Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay.
Ch. 11
Delly starts to get nervous when I don't say anything right away. Her weight shifts one way, then the other, and the painting tips back and forth as if it were a boat on a long voyage. Really I don't say anything because I'm hoping that maybe, that painting can take me back to what I used to be.
I can see all the emotion that I put into and the work that was done, but I don't see the point of it. If you look closely you can see burn marks here and there. I realize that she, Delly Cartwright, carried this huge painting while running from the bombs. Whatever the reason, this painting had been important to me. Delly saw that. She was a good friend. I just wish I knew why it was such a big deal.
"Explain it." I say. The first words I had uttered to her since she had walked in. I would tell her later that I appreciated her greatly, but right now when memories were precious I just wanted to know.
"Explain what?" She dares to take a few steps closer to me, but even with that she was still a ways away. The painting closer, I realize how much detail was put into. The flowers looked real and the way the sun fell on the people made it look as if it were a photograph, not by any means a painting.
"Explain the painting and why you risked your life to keep it. Why it was so important to me, that you had to grab it." More words, this time more in depth. Showing how deeply I yearned to know the kind of person I was. There were few people that truly did. The most of them were dead, one of them I couldn't stand, and the other felt guilty every time he looked at me. But here Delly was, she knew me. I had to take advantage of that while I could.
"It was your dream." She steps close enough to sit in the chair. She props the painting up against my bedside table. I have to strain my neck to see it, but I'm okay with that. I can't get enough of what I used to be. What I used to dream.
"You wanted peace. I mean everyone does, or humane people anyways, but you wanted it more than others. You wanted complete peace. Where people didn't have to worry about having children for fear of what might happen to them, where you can fall in love and not have to worry about dying, where you can live a full and complete life with out fear." The Delly I remember from school didn't speak like this, so deeply. But I did know another Delly, the one that visited me during a snowstorm, the one that comforted me. They are hard memories to remember, but I know they are in there.
"And you wanted it for her more than anything." She's slow with this sentence because our last meeting consisted of me yelling at her because of Katniss, but I can handle it now. Once she sees this she moves on. "You wanted that life with her. You lived for her smile. I saw it, in the way you looked at her, she was your life."
No one had been so honest with me about my love for Katniss. There had been little snippets, but not this. I liked it for a change, though I saw Katniss in a different light now. She no longer was my life.
"And one day, you painted this. You knew you couldn't have this," She gestures towards the life-size painting, "But at least the canvas could."
"She really broke me, didn't she?" I ask. I sounded like some lovesick puppy, trying my hardest for a love I never could have.
"That's the thing, Peeta, she loved you as much as you loved her. She just," She pauses not knowing what to say, "She was confused. Anybody would be."
"Don't make excuses for her. She broke the heart of what I used to be." Delly takes a gulp at the last sentence. It was a harsh reality that I wasn't the boy I used to be. That would be hard for anybody. "Go on. About the painting." I say, I didn't want the monster to come out; Delly had already seen enough of that.
"One day I accidentally found it and you told me all about it. Then when you were leaving, you wanted her to know that she could have a life with out you, so you made half the head dark. It represents Gale. You told me to give it to her, so when the bombing started I knew I had to grab it, because I promised you and I couldn't break that promise. I had one job and I was going to follow through." She's not looking at me, or really anything. She's back in the past, remembering the day she risked her life to keep a promise.
"Why didn't you?" I ask, stopping her before she goes on.
"Why didn't I what?" She looks confused.
"Give it to her? That was the rest of the promise. You kept it safe, but you never gave it to her." I say.
"Because, part of me held onto the idea that you would come back. And she was, she was like a ghost walking around here. She was dead to everyone, but herself. She did break you plenty of times, but with out you she was broken. I wasn't going to shove the painting in her face. It was already hard enough."
The idea that I would come back. I still wasn't back, it was as if I was back in the Capitol and they were all patiently waiting for their Peeta to come back. Little did they know, that he was long gone.
"Is she," I pause; I didn't really want to know about her. I could care less, but still. There was a part of me that wanted to know. "Is she…whole again?"
"No. She's been busying herself; she's off in District Two right now. Peeta, after what she's been through she'll never be whole again."
Sorry I haven't posted in a while! It's been a busy week.
Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover