I hang up the phone and stand for a few minutes with my head pressed against the cold glass of the window, eyes closed, concentrating on my breathing like Dr. Aurelius taught me: in through the nose, out through the mouth. Get it together Katniss; you knew you'd have to face her eventually. Yeah, but I hoped eventually would be a lot further away. I thought I'd written my mother off completely after we last spoke, convinced myself that I didn't need her; after all I hadn't really needed her in years, I've been raising myself since I was eleven, and after everything we'd said to each other...

When I'd picked up the phone though, once I pushed past the anger, the sound of her voice filled me with longing. I miss her, despite everything, despite her abandonment, despite the terrible things she said last time we spoke. Terrible, but true I remind myself. I'm not sure I'm ready to see the new life she's built without me just yet, I told her as much and she sounded disappointed, but she understood. There is still so much hurt between us, but after talking to her I feel like maybe, in time, we might be able to build some sort of relationship again. I even told her I love her, I haven't said that since the reaping, the first one, and it felt foreign on my tongue, but also true.

Now I'm trembling, overwhelmed, flooded with memories of before, memories of our little house in the Seam, my father, Prim, always Prim, the simplicity of my life before the accident in the mines, before the Games, before the war. I shake my head to clear it, to push away the melancholy, the blackness that threatens to engulf me, and as I do I notice Peeta standing in the hallway, just beyond the door. Strangely, I didn't hear him walk up. I stiffen; I'm not ready to talk about my mother and my conflicted feelings. Especially not to Peeta, who I know has so many mixed emotions about his own family. He has enough pain. "How long have you been there?" I ask him. My voice comes out sharper than I intend as I try to choke back my surprise.

He huffs, "Long enough." His jaw is tense, and I realize he's angry. I'm worried for a moment that he's having a flashback, but his hands, though fisted, are not shaking, and his eyes are clear. The look in them is familiar though. The wariness, the mistrust, the anger; I last saw him looking at me that way in Thirteen, the look that said I can see you for who you really are. My heart sinks. He must see my face fall because he continues, "I can't go on like this, I can't be the guy you got stuck with Katniss."

Well that's not what I was expecting. I open my mouth to protest, but Peeta cuts me off. "No, don't bother; I know this isn't what you want. I thought maybe if I was patient enough, in time you'd come to love me. But I can't be your fallback position anymore; I can't be the person you're with while you wait for the one you want." I'm shaking my head, I want to tell him that he's the one I want, the one I waited for, but the look on his face traps the words in my throat. I take a step towards him but he steps back, his hands held in front of him. "No!" he almost yells, I stop dead in my tracks, eyes wide. "No", he says more quietly this time, but still forcefully. "I refuse to end up like my mother. She knew she was my father's second choice. I don't think she was always a hateful, bitter woman Katniss, but she was angry and humiliated, she never felt like she was enough for him and it twisted her, turned her into a monster. I won't let that happen to me." He's trembling, I want so much to hold him, to tell him that he's wrong, that he isn't second best. I take another tentative step towards him, this time he doesn't yell, but he turns away, so that I'm staring at his profile, his jaw set like stone, arms crossed over his chest.

"Peeta, no, please," I start, but again he cuts me off, though he doesn't look at me this time. "Just go Katniss. Just leave. Please." He sounds so resigned, defeated. I suppress a sob; I did this to him, I've pushed him away too many times, I've broken him with my indecision, with my cowardice. I take one more step and he turns on his heel and walks towards the stairs. "I need to be alone," he says, and ascends the steps without looking back. I stand for a while, staring at the ceiling, listening to him shuffle around upstairs. Pacing, I think. I know I should follow him, should beg him to forgive me, but I'm paralyzed. Worthless. I'm worthless. With a heavy heart I gather my father's hunting jacket from the hook in the hallway, and my bow, and walk out across the green and into the night.

I open the door to my house. I haven't been here in weeks. My things have mostly migrated to Peeta's house; we never officially decided to live together but I've been there every night, and all of the days too. I have been thinking of his house as our home. Home, I think bitterly, I don't have a home, not really. This place is a mausoleum, filled with reminders of people who are gone. I don't bother turning on any lights. I don't want to disturb the ghosts.

I slip off my wet boots and on silent sock feet move back into the kitchen, curl up in the rocking chair in front of the empty fireplace. The familiarity hurts; I remember the blackness, the emptiness that chained me to this chair for months on my return to District 12. I'd been waiting then, waiting for a reason to climb out of the yawning pit of despair, and it had come. Now I have nothing left to wait for. The knowledge is heartbreaking, but also strangely liberating. No one really needs me anymore, I think. Prim is gone, my mother is happy in her new life without me, the district rebuilding is coming along nicely, even Haymitch is, well if not happy, at least back to his version of normal. And Peeta. Here my tears start to fall, Peeta deserves happiness. He won't find it if I'm here, in his way. Even as hurt and angry as he is, I know he won't be able to move on if I'm around. He's too good and too kind, he won't risk hurting me. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him." Oh Haymitch, how right you were. Completely alone, I allow myself the luxury of mourning what could have been, what Peeta and I might have had together if only I hadn't been so afraid, so mistrustful, so cowardly. I cry until I have nothing left, then rock myself to sleep in the hard chair.

When I wake up some hours later it's dark and so cold, I'm stiff from sleeping in the chair and heartsick, teetering on the edge of the blackness, but I've made up my mind.

I hear Peeta's voice in my head, as clearly as if he'd said the words yesterday, instead of more than a year ago. "We'll write letters, Katniss, it'll be better anyway. Give them a piece of us to hold on to." Yes, something to hold on to, something more tangible than memories of a demented, cowardly, sullen girl with patchwork skin and a perpetual scowl. In my mind I list all of the people I need to write to, all of the people I haven't thanked: Greasy Sae, Haymitch, Thom, Dalton, Johanna, there are so many more, but in the end I write only one letter, and only a single sheet of paper. I never was much of a letter writer after all. I fold the letter neatly and tuck it into one of the heavy Capitol envelopes I find in the study, the very room where Snow told me I needed to convince him of my love for Peeta. Now the person I can't convince is Peeta himself, though I guess I've never really tried.

Almost as an afterthought I retrieve my pearl from where it's hidden in my old bedroom. Somehow it made it through the fire that took Prim, and a doctor from the burn unit mailed it back to me shortly after I was sent back to District 12. Instinctively I roll it back and forth across my lips, like I did so many nights in 13, but it doesn't bring me comfort anymore, not now that I've tasted the real thing. Its cool surface is a poor substitute for Peeta's soft, warm lips.

I tuck the pearl into the envelope and leave it on the kitchen table, along with the bow my father made. Eventually he'll find the letter, and I think he'll understand what to do with the bow.

I take one last look around. There's nothing of importance in this house, it never felt like home to me, and even less so without Prim. I slip out into the night; it's still a couple of hours until dawn. There's a light on at Haymitch's house but he's probably raving drunk now anyway, he never intentionally sleeps in the dark but by this hour he's generally passed out, or close to it. The other houses are all dark. I allow myself a final, lingering look at Peeta's house; the pain that wells up in my chest is almost overwhelming. I bite my lip hard, and straightening my back put three fingers to my lips, and then extend them out in farewell. I pivot on my heel and head for the fence.