A/N: Lots of sobs and feels involved with this chapter. I warned you. I cried writing it. Sam cried, too. It starts with Cato. Oh goodness.
My heart drops immediately. The worst thing is, I had suspected it. But I really wished I was wrong. "W-when?" ~
"My sixteenth birthday." ~
"That was only a year ago..." Oh god. It was that recent. If I hadn't come along...if he was never in the Hunger Games, what would've happened? "A-and...?" ~
"And..what? What...pushed me, you're asking?" ~
"Yeah, I mean...and what did you do-try to do? And...everything." ~
"Well..." I swallow with much difficulty. "Like I said, it was my sixteenth birthday. It was normal, really. But I was excited. I always liked my birthday. I liked being older. Getting more responsibility at the bakery..it meant more time with my dad and less downtime that had to be spent elsewhere, usually doing nothing on my own. Wandering the District. That sort of thing. So, I was in a generally good mood." I could remember the day like it was yesterday. "I went into school in the morning, got the usual elbows in the halls, a few funny looks..nothing out of the usual. When I got into the classroom early-like usual-I sat down at my desk, and that's when things started to get bad. All of my books were gone from inside the desk, notebooks, pencils...Just a bunch of folded papers. A ton. So I pulled one out to see what it was, and brought in every ounce of control I had not to start crying there. Because people would be in, soon enough. Every single paper was a letter." I take another breath to hold back tears, and continue on. "Of course, not all of them were directly written to me. There were a few 'Dear Peeta''s, but most of them were along the lines of 'Dear Faggot', 'Dear Homo,'...Things like that." I break eye contact with him. "All in different handwriting. Forty-eight letters, forty-eight people telling me how they're upset I made it another year. Asking why I didn't off myself yet. Wondering how I stand it all. I read all of them. They signed their names, too. They weren't ashamed. And I went through the day thinking about the things they wrote and asked, 'why', 'how'...and realized I couldn't really give them an answer." I stop for a second. "On the way home, I went to the Justice Building to pick up the tesserae. It was the first of the month, after all. I carried the bag and bucket back home, dropping in the main storeroom in the bakery. I hadn't taken two steps out when my mother started screaming at me asking where my father was. I didn't know. I thought he'd been here. But I hadn't seen him since the day before. I scrambled up to my room by myself in the quiet. Not a single person I'd seen that day had said 'Happy birthday'. Because they didn't care. They'd made it quite obvious. I opened my bag and took out all the letters. I'd shoved them in before I left for the day. And I read them again. Over and over. People who claimed to be my friends at one point or another. Others who I'd probably never said a word to. Asking why I was still living. And I sat there for hours. Trying to come up with an answer. I had nothing. I read through the names, trying to figure out, in the class of fifty, the one person who didn't write a letter. The one person who didn't completely hate me. Eventually, I figured out that it was Katniss. I'd helped her once, years before. And she was the only person who didn't wish me dead. A girl who I had interacted with once. Then I realized she came into school from the Seam. They got there later than everyone else. But she was the only one in our class. So if she'd written a letter, it wouldn't have been there. So then, I had no one. Every one of them...:and I realized they were right. I had nothing. No one. So...I went downstairs into the bakery as it'd gotten late. Maybe...eleven at night. My dad still wasn't home. I took one of the big carving knives, went up to my room..." I shut my eyes. "And I started slitting my wrists open. It hurt horribly...but I felt my life draining from me with the blood. And that's what I wanted. Things got foggy, I grew numb...but I just wouldn't die. So I cut more. More. I couldn't even kill myself correctly. That's how useless I was. I made the cuts deeper and deeper and just sobbed as I laid there, finally, thankfully dying." I take a deep breath and open my eyes. "Then my dad came in...he'd gone to a market to shop and was out late. Made me a cake for us two to share. And walked in on me, barely conscious in a pool of my own blood, blankets, and sheets of paper." ~
I started crying buckets of tears through his story. Because it really happened. To my Peeta. The one least hatable person in the entire world. On his birthday, no less. Not a single fucking happy birthday until his father came home to find him bleeding to death in a pile of hate letters. Forty-eight fucking people. Forty-eight people wrote to Peeta on his birthday telling him how much he needs to kill himself. Even if it wasn't his birthday, that would be the worst thing I've ever heard. When I'm finally able to control myself a little bit more, I ask him, "Th-then what happened?" ~
