must be love."

"Shut up and answer the question."

"No, she wasn't his girlfriend. They were just best friends, were. Since he left the girl hasn't been the same, but that's also because of her dad passing away."

"Did her dad die in the same fire as Gale's dad?"

She nods.

Gale did talk about her, once. He didn't tell me her name. He just said she was his cousin.

Blight and Cecelia call me from downstairs. Must be time to leave.

"See you next thanksgiving," I tell Enobaria. "Don't miss me too much."

"Hard not to when you have a body like that."

"Yeah, you never hit on me."

Enobaria shrugs and smiles as I leave her room.

…

The trip to Merchant town from the Seam on the train is about four hours, so we get home kind of late. Peeta messaged me to stop by the bakery when I get back home. Blight tells me to be home by ten since there is school tomorrow. I'll spend half an hour with Peeta and then head over to Gale's for the rest of the night.

When I get to the bakery, it's a ghost town. The lights are all off and it's nothing but empty inside. The sign says closed, but Peeta told me he'd leave the door open for me. I let myself in quietly. I don't want to disturb Peeta's monster of a mom. She completely hates me.

I knock on Peeta's bedroom door before letting myself in.

The moment I step inside, my heart drops straight to the ground.

"Peeta." My voice is somewhere between a sob and a gasp.

There, Peeta sits on his bed, blankets wrapped around him and bloody papers on the floor. His light blue eyes are wet with tears that fall slowly from his cheek. His swollen, dark violet, cracked cheek. He looks so broken.

"Peeta," My voice cracks as I approach him slowly. "What—"

"Don't," Peeta sobs out. "Don't ask. Can you just…" Peeta's eyes fall to the floor.

He doesn't need to say anything.

I sit with him and pull him into a hug.

He's shaking heavily, against me. His body jumps every few seconds. My own eyes begin to water. I'd never thought I'd hold Peeta like this. Peeta has always been the one to hug someone with such love that it makes you feel wanted. His warm arms wrap around you like a blanket protecting you from the cold. Now, his arms are as cold as the fall wind blowing outside. The warmth is gone, and so is the love. He feels like shattered pieces between my fingers.

"Peeta." I say his name as I pull away. He looks at me with his saddened eyes and my heart aches. "I want to help you. I'll do anything but…just answer one thing for me. If you don't want to tell me everything, it's okay. Please, all I need is a yes or no." I take a deep breath. "Did your mom do this to you?"

Peeta closes his eyes for a moment before nodding yes.

"Okay," I say. "Okay." I take a hold of Peeta's hand and he squeezes it. "I want you to put some ice on your cheek while I'm out. Give me thirty minutes and don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"Okay."

I give Peeta a quick kiss on his unhurt cheek before leaving him.

There is no way that bruise won't raise questions at school. Then what? Peeta won't rat out his mom. This can't be the first time she's done something like this. Everything makes so much sense now. The way Peeta is very cautious around her, or any time she's even mentioned. How he was in such a rush to get me and our other friends out of the bakery on Wednesday. He was afraid of what she'd do to him if she had found all of us there. Without his dad home, he had no protection. Oh God, does his dad know about this? Mr. Mellark is a man of kind heart and love, much like Peeta is. He can't know about this. I'd like to believe he would have stopped this if he knew.

I arrive at Gloss and Cash's in ten minutes. If I didn't run here, it would have taken me longer.

Gloss answers the door with a smile. After a few words with him I head up to Cashmere's room.

"What brings you here, Johanna?" Cash asks me as I step into her room.

"I need a favor," I tell her. "Cecelia accidently bruised herself while—

"Say no more," Cashmere cuts me off. Thank God too, I had a horrible lie set up.

Cashmere digs through her drawers before pulling out her make-up bag.

"This cover up is from the Capitol. It's really good, expensive, but worth it. It's not my color, it's Annie's, so close enough to your mom's." And Peeta's. "Only comes off with makeup remover. No sweat, water, or anything else for that matter will take this makeup off."

"That's amazing."

"Yup. That's why I look fabulous everyday."

"Thank you so much!"

