I have suffered an immense amount of pain in my life, both physical and emotional. I think this one takes the cake.
It doesn't matter that they rolled us into the operating room together, Peeta and I holding hands tighter than we did that first time on the chariot. As soon as the drug haze fell upon me, I felt his grasp being ripped from mine. As I went under completely, I was lost in the panic.
Waking up wasn't any better. No amount of painkillers could ease that mental awareness of the fire raging across my skin. The presence of Peeta's hand back in mine, his bed rolled up right alongside me, does little to remove the pain either. It's a constant itch all over my body only it burns, fast and furious. Everyone keeps telling us this reaction is normal. Nothing about this entire ordeal feels normal at all. I was to shed this skin and just try again. Or take back the burns and the patchwork quilt I had before. Anything but endure this pain any longer.
It isn't the pain itself that's the problem, though it certainly doesn't help. It's the memory that the pain conjurers. My mind is relentless, and I can't break away. Every time I close my eyes, I have the dream with Gale. Only, in my halfway sedated state, Gale no longer morphs into Peeta. He stays Gale, and Prim burns, and I burn, and I sink into an endless sea of agony.
Peeta recovers before I do. His hand disappears from mine, and I want to scream in terror. Then I feel him at my side, his touch as light as feathers on the bandages that cover my entire body. His face hovers just inside my peripheral. I hear the words he speaks, but they don't register in my mind. I try to just concentrate on his presence instead of the pain, and I continue to will the nightmares away, though they never stop.
Days pass, weeks… there is no sense of time. I eat through tubes in my arms, a puppet attached to strings. Peeta stays by my side the entire time. I know my recovery must be taking longer than expected when even Haymitch drops by to check in on me. His rough voice breaks through my fog, and I manage to answer him even though I cannot muster a witty retort.
They ease me off the painkillers, and I want to kill them all. Rip the tubes from my arms and stab them with the sharp needles on the ends. If only they could feel a fraction of the pain they have put me through. A few times, my brain tries to blame Peeta. It may not have been his idea, but he was the one who wanted to do it. And he's the one who recovered so quickly. But I force the thought away. This is not his fault. This is the Capitol. It is always the Capitol. Trying to remove the scars they gave me, as if to ease their conscience. And hurting me in the process. Always hurting me, caught in their games and their crosshairs.
When I finally rise from my stupor, Effie is relieved. "I almost thought you were going to sleep right through the anniversary festivities," she says with a shudder at just the idea. Now there's a thought. I will my body back to sleep, but it has slept enough, even after the rough dreams and horrors. It will have no more of that.
Peeta feeds me my first solid food is who knows how long. The nurse makes a feeble attempt, but the hostile glare I pin her down with is enough to break her resolve. So Peeta becomes my unofficial nurse. And as he spoon feeds me the delicate, rich food from the Capitol, I plant the idea of returning home, of leaving the Capitol behind. Let them have their celebrations for the end of the war. I don't feel much like celebrating myself.
Whether from guilt or from exhaustion himself, Peeta seems to agree. Oddly enough, it is Haymitch who throws the wrench in our escape plans. He says Effie will be insufferable if he is the only one who stays. Peeta, very cleverly, points out that Haymitch should come with us then. But he will have none of it. Mister Antigovernment, who wants nothing to do with anybody, is the one foiling our plans. I wonder if they rewired his brain while they patched our skin.
When I'm deemed recovered enough, they move us to an outpatient facility. It's just as stark and clinical as the hospital. The walls are white, the hallways smell of bleach. There's a quality to the air that makes you want to throw up. My attention stays trained on Peeta, wondering how this compares to where he was held while Snow was torturing him. Neither he nor Gale really talked about where they rescued him from, and I didn't have the stomach or the heart to ask.
He seems fine enough, though his moods are muted. He throws his attention into me, urging me to recover. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is a façade of celebration in the Capitol. So I drag my feet and prolong my recovery as much as I can, even though it still keeps me stuck here.
As Peeta's urging, I finally stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking at my skin for the first time since they removed the bandages and wraps. It's flawless, brand new. A miracle.
It makes me sick.
I am perfect, then. At least in their eyes. My hearing is fixed, my skin is as perfect as a baby's. I half expect Peeta to have his leg back. When I ask, he pulls up his pants leg in response.
