The seasons changed quickly and without warning. The heat became a sudden presence overnight as summer arrived, and it was determined to stay for the remainder of its time. While I found myself less and less inclined to sweat it out in the forest hunting, the heat did not seem to deter Peeta for spending the entire day slaving away near the ovens in the bakery.
The recent string of kisses and our pointed decision to avoid speaking about them entirely left me a little unsure of where we stood. When he could tell my hunting and gathering season was coming to a close, he invited me to join him at the bakery anytime I wished. He even promised to teach me to bake, though I swore I'd be the worst pupil he'd ever laid eyes on. On days when I could truly find nothing else to occupy my time, I took him up on his offer to pass the day in the bakery, though I ever so graciously declined his proffered lessons.
The remainder of the time I spent mostly idle. I found myself visiting Haymitch more and more, and would almost venture to guess that I saw a subtle change in his demeanor. Without a doubt, he still relied far too heavily on the alcohol. But there were days were he was almost completely sober, and it was a marked improvement over what we'd seen since we'd known him. Sometimes, during my visits, he didn't stray to the bottle once. Others, he would let his glass sit empty after he drained it, though I was sure the bottle called for him to get a refill.
It wasn't much, but it was a start. And it was progress, to be sure. I doubted he would ever completely sober up, but I wondered if he would try to at least join us as a living, breathing member of society again before he grew too old to leave his house. I think Hazelle had a rather calming effect on him, apart from the arguing and screaming that arose every time she wanted to clean the house. To be fair, she held her own against him as only a women who had bared and raised a handful of children could. When they weren't going at each other's throats, Hazelle's company seemed like the smallest fraction of therapy Haymitch could handle.
"So did you hear?" he asked as I sat on the recently cleaned armchair in his living room and worked knots in and out of a piece of rope I'd found lying around the house. It was a habit I had never entirely dropped after Finnick taught it to me in Thirteen. It was something that made me think of him, and it set me on the odd tip of balance between peace from the pain and bringing fresh pain from the memories it elicited.
"Haven't you heard? I have a Capitol ear. I hear everything," I joked, though my heart wasn't in it. Now that Panem was on the road to recovery and democracy, the totalitarian control of the newsfeeds had been lifted. Not only did we get Capitol news, but feeds poured in from every district now. A flood of information and gossip always threatened to drown you if you weren't careful with how you allocated your time.
"Right," Haymitch grumbled. His eyes swayed around the room, constantly returning to his empty glass on the table. But he remained seated in his armchair across from me. I counted the minutes off in my head since he'd had his last sip of drink. Twenty-four, so far. A personal record. "I forgot you're a mutt."
My hands stilled on the rope as my entire body stiffened at the word.
"Too soon," Haymitch realized immediately from my reaction. It was as close to an apology as I would receive from him, but it was too late. The words had struck their cord. The word had left Haymitch's mouth, but I'd heard it in Peeta's voice. What had he called me? A Capitol mutt? And I had called him something similar myself. It was a dirty word, one I didn't want to hear again in my lifetime if I could avoid it.
"Paylor is holding the first annual memorial for all the lost tributes on the anniversary of the Hunger Games. All the living tributes, the few of us who remain, are invited to the Capitol as guests of honor for the event."
"Pass," I said flatly as soon as he got the last word out. My fingers rubbed over the rough material of the rope.
"Have you sent back your formal invitation informing the President of that?" Haymitch asked, a bemused look in his eyes.
"Must have gotten lost in the mail," I returned.
"I'm sure Peeta could reply for you on his. The two of you being married at all."
Though I was impressed with Haymitch's growing self-restraint when it came to drinking, I was not at all impressed with the resulting attitude it brought out in him. The confined quarters of his living room were only big enough for one faulty personality, and I had cornered the market on that a long time before him. "I did receive something actually newsworthy in the mail recently," I said. Though it pained me to even think about it, a change of topic was desperately needed.
"Are they erecting a statue of you in town square?"
"Annie had her baby." My fingers gripped the rope so tightly they ached, but I couldn't bare letting go. In that moment the rope felt like the only thing tethering me to reality, keeping me from shattering into pieces from the guilt that pressed in upon me from all sides.
"A baby boy," he said with a knowing nod. His own eyes seemed clouded with misery, though I wondered why. Haymitch hadn't been the one to tear Finnick away from his new bride. Haymitch hadn't been the one to put him out on the battlefield. Haymitch hadn't been the one who had lost track of him and gotten him killed in the sewers.
A baby boy without a father. A baby with a mother whose mental stability was never a sure thing, especially after the loss of her husband. I could easily sympathize with him, and how his life would likely turn out. My fingers busied themselves with more knots.
"I'm sure Annie's invitation got lost in the mail as well," I mumbled. I'd barely gotten to know her, and she'd returned to District Four after the end of the war. On occasion, we would swap letters, but I hardly felt like I had her figured out. I certainly couldn't guess if her stability had gotten better or worse since Finnick's death and now the birth of their child.
My brain swept me away into hypotheticals. What if Peeta and I had gotten married, as he'd said in his interview for the Seventy-Fifth Games? What if I had been pregnant? What if I had survived the Arena, but Peeta hadn't? Would I have been able to carry on? Would I have been able to look at my child, see Peeta reflected back at me, and survive? I didn't know. But I knew it would have ripped out a piece of my heart to say the very least. And Peeta and I didn't have the kind of love that Finnick and Annie had. To love someone on that kind of level, and to lose them after just getting them back?
"Katniss." Haymitch's voice brought me back to reality.
I stopped the rocking I hadn't realized I'd started. Untangling my now bleeding fingers from the rope, I spit into the palm of my good hand and massaged it into the open gashes in the other.
"Maybe you should go see her," he suggested as he leaned forward and plucked a piece of ice from his glass. It rolled around in my slick palm as I caught it from his toss. Wincing from the cold as it touched the open wound, I shrugged.
"I don't know if she'd want to see me."
"Probably not," Haymitch agreed. "But she liked Peeta. When he wasn't, you know..." Haymitch trailed off, because we'd already shared enough trips down memory lane for one evening. "You could have your own mini reunion of tributes."
"And what will do you, while Peeta and I are visiting Annie in Four? Are you going to let Effie sweep you away to the Capitol, dress you up in prissy clothes, and parade you around for people to pity?"
Haymitch's face darkened and clouded in a single look, but I couldn't place it exactly. I also didn't know which part of what I had said had triggered the shift. "No, of course not," I replied for him. "You'll sit here and drink yourself under the couch and let your geese die instead."
I didn't know why I lashed out. He'd gotten in a few cheap shots of his own on me, but nothing as cruel as what had just escaped my mouth. And I felt miserable that I took a small, sick pleasure in getting the better of him. I couldn't figure out how we somehow always ended up opposed to each other when we were on the same side of the fight. It was apparently a staple of our dysfunctional relationship and thus engrained into our every conscious interaction.
"Don't you have somewhere better to be?" was his only response. I knew then for sure that I'd gone too far.
"I suppose I do," I said as I stood. Dropping the ice back into his glass as a deterrent to filling it back up, I left. I headed straight to the bakery and asked Peeta before I could change my mind. He surprised me when he whole heartedly agreed. I hadn't realized until it was apparently decided that I had hoped he wouldn't want to go, and that his decision would save us from either option looming ahead.