"Go ahead and keep it. I never use it."

I run back to Peeta's house. By the time I get there, I'm completely out of breath and gasping for air. I quickly shake it off and return to Peeta.

I find him holding ice to his cheek just as I asked him too. He looks better than before. He seems to have wiped his tears away and cleaned himself up. When he sees me a smile spreads across this face.

"I'm not sure if this will work, but it's worth a shot."

I sit with him on the bed as I try and apply the cover up to his bruise. I touch gently, and yet Peeta still feels the pain. I wish I could take the pain away, but I can't. The only thing that comes to mind is to distract him so he doesn't pay attention to the pain.

This is going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

"When I was five…my real parents got into a car crash," I tell Peeta as I slowly apply the cover up. He looks at me and frowns. "I was so young that I don't remember much about them, but something that I do remember, that I wish I didn't, is that I was in the car accident too." I take another deep breath. "I remember the water rushing into the car. I can still hear my dad trying to break the glass window and I can still feel my mom's arms wrapped around me. I remember the burning feeling in my throat as I let the water in my lungs and then…nothing." I can feel the tears building up in my eyes. "Every so often, I have dreams about the accident. After ten years, it still haunts me."

"I'm sorry," Peeta says.

"It's not your fault," I tell him.

"Is that why…" Peeta's voice trails off. As if he's afraid to ask me.

"What?"

"Is that why you won't go into the water when we're at the beach? Are you afraid of the water?"

"Not completely. Just big bodies of water," I mutter.

With one last swipe, Peeta's bruise is gone. It's amazing what makeup can do.

"It's still swollen but you can just say you hurt yourself at wrestling practice. And also, no more wrestling until that heals. If something happens—"

"Nothing will," Peeta interrupts me. "I'll stay away from wrestling for a while."

I nod. "Good."

Peeta takes a hold of my hand and our fingers intertwine with each other.

"The first time she…it was when I was nine. There was this old man looking for food so I gave him some bread. Mother didn't like that. She called me an idiot and whacked my ungrateful hands the rolling pin. Dad asked me what happened to my hands and I told him I fell outside playing. After that," Peeta moves his hand from mind to roll up his left sleeve. On his forearm is a long cut. It's already healing which means that cut happened a while ago. I shut my eyes hard as I realize the blood on the papers from earlier wasn't fresh. She beat him that Wednesday, she found out we were there at the bakery when we weren't supposed to be. "Mom was careful enough to never leave marks somewhere where it can be seen. Today she was just…really stressed."

"Don't you dare be making excuses for her, Peeta," I tell. "Stressed or not, she had no right to put her hands on you. You have to tell someone about this—"

"No! That's not going to fix anything."

"Peeta—"

"She wasn't always like this," Peeta says softy. "If I tell someone, she'll be gone."

"If she's gone she can hurt you anymore."

"That doesn't mean I want her behind bars." Peeta takes a hold of my hand again. "She's still my mom and the old her is somewhere in here. I've never told anyone, so you have to promise me something. Don't tell anyone, please don't. My dad doesn't know, Delly doesn't, no one but you. You can't tell anyone."

"I can't just—"

"Please?" His voice cracks again.

I bite my lip and nod yes.

"Thank you, Johanna."

"I'll be back earlier tomorrow to redo the makeup. Delly probably has makeup remover in her room somewhere, so use that to take off the makeup after she and your dad get home and go to bed. I have to go home now before Blight gets mad at me. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I understand."

It breaks my heart to leave him alone here, but I don't know what else to do.

"Try not to look so broken tomorrow," I tell him. "You're always smiling so…try."

"I've faked a smile before, Johanna. I'll be fine."

I give Peeta one last hug before leaving him.

On my way home I find myself crying for Peeta.

How could someone so pure and kind look so broken?

Of course, this will be a big part of the story too, just like it was in The New Girl's Fire. In the next story however, it's going to be an even bigger part of the story. So this is useful information to know for the next story.

Please review! Let me know what you thought of this chapter :) Sad? Makes you mad? Whatever it is let me know.

Again, I am open to suggestions.