For a moment, I think they've actually managed it. Then he turns it to a certain angle, and I see just the hint of a seam from where the prosthetic ends and his leg begins. But for anyone who didn't know, they would be none the wiser. His new prosthetic looks amazingly real. "Even I got excited for a minute when I woke up. Then I realized I still couldn't feel my toes." With a shrug, he pushes the fabric back down.
I slink back to my bed, taking comfort in the warmth of the duvet. It is just as cold in the Capitol as it is in Twelve in the dead of winter, but Peeta still needs the windows open to sleep. The fire roars in the fireplace but does little to warm every nook and crevice of the rooms we are given. So I curl up under the blankets and will myself off into oblivion.
We creep closer and closer to the anniversary of the end of the war, but my mood does not improve. Effie's relentless checkups on our progress only make me more reluctant to ever leave the room. In truth, I am embarrassed about the vanity of it all. Why anyone would care if my skin is perfect or not. No one should be bothered by my burns if they didn't bother me. When I mention this to Peeta, he gets that look in his eyes that makes me nervous. Like he had an idea, but isn't at liberty to share it with the rest of us. That never seems to turn out well for me.
With our dinner, a box arrives. I go to retrieve it, but Peeta beats me to it. "Just a little something I requested," he says quizzically. I let it go, much more interested in the soup on the tray. When we finish eating, Peeta sets the tray on the floor by the front door. Usually, I would insist on taking it back to the kitchens myself and not waiting for a servant to wait on us hand and foot, but I refuse to leave the confines of this room. So it stays.
As I stretch out on the couch, wiggling my toes towards the roaring fire, Peeta goes to get the mysterious package. Propping myself up, I try to get a look inside. Seeing my intent, he covers it with his arm. "No peaking," he tells me sternly. Then he closes the box and disappears into the bathroom, knowing I am far too warm and comfortable to get up off the couch to open the box myself.
When he returns with a hand towel, I am beyond puzzled. "Do you trust me?" he asks.
That seems like a loaded question with a box I'm not allowed to look at and a hand towel in his hands. But this is Peeta, after all. It's probably ingredients for a new flavor of bread he's developing. After the fruitcake disaster, I wouldn't mind him keeping it under wraps for a while until he's done some major taste testing this time. "I guess," I tease, drawing out the second word. The glass of wine I had with dinner has relaxed my muscles that are already loose from the lack of exercise or straining over the past… however long we've been here.
He ties the hand towel around my eyes and then warns me there will be severe punishment for peaking. I yawn and lean back into the couch, becoming less and less interested with each passing second.
I've almost dosed off when I feel the coldness against the side of my stomach. I suck in air and startle from my daze, my hands reaching up to yank off the hand towel still secured around my head. "Hold still," he complains, "or you are going to ruin it."
Ruin what, I almost ask, but I have the hand towel off and can see for myself. Peeta is sitting on the floor by the couch, his legs stretched towards my head as his sits by my midsection. His index finger is red, and I gasp, thinking it's blood. Then I see the paints spread out on the coffee table, and I realize what was in the box.
"You're putting paint on me?" I ask, flabbergasted.
"No," he corrects me, "I'm painting you." As if there is a distinction between the two. "And if you keep wiggling around, you are going to ruin it."
"Why are you painting me?" I ask, craning my neck to try to see what he's doing, but he snaps at me this time to hold still. Only then do I notice that my shirt is pushed up to reveal my stomach, and my pajama bottoms are resting low on my hips. It's the oddest canvas I've ever seen. Though he did camouflage himself into the rocks and grass before, so perhaps skin isn't the worst material to paint on.
Still, it's uncomfortable. The embers in the fire still flicker, but they aren't as strong as they started and there is a bit of a draft in the room. The paint is definitely cold, and I flinch every time he touches me. Partly because it tickles, and partly because I am not the biggest fan of being touched. Not when shrapnel and flames have already left their mark there. Or, at least, where they used to. Slowly, his touch becomes familiar. My unease relaxes, as do my muscles. And the chill of the paint is replaced by a warmth that radiates through my body from the inside.
I let him work for a while, closing my eyes and trying not to think about it. It brings a whole new level of unease about the surgery they just did on me. It feels too intimate, sharing this new skin with him when I'm not even comfortable inside it yet. But as he paints, I realize perhaps that is his point. Peeta centers himself through his painting. I've always loved his paintings for how real they are, alive and visceral. Maybe he can do that to my skin.
I certainly feel alive. Every inch that his fingers explore and mark tingles. It's as if I am truly becoming aware of this new skin for the first time. When he reaches the hem of my shirt, I wait for him to push it further up. My breath catches in my throat and my pulse hammers. His fingers hesitate at the border, and I wait for him to look up at me. My head is almost nodding already.
But he doesn't. Instead, he ventures down and rolls the legs of my pajama pants up. He paints the fronts of my legs. Though it isn't nearly as intimate, I can't shake the feelings he's already stirred. The heat inside won't dissipate, even though the touch no longer lingers.
He paints for what feels like ages. My nerves are alive the entire time, intensely aware of every place he touches. As he reaches my upper thigh, he hesitates once more. I cannot look at him this time, afraid of what my face might betray. Instead, I gaze down at his work.
It is, in one instant, the worst thing I could ever imagine and the best. Peeta has turned me into the girl on fire. Flames lick every inch of my skin, dancing in the red, orange, and yellow hues of his paint he has so masterfully laid down on the canvas of my skin. I want to embrace it and tear it off from my skin at the same time.
There are no words. I meet his gaze, able to avoid it no longer. His fingers, still smeared with orange paint, the rustic color of sunset, rest on my thigh right below the bunched fabric. I want to ask him why he would do this, paint me in my nightmares. To make me face them? To remind me of why they put us through the skin grafting in the first place? But, above reason, what I want to do most is pull him to me and press my lips to his.
I have no idea where the urge comes from. It's different from all the other times we've kissed, where I've given into some selfish desire. It's still selfish, of course, these feelings coursing through me. But it feels like so much more. It isn't just the want to be close to someone, to share that intimacy that sparks the fire within me. For the first time I am certain that I, unequivocally, want Peeta. His skilled painter's hands have ravished me, and now I want to return the favor. There is no doubt in my mind, this time, if I'm transferring feelings for Gale onto Peeta; no uncertainty in what I'm feeling.
It's both enlightening and terrifying. Especially when I catch his arm and pull him to me, closing that distance and answering that question in his eye. And when he pulls back, it feels as if he's ripping my heart clear from my chest. "We shouldn't," he whispers. His hands are stroking my hair, forgetting the paint that cakes them and clumps my brown strands together. "You've had a lot to drink." I had one glass, and that felt like hours ago. "And it's getting late."
I can't tell if he's making excuses for himself or on my behalf, out of some noble idea that I'm projecting. I know that he still wonders if Gale is on my mind. He hasn't forgotten his idea that I should see Gale again, even though I've put the thought to rest. He doesn't know the thoughts in my head as I glance down at my stomach and my legs and up at my boy with the bread.
"Fine," I say, pushing away and uncoiling myself from the safety of the blanket tucked around my shoulders. I will accept his refusal, but I won't sit here and face him after it. I won't let him see the hurt and disappointment on my face. After all the times I've shut him down, unsure, he doesn't deserve it. "I should get to bed."
I don't worry if the paint is dry or not. I let my pants legs droop and my shirt drop. I carry the blanket with me to the bed, pulled tight around my shoulders as if it could protect me from his rejection. It doesn't make me feel any better. I crawl into the bed, sinking into its comfort and warmth. I forego brushing my teeth and my hair, and I don't worry about the paint caked to my skin. They are all issues that can wait until the morning, when I've had a chance to pull myself together and hide the hurt I feel.
The bed shifts behind me, and I feel him more than I hear him. When his arm wraps around my waist, I do my best not to react. My body continues to betray me, reacting to his touch. My nerves continue to tingle, and my whole body jitters. When his body curves into my back, it's almost more than I can stand. It doesn't seem to matter that we've woken up this way before. We've never fallen asleep coupled together, and somehow it feels so much more impactful.
His head rests against the back of mine, and I feel his breath on my neck. I have to clutch the pillow beneath my head to stop myself from reacting. He whispers three words so quietly I could pretend they are a figment of my imagination. But they aren't. When he says 'I love you' into the darkness of my hair, it only makes it harder to resist turning around and pulling him to me, damned the consequences.
We've passed the barrier, however, into the sacred space that is the bed. Where I've promised myself I'd let these feelings go unnoticed. So I don't react, at least not externally. But I don't sleep, either. There is no way I'll be able to sleep tonight, not with my head spinning and my heart racing.