"I can barely remember. I just remember seeing him in the door with a cake, then he was suddenly sobbing and freaking out...ran up to me, trying to shake me into some state of understanding. But as far as I knew, I was done. The last thing I saw was his face right by mine, screaming something which I eventually read his lips to be my name. Over and over. And everything just went black. I woke up a while later, still in my room, in the same state I'd left it. Only the knife was on a high dresser, and the thin blanket I had was partially on the ground, partially in bloody strips in the trash...and that's when I'd realize he'd torn it to wrap around my arms to stop the bleeding. A moment later, I realized I was still alive. And I was angry. So angry. Because the thought of death had been so happy for me. But then I saw him, sitting there, looking exhausted, just watching me in my bed, holding his head in his hands. Waiting for me to wake up. Praying I'd wake up." The entire saga is flashing through my mind. "And I realized I couldn't leave him alone. So I'd live for my dad. The life he saved." ~
"Peeta!" I push myself closer to him and give him hundreds of kisses. "Thank god he did! You...you let yourself think so low...but you stayed for him...I think he gave you hope." That's why he decided to trust me. Why he gave himself a chance in the arena. It's because he had hope that there would be at least one more person who wouldn't hate him. He's incredibly lucky for his dad. And his dad is lucky for him. "I can't...Peeta, I can't believe that hap...please, never again." ~
"Maybe...I didn't think so at first, though. I hated him for saving me. I...I don't have any reason to, now. I guess...everything I've said makes a lot more sense now." I didn't ask him in the arena to kill me with nightlock because it was painless. It was because it was foolproof. "I didn't want to tell you how I felt at first because I finally had someone. A friend, acquaintance... Someone. And I thought you'd take it badly. So I asked..I asked you to kill me so I could die having someone, instead of being completely alone." I shut my eyes tightly. "The cuts were so deep, I had really dark scars. They were able to cover them for the appearances, but...If you look closely at clips from the arena, you can see them, bright as day." ~
"I didn't even notice them..." I don't even want to see them now. Or ever. "Just...thank god that was the only time. I-" No...that wasn't the only time. He told me that after our fight in District Two, on his seventeenth birthday, he was going to turn himself in at the Justice Building because I hated him. And now I think that's why he cried at my letter to him. Not because it was cute, or meaningful-I think it reminded him of the previous year. But my letter was nice and loving. But he was still going to go to the Peacekeepers. To my father, unknowingly. And...someone he thought was his friend told him he hated him. It's just a total repeat of the year before. "I told you happy birthday." ~
I nod a bit. I know what he's talking about. "That's...part of why I ran. Because I was done. I'd...At the point you found me, I'd resolved to die. I accepted it. I was ready. And...just like my dad, you just..showed up." I look back into his eyes. "...And you saved my life, too. Just like he did. Only...a year later." The only two people who really, truly care about me. "Kinda...ironic. Don't you think?" I whisper. I knew I was a little sick in the head for being like this. Occasionally suicidal. But you can't help it, when you're like me. When everyone tells you to kill yourself...and when, after an entire life of no one, you get one person...and then he hates you. And you're left just how you started. With no one. ~
"It's not irony...it was just meant to be." I kiss his forehead. He knows it's true. "Do you feel better at all, getting that out?" Because now I know. I understand part of what he felt both times. Being worthless. ~
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier." It's something pretty hard to bring up. ~
"No, no...I understand why you wouldn't want to tell me." I think it's time. "There's something...I haven't told you yet." ~
"Okay...shoot." ~
