Eventually I managed to get the pacing Peeta out of my studio apartment. He stood outside in the hallway, waiting for me to dress. I took my time, fingering the silk, cotton, and lace in my closet, feeling slightly hung-over, but mostly fickle this morning. I wasn't planning on leaving the safe confines of my massive, fluffy bed until Peeta bribed me with one of my only two weaknesses, brunch: eggs benedict and a bloody mary, or two, or three, on him.

Last night was rough. I had given in to an old temptation. My body has been inexplicably charged with yearning lately, and last night it felt like I was finally able to release something it had been holding onto for years. I screamed, writhed, and eventually cried under his touch. Yet, the thing that remained with me in the morning was not the trembling of my satisfied body, but the subtle taste of death on his lips.

I let him consume me and I felt like I was on the verge of finally mourning when Peeta burst into my apartment.

I guess I should have been relieved that he found me alone, even though Gale had left hours ago. I didn't feel like confronting what our drunken liaison meant, or asking myself whether I had forgiven him or not.

Though I was now a copy-editor by trade, I always made time for Peeta whenever he needed something work-shopped, (though I always made him beg for it). We had known each other since… well since I could recall any sort of vague memory. We grew up in the same neighborhood, a project we called "the twelve," though Peeta's family lived on the edge of town, and were fairly well off compared to the rest of us.

We weren't close during high school; we ran in different social circles, but we eventually attended NYU together and were forced to acknowledge the fact that yes, we did indeed know each other. We were both English majors and in the top of our class, though it came much more naturally to him and I shot daggers at him as he drunkenly staggered back to his dorm after I spent another Saturday night in the library.

It shouldn't have been a surprise when we were both hired by the same the publishing company; but my family was gleefully shocked, while his was disappointed. Of course I was a lowly copy-editor in the romance department and corrected grammar whilst reading about "quivering members," and he became the golden boy, his finely woven words earning the company hundreds of thousands of dollars from the get go. No one really understood why he brought every manuscript, every chapter, and every freaking paragraph to my desk, but he didn't care; I was the only one who would be honest with him. I hated most of his new prose, and he lapped up my criticism.

Sighing, I finally I chose black skinny jeans, leather boots and a navy long sleeved shirt and headed outside. The two of us walked silently to our favorite breakfast place, right around the corner from my place in Brooklyn. He wrapped his arm around my waist and I leaned into him softly. I allowed myself to be affectionate with him every once and a while, always thinking back to the day when I realized I could trust him, even if every muscle in my body usually fought against such things…

One Year Earlier:

I paused at the beginning of the dreary street on the upper west side, though the rain was growing fatter and increasingly persistent. I tried to allow myself to become intoxicated by the gray smell of wet concrete Peeta was so fond of but I was unable to find any sort of magic within it. I wondered how long I could stand here, delaying our meeting. I had left my musty raincoat, the one he thought made me look like a jar of mustard at the restaurant a few blocks back. I could circle back and retrieve it. I could delay our meeting by another twenty minutes or so. The wind picked up, whipping stringy hair into my face as I continued onward.

I woke up knowing it was going to be one of those days, one of my nervous days. My hands had begun shaking before the sun had even gotten around to rising. It happens every once in a while, I just wake up after a few hours of sleep, so incredibly exhausted but my trembling appendages and impatient stomach won't let me lie back down. That's where it starts, the stomach. First, the anxiety starts to stew, producing something much like bile and tapioca pudding. Next, a sickly effervescence rises due to the relentless churning and makes it way into my chest, making my lungs feel full and heavy. It continues to climb, trembling, the entire way up my esophagus. But right before it makes it into my cavernous mouth to be released by a strong push of air, it gets stuck at the back of my throat. A web has been woven there, at one point in time fine and thin, only to have grown thick and sticky. I feel unease trapped there, wriggling in this dense mesh.

Perhaps this is why I shattered the plate when he called; just let it jump right out my hands. I had been thinking about disconnecting my phone but figured it was pretty useless considering I couldn't remember the last time anyone had called. Plus I was expecting Gale, anticipating his steadfast voice and whispered apologizes. I even practiced what I would say to him, injecting frost into every syllable until it sounded believable.

It had been a few weeks since the accident but most people I knew were still inching around me, tactfully hovering about the edges of any social sphere I attempted to inhabit until I had properly healed. It was amusing really, the sort of sick pleasure I got watching the eyes of almost everyone I knew when they happened upon me in public. It was like watching an internal tennis match, the pupils darting back and forth, refusing to settle on my face. At first I thought it was because I had been molded into something repulsive or unsettling. Eventually I figured out they were just scouting out exits and escape routes. They were afraid I might get the urge to talk about something significant. Thank God Peeta knew that I had spent the last twenty-one years of my life stubbornly avoiding anything to do with too much emotional substance or depth.

His call was refreshingly typical. Apparently some ancient tree had been uprooted by the storm and fell onto some power lines in front of the poor kid's brownstone. He was a bungling bachelor in need of a source of heat and probably a warm meal. I'm not sure why he didn't just call Glitter, Gloss, Gosmer or whatever the latest cookie-cutter admirer called herself. Perhaps he was in transition again, tossing out one Barbie while ushering the next one in. His was constantly searching for his next muse, the next pair of legs to get his creative juices flowing. He loved and left them all with a strange ease I had always envied. What he really needed was a mother.

I stopped in front of the irritatingly impressive building. Everything surrounding the house was in a state of sopping, bland turmoil, but not this beauty. The brilliant red door and faint glow from the downstairs windows teased me as I stood a few feet from the front stoop studying the uprooted tree in front of the house. The roots were splayed out awkwardly in the air, trying to find something to grab onto other than sidewalk. I reached out to touch the gnarled end of the closest root but quickly withdrew my hand as a projection of a robust shadow flitted across white curtains.

"It's fucking raining!" I retreated further into the thick gray sweater engulfing my shaking body as if it were some sort of buoy sent to protect me from what was now a torrential downpour. I could have rung the doorbell, but I felt like hollering instead.

"What?" A mop of hair jutting out of the windowsill answered me.

"I said it's fucking raining! Let me in!"