A short note : I'm sorry for taking too long to upload a new story. I am currently struggling with a mental breakdown and confusion. As always when things like this happen, I write. Thank you for taking time to read this.
The smell of brewing pot tea fills the entire lobby. I walk to my kitchen and pour the tea to one of the cup set that Effie bought for me. Quite a moderate size and pink colored, just like Effie on the day of the reaping. Now I am sitting in my fancy living room, waiting for my prep team to come.
I sigh gratefully as the warmth of the tea touches my lips.
"I hope I don't disturb your deep thought," I hear a familiar voice comes from the doorway. Portia leans her back to the wall beside me. I did not hear her come in, not even the rest of the prep team who are now smiling widely at me.
"I don't mind," I smile to her. In my opinion, she looks very strange in the long lashes made of bird feathers and the stroking red hair, but underneath all the fake stuffs, she is naturally nice and sincere and original. I've never met a person who manages to distinct herself from the rest of us. Especially in the Capitol.
The prep team are called upstairs, to the bathroom, while Portia suggests herself a cup of tea. They do everything they need to do. Everything they did the last time we met. When I start to ignore them, they gossip about stuffs that is going on in the Capitol and the latest fake lashes trend. I let them chit chat a little and sometimes make a funny comment to some particular things.
This goes very well, until the girl, Carleen, asks me about Katniss. At first, I make a neutral judgment about her. That she is happy, alive and well, living three houses away from me. But Carleen starts to talk about how envious it is to live as a lover victor, living few houses away, while she has to work her whole relationship with her boyfriend because her parents know nothing about him. The worse is he lives very far from her and they have to make a living. They barely meet with each other. But don't they love each other? The idea of which is which is getting to my nerve, but I push that aside. Instead, I manage another light question.
"Lucky, aren't we?" I ask her.
"Very." she replies as she hands the towel to the other boy, Seth. They put me to the bath robe and escort me to the bedroom. Inside, a matching suit and a coat is presented on the bed. They are red, the same color as the one they put me in last year in the Capitol. I put them on and walk to the mirror, analyzing myself. I comb my hair the way I did at the reaping and walk myself out.
"You look good," I hear Portia says as I walk down the stairs. Her hands are crossed in front of her chest, she looks at me delightfully. "What did you expect?" I ask her as I reach the lower ground. She laughs a little. We go to the kitchen where the others are. They are eating the frosted cookies and pour themselves some tea. It looks like they have a good time.
Me too, actually. This house is usually quiet, and I'm not use to quietness. I grow up in a house with two older brother and a Mother who has a tendency of speaking loudly, I used to sleep with some ranting, or the sound of my eldest brother singing. He sings awfully, for your information.
Singing. That certainly brings back to Katniss whose voice is fascinating. Even to the birds. "Peeta," Dragging me back to the present, Portia calls me from the front door. "These guys want to look to your paintings and the ones you're bringing for the tour." She points to two cameraman who's both broad-shouldered. I nod and gesture them to the study where I paint. They ask me questions and I need to answer them to the camera.
"Now." One of them snaps his fingers. The other one starts asking question.
"How did you learn to paint? Everything here look extremely beautiful,"
"I didn't, actually. I frost the cakes on the bakery once and my mother was so pleased, since then I was always the one doing the frosting. I think there's a connection."
"When did you discover your love of painting?"
"I don't recall, but I guess I knew it since I was very young,"
We keep the good work for like five more questions when the man gestures the other one to ask only one more question. He stares at the paintings for a while before questions me one more time.
"Looking at your paintings, I cannot help but smile. My last question is, why is Katniss everywhere?" I laugh a little.
"In case you forgot, we're madly in love," I answer.
When they are done, one who interviewed me says this.
"You must've loved her a lot." He smiles and then both of them leaves the room.
"I must have," I say to myself in silence. I wish I don't love her that way though.
I come out of the study when Portia hangs up the phone then looks at me, observing me. She takes the powder out of Carleen's box then dabs a little of it to my face. My nose wrinkles in disgust. It burns your nostrils.
"Good to go," she says and shoos me to the doorway. The door swings open and I'm being pushed out.
She's at her front door. The girl whose eyes remind me of rainy days of Spring. I have no trouble seeing her although it's snowing heavier than before. She is wearing a coat. Her hair is braided like how it was on reaping day, nine months ago. Earmuffs cover her ears and her nose is getting reddish because of the weather. She smiles, in a way I've never seen before and starts to run towards me. I try to catch her but my artificial leg disagree. We fall into the snow.
There, in the snow and the flashing lights, we kiss. I kiss her back. I always kiss her back. Her lips are warm against the cold air. Haymitch is wrong. We don't have to practice anything. She kisses.