I take a deep breath before starting because I know this is going to be a long story. "Well, it was maybe late October, I think...a couple of weeks before your birthday. The entire time, I was thinking about you. And I mean the time after the Hunger Games. But as your birthday came closer, I started thinking more and more about you. The only person in a long time who bothered getting past my looks and resourcefulness. The only one who really ever mattered to me besides family. And I fell in love with you, and you with me, and it was then that I wanted to be with you. No one else appealed to me the way you did. You were so brave to come out to me in front of the whole country like that. That's what made me want you. You were able to match up to me in that. And how we grew up in completely different places, but we could still relate to each other, that we fit like puzzle pieces. It was just so unlike me to throw myself out there, you know? Some stupid, masculine, strong, cocky bastard giving himself to some seemingly pathetic little boy from District Twelve. I fell in love with a boy. I only knew I liked girls at that point. You changed that for me...and I appreciate that. Because I got to know you, and we fell for each other completely, and you wanted to give yourself up for me, and I wanted to give myself up for you...that's love." I bite my bottom lip and swallow. "And when you left, I thought, what's the point of anything anymore? Because I knew there was only one Peeta, so there was only one person like him, and he was gone forever...you were the only one that made me feel right. Sometimes, I would talk to you. And you'd talk back. 'Hi, Peeta, I missed you last night.' 'It's alright, love. I'm here now. I won't leave.' One day it went on for hours. I just had a one-way conversation between you and me. And I did that the morning you cooked me breakfast. That's what you were hearing me talk about. All because I wanted to trick myself into thinking you were there. But I couldn't see you." Sometimes, I would see him. And it scared me. "And just...what purpose would I have then if I only lived for you? It was meaningless before the Games besides the fact that I was trying to win the Games. I won, but then what? I lost the most important game I was playing. I lost you, and I just couldn't go on pretending anymore...it was just so unlike me to have the thought even cross my mind, but I was so distraught. The weeks leading up to your birthday were when I decided. I planned it for weeks, and wasn't intending on doing it for sure until I had another night terror about you, the night before or the morning of your seventeenth birthday. The day you came back. I was killing you...and you were crying, begging me not to kill you. 'Cato, love...you're killing me on my birthday? I thought you loved me...' I couldn't take having any more of that. It was mental torture and I just couldn't." I hide my face behind my hands because I know I'll start sobbing again. "I was planning to do myself in on your birthday, some time in the night so no one would suspect anything. I just wanted to be with you so bad, and I was going insane...I just wanted Peeta back. No one understood me. Not even the other Victors. They didn't fall in love in the arena like I did. So I had no one. I was really going to attempt it, but I don't know if I exactly would've gone through with it or not because of my mom, and I'm not sure if I'd be able to actually go through with it or not myself, but it was on my mind. So the morning of your birthday, I went out to look for someplace to get rid of myself, but then your package came. And I really wanted to get back to you...and then you showed up..." ~
Maybe it was because he is the strong one. He's Cato. Strong, powerful, confident Cato. Winner of the Hunger Games, Career Tribute Cato. It shook me that he would even consider throwing his life away because of me; a pathetic, poor baker boy from District Twelve. It shook me. "I...I told you I would never leave you." I kiss his forehead. "I almost took a night to rest before I came...but I was too excited. Maybe I knew." ~
"You're lucky, then," I cry, "because when I saw you, I realized you wouldn't want me to. Whether the Capitol was trying to mess with me or not, I knew you'd want me to live. But I just didn't want to be tied to this Earth without you in it. Like I said, without you there is no life to live." ~
"You're right...I wouldn't want you to. I remember going everywhere trying to figure out if you'd won or just gotten rid of yourself in the arena. I didn't know. I'd...been so afraid. That I was going to read something and find out you'd died." ~
"I'm sorry...I just missed you." ~
"But I came back for you, didn't I?" ~
"Yeah...like I said, you were lucky." I pull the blanket completely over my head. I can't believe I told him. "We're both lucky. Perfect timing." ~
"Perfect." I pull the blanket off of him. "I'm...I'm glad you didn't." ~
A/N: But it ends on a fairly positive note, doesn't it? :) All of this becomes very important in the story. I really consider this the start start of the story. Because everything really builds off of their pasts, and now you know. Review with feels! Did you cry? Had you expected it? We'll see! xx