I knew the day would eventually come, and yet I had an irrational hope that somehow Peeta would suddenly drop the project and move on to other things. I knew how much the bakery meant to him, and I realized it was a selfish wish. But I couldn't help but think that holding onto the past would prevent him from ever moving forward. I thought the bakery would be an ever present reminder of our life in District Twelve before the war, and I had a nagging feeling that he would never truly be healed from the tracker jacker venom if part of him stayed rooted in the past.

But the day finally came, in the middle of spring, as the days started to grow hotter and longer, when Peeta announced he had cashed in some favors with some of the townspeople and they were to start construction on the bakery the following day. The declaration took me by surprise as I tried to figure when Peeta possibly could have arranged such a thing without me knowing. While we didn't spend all our time together, we spent the vast majority of it in each other's presence. I had the haunting suspicion he had deliberately gone out of his way to make those arrangements when I wasn't around.

My face was tight and there was an edge to my voice as I strained to tell him I was glad they were going to break ground on the bakery. Peeta told me he could use an extra set of hands, but I spit out the first excuse I could think of. I would need the time to hunt, as I had spent the vast majority of the past several weeks helping him with the first stage of the project, and I was well behind on gearing up for the winter. It was a flimsy lie and we both knew it, but he was too polite to call me on it.

I told him we would have to prepare a fancy feast the following evening in celebration of the milestone and accomplishment. He agreed, though his sentiment was as lackluster as mine. When he asked if I wanted to help with the last haul of wood into town and with the start of the process of cutting the timber to size, I politely declined with another frail excuse.

The frustration on his face was clear, and I paused to count to ten before I snapped and said anything brash I would instantly regret. As I counted, I felt his gaze bore down on me with impatient patience. Only Peeta could make such an oxymoron seem possible. "I can't," I finally admitted when I reached ten and still my sour mood did not turn. Honestly was the best policy if I ever expected to maintain whatever type of relationship existed between us. "I can't stand around and watch you rebuild the bakery. And I'm sorry for that, I really am. But I saw that look in your eyes every day when you cut wood, Peeta, and I can't help but think that rebuilding the bakery is not the best idea right now."

I didn't want to say it, and I knew I shouldn't, but the words were like a speed training as soon as the first one tumbled out, and I was powerless to stop myself. "I honestly thought for a while that I wasn't going to get you back, and that broke a part of me." There was no point in admitting that it shattered all of me, completely. "And I know how important the bakery is to you, but I can't stand there and watch it tear you slowly apart again after you worked so hard to put yourself back together. I can't do it."

I saw him deliberate as he stood before me. I could almost see the thoughts swirling through his mind. When he spoke, it wasn't at all what I had expected, "Not everything is about you, Katniss." The words struck me hard and deep. "The bakery was all I had in this world, and I lost it with my entire family. I know you lost your sister, and I know that pain hits you more than my whole family hits me, but you still have your mother. Your mother that you barely talk to, that you never visit, and that you do your best to ignore. I don't have that luxury.

"Everything I learned, I learned in that bakery. Every skill I used, every trait I had that helped save my life, I got there. Baking and painting helped me not just survive the Games, but it helped me make sense of my life again. It keeps me sane, and I need a place to do that. I thought you of all people would understand that and would want to help."

"Peeta-"

"Don't," he snapped, and it was the harshest word he'd spoken since he'd morphed back into the real Peeta. "I understand what you're saying Katniss, I do. But it's selfish and unfair and I don't want to stand here and listen to you try to explain it to me. I'm still my own person," he pointed to his chest and tapped it a few times to emphasize. "The Capitol may have taken me and tortured me and built me into a weapon, but Snow didn't steal my soul completely. And I have the right to want to fight to get it back. I have the right to try to find happiness instead of wallowing in misery day in and day out like you do."

His words cut deep because they felt true. He wasn't done. "I know you never expected to make it out of the Games alive. I know that you only ever volunteered to save Prim, and now you don't know what to do with yourself now that you survived and she didn't. I know you never had the best relationship with your mother, but that her abandonment still hurt. I know that you love Gale, but that you blame him and you hate him and that tears you up inside. You feel responsible about Finnick, and so many others, and most days you want to just give up. But I don't want to give up, Katniss. I want to learn how to live again. I want to figure out a way to put my life back together. And I'm so sick of you and Haymitch trying to convince me that I have to spend the rest of my life wounded and miserable."

I couldn't breathe, and tears flooded my eyes. Fighting the urge to keep them at bay, I started my count to ten over again. Did he really think I had given up? Had I? Even I wasn't sure sometimes. But I never thought that I'd been holding him back, or trying to keep him from living his life. All I had wanted was to protect him. I'd never stopped to think that he didn't need my protecting, and that perhaps he was the one protecting me, still, after all this time.

I didn't have the heart to fight, so I did what I did best since the end of the war. I fled, back to my house without a word. I sunk down into the couch and picked up the phone. I hesitated, started to dial my mother's number, then stopped. Hanging up, I picked up again. I got the first few numbers for District Two dialed, then put down the receiver again. On the third attempt, I dialed the only number in the Capitol I knew.

By the time Dr. Aurelius picked up, the tears were freely flowing. I don't know if he understood a word I said, but that didn't stop me from spilling everything buried in my heart.