I don't understand how everything has changed so profoundly, how the life I've been building with Katniss could have disintegrated so fully in just a few short weeks. The anniversary of the end of the war is coming, and maybe that's the reason for the pall that hangs over us. I know that it'll be harder on Katniss than on the rest of us, since it's the day that she lost the most important person in her world, but I guess I just expected it'd be something we would get through together. Instead she's been steadily retreating into herself, backing further and further away from me. Away from us. I can tell she's hurting but she won't share her pain with me, won't let me in. The wall between us feels bigger than it ever has before, feels like every day she builds it higher and thicker. She sneaks out of my house in the morning before I wake up and comes back long after dark, skipping dinner entirely. She barely speaks to me when she does arrive, game bag empty, eyes empty, despite my efforts to draw her out. She still sleeps in my bed, but when I pull her into my arms she is passive, neither pulling me in nor pushing me away, simply laying there as if I don't exist. I'm unsure if she sleeps at all, I haven't felt her drop off even once in a week. I've felt her little body tremble against me with repressed sobs, but she doesn't let them out, won't invite me into her grief, won't accept my comfort.
And there is nothing I can do about it. I give her the space she seems to think she needs, not because I agree, but because I have no other choice. My every attempt to pull her closer has caused her to withdraw more. So I hold my tongue and my breath and try to just be here for her, hoping that she'll see me. Hoping that she'll accept me.
I know it's not rational to be upset or angry about it, she needs to work through her grief in her own time, but I'm not always rational, and the rejection, intentional or not, stings. The pain, the confusion, the loneliness combine and I find it harder and harder to hold myself together, to keep the flashbacks from taking over.
I've thrown myself into the bakery construction to help keep my mind off my heartache, and to fill the empty hours. I'm the first one at the site most days, and as Katniss continues to stay out well past dinner every night so too do I stay later and later at the bakery. I wish she'd just tell me what's going on in her head, but she won't. She doesn't even have the decency to tell me when she won't be there for dinner, despite our shared dinners having been part of our routine for months. 'Why should she, it's not like she's your wife,' my mind snarls at me, and my heart aches. No, she's not my wife. I don't even know how to categorize what we are. I love her, and I know she feels something for me, though she might not even really know what that is herself. Is she my girlfriend? Somehow I think she'd bristle at that label. Are we courting? Are we just friends? 'Friends' seems ridiculous, friends don't make out. Of course, neither do Katniss and I, not lately anyway. All of the progress we made, it feels like it's all been undone and she won't even tell me why.
At least we've made good headway on the bakery over the past month, if nothing else. The exterior is nearly finished and while I'm still deciding on ovens and counters for the inside, I'll have to order them soon because the crew is almost ready for them. The sun has already set when I come around to a little lean-to in back of the new bakery that Thom is using as a site office, and stick my head in to say goodbye before heading home. Thom is sitting with a couple of the other men, discussing blueprints. I catch his eye, intending just to wave, but he motions me over.
"Peeta, I forgot to mention, you'll be havin' some new neighbours soon. The Hawthornes are comin' back to Twelve, be movin' into the house next to Haymitch." I struggle to maintain a neutral expression while my stomach flips. The Hawthornes. Gale.
"It'll be great to see Hazelle again," I say, pleased that my voice sounds even and light despite my turmoil. And it will be great to see Hazelle, she was one of the few people who spoke to me on a regular basis during my Victor's Village exile between Games, nothing more than a friendly hello as she came and went from cleaning Haymitch's place, but it was so much more than any of my old friends from town, more even than my own family. "Is Gale coming with them?" It slips out before I can stop it.
Thom looks vaguely uncomfortable. "Naw," he says, looking away. "Gale's got that big job with the new government, he's pretty important I think." I nod, I've seen him on the television from time to time, he's been ascending the ranks quickly for someone so young. "Anyway, Hazelle and the kids are due to arrive later this month, before the Harvest Festival."
I smile genuinely at this, it'll be nice to have more people in the Victor's Village, it's so quiet out there. "Thanks for letting me know Thom. I'm going to head home now. See you tomorrow." He waves and turns back to the crew as I head out of the shack, but I've only gone a few steps when I remember that the builder's catalogue I need to choose the bakery fittings from is still in the office.
Just before I get back to the door I hear one of the crew, Kip I think, say "you know that job isn't the only reason Gale isn't coming back." I freeze in my tracks.
"It's none of our business, Kip," Thom replies.
"He asks about her every time I talk to him," Kip answers. I know I shouldn't be eavesdropping but I can't help myself. I stand, stock still, my breathing shallow.
"Yer not tellin' him anything are ya?" Thom asks.
"You know I'm not, but I'm not the only one he's asking. He still calls her all of the time." Calls her? Calls who? I wonder. There are still very few of us in District 12 with telephones. They're more common now than before the war, but only just. Is he calling Katniss? No, she would have told me. Wouldn't she? She wouldn't keep something like that from me. I don't think she would. "Look, if anyone deserves privacy it's Miss Katniss," Kip continues in an odd, almost reverent tone. I snicker despite myself, losing track of my train of thought. Clearly I'm not the only one Katniss has an effect on, I'm reasonably sure that Kip harbours a crush on her too.
"They both do. Leave it be, Kip," Thom says with an air of finality. Both? Katniss and… Gale? My head is spinning now, have they been communicating? She hadn't mentioned it to me, hadn't said his name even once that I can remember in all of the months we've been back. No, I'm just misunderstanding what I've heard, I'm sure.
Forgetting the catalogue again I turn for home, but as I walk I keep replaying the conversation in my mind. He still calls her all of the time. She's not talking to Gale. She doesn't want Gale. If she did, he would be here with her. Or she'd be with him. But how could she be there with him, she's confined to 12? Would she be with him if she could? Is it his comfort she's longing for? By the time I reach my house I've worked myself into a frenzy, my thoughts are swirling, the heartache of those long, lonely months after the first Games mingling with shiny images of Katniss and Gale together. Not real not real not real.
The lights are on in my house tonight, for the first time in a couple of weeks she's home before me. I walk through the front door and hear her voice coming from the study. Although I'm not quiet, Katniss doesn't seem to hear me approach. She's completely preoccupied, talking on the telephone, looking out the window; her expression is one of melancholy and longing. Again I find myself eavesdropping, but I just can't help myself. I stand outside the door, heart pounding, hands clenching and unclenching as she talks to someone the way she hasn't spoken with me in so very long.
"I want to see you too, I do," her voice is gentle, tender, and exquisitely sad. "I just can't. I can't leave here yet." She closes her eyes, pressing her forehead against the window pane. Even from here I can see her throat move as she swallows thickly and I know she's fighting back tears. She takes a deep breath, "You could come here for a visit sometime?" then a pause while she listens. "Yeah, I know. No, I understand." She's silent for a while. "I'm glad you're enjoying your work out there. I know how important it is." Another pause, then she barely whispers "I really am happy for you."
My head is pounding, rage building, I'm not certain if it's from the tracker jacker venom or if it's all my own. I try vainly to control my breathing, to talk myself down. Give her a chance to explain Peeta, I tell myself. I'm just about to call out to Katniss when I hear her, so very softly, say into the phone "I love you too," and just like that the rage dissipates, replaced by an overwhelming agony. She loves him. She loves Gale; she's stuck here, biding her time with me while she waits for him. I feel like I have ice water in my veins, a cold unfeelingness washing over me. No, I think. I won't let this